2024 Essential Theatre Play Festival Continues with Hush Harbor Lab

Through September 1, Essential Theatre is presenting its Silver Anniversary Play Festival featuring two World Premiere productions, four staged readings, partner presentations of two more plays, and a 10 Minute Play Bootcamp Showcase - all by Georgia playwrights.

For one night only on August 22, Essential will be hosting a presentation by Hush Harbor Lab, Atlanta's Black Play Development Company. Founders Amina McIntyre and Addae Moon describe the organization as “a brave space for the development and production of new and innovative digital, live and multi-media performance work by Black Atlanta-based artists," and Essential is excited to continue to provide a stage for their vision and talent. 

This year they will be presenting a reading of Marlon Andrey Burnley's African Roscius: a black in the box play, a one-man show that is a journey into a liminal realm where an enigmatic Maker conjures masks that unveil the told and untold narratives of Black history. Centered on the life and impact of Ira Aldridge, this show transcends time and space to celebrate a legacy of resilience and artistic innovation.

"For centuries, Black theatre artists have performed Shakespearean Theatre, often reimagining characters, themes, and plot or their context" observe McIntyre and Moon. "In The African Roscius, Marlon explores an experimental and complex new one man show around the world of one of these artists, Ira Alridge. Hush Harbor is excited to partner again with Essential Theatre to create space for plays to be born."

Essential and Hush Harbor's first collaboration in 2021 was a workshop presentation of Kelundra Smith's The Wash, which has just completed a wildly successful two month run with Synchronicity Theatre in Atlanta and Impact Theatre in Hapeville as part of a rolling world premiere that is headed to Chicago next. If you missed last summer's presentation of Yanni Stone and the Honeypot Trap by Anterior Leverett, it too is going on to future production as part of the SheATL Festival next month. As successful as these first collaborations have been, you'll want to get your tickets now for African Roscius so you can say you were there when it first took the stage. 

To post a comment, you must register and login.