Essential Theatre, whose annual summer festival begins July 6, is offering free tickets — and wine — to teachers for the July 5 preview performance of its first play.
Evelyn in Purgatory by Atlanta playwright Topher Payne is a piece about five public school teachers caught in the limbo of a disciplinary holding area. Payne calls it “a Breakfast Club for teachers” and says it’s based on the “rubber rooms” in New York City, where teachers accused of misconduct or incompetence wait to be terminated or reassigned — sometimes for years.
Payne’s play won the 2012 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award as the best piece by a Georgia resident. The preview performance begins at 8 p.m. Teachers must have an ID to take advantage of the free ticket and glass of wine.
The monthlong, three-play festival is in its 15th year. It runs through Aug. 5 and includes:
The Local. A collaborative theater project about the city of Atlanta by local writers. Developed and directed by Ellen McQueen. Opening July 11.
Bat-Hamlet. Playwright Jordan Pulliam imagines Shakespeare’s melancholy Dane as a costumed crimefighter. Opens July 18.
FlexPass ticket packages are available HERE or at 866.811.4111. Single tickets are $10-$23. Essential is holding its festival at Actor’s Express in the King Plow Arts Center in West Midtown at 887 Marietta St.
The Essential Theatre is a nonprofit professional company dedicated to nurturing new work by Georgia playwrights and giving Atlanta audiences the opportunity to see world and regional premieres.
