Playwright Kate Crabtree performing her one-woman-show “Someone Else’s Child” at Atlanta Fringe. The production will stage at Essential Theatre Fest this month. (Photo courtesy of Atlanta Fringe)
The work of Georgia playwrights has always been the essential ingredient to the Essential Theatre Festival.
To celebrate its 26th year, the Festival will showcase the world premiere of A Very Special Hospital, running August 8 through August 31 at 7 Stages. Winner of the 2025 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award, the play is a new and surreal comedy from critical care physician Matt Hoffman based upon his own experience. Beyond that, the month of events will also spotlight readings and presentations of work from 15 other Georgia playwrights.
Hoffman said in a recent interview that he’s very eager to see the new script brought to life.
“I’m inspired, excited and terrified,” he said. “They’re doing everything they possibly could do, and it’s really amazing to watch it all come together. Now we just have to see if this script actually works. That’s just the last fear of the playwright. It’s out of your hands, and it’s going to happen the way it’s going to happen. But I’m very, very excited.”
He hopes the script has a universal appeal, telling a family’s story as they cope with their father being in intensive care at a rather quirky facility. The experience draws up old memories and feelings for the characters. The cast of the play includes Hannah Brumley, Louis Kyper, Karine Dieuvil and Jeff Hathcoat, and it’s directed by Essential Theatre founder Peter Hardy.
“The longer that [you] live and the closer that you get to people, people let their guard down, and you let your own guard down,” the writer said. “You just find these stories of such heavy stuff to be everywhere. That’s what gave me the courage to put this out there, knowing the reactions might be mixed. But I just have this intuition that there’s a lot of people that will connect with some aspect of it.”
The Festival will also feature one-time-only productions of Day by Emma Yarbrough; I’m Not Supposed to Talk About This by Lee Nowell; How to Make a Home by Amina S. McIntyre; and more.
One of the plays to be featured on August 14 is Someone Else’s Child, a one-woman show written and performed by Kate Crabtree. Its path to an Essential production began at the Atlanta Fringe Festival, where it won the Audience Choice and Homegrown Awards. The winner of the Homegrown Award was guaranteed a one-time production with Essential, said Managing Director Jennifer Kimball.
Someone Else’s Child is the story of a loner who looks to get closer to her family by serving as her sister’s surrogate. Crabtree said the creative process for the play was also lonesome.
“It definitely felt very stressful in a way I didn’t expect,” she said. “Honestly, it was a bit of a lonely process to make it, and I think it’s interesting because the show definitely grapples with a lot of feelings of loneliness. My real life and those feelings were kind of bleeding into the story as I wrote it. Then the whole process of rehearsing it — just being alone by myself, repeating the same hour of dialogue to the wall. It was very isolating in a way that I didn’t expect. It definitely brought up some new challenges and new feelings.”
Bringing Someone Else’s Child to Hometown audiences at Fringe and now to audiences at Essential has made the process worthwhile for Crabtree.
“It’s been great getting to share this with people who’ve been there for me every step of the way,” she said. “This isn’t a lonely thing; this is what theater is about. It’s about sharing and having the opportunity to experience this moment with all these people in the room. It’s not about the actor or the writer. It’s about all of us together coming into a space to experience the story.”
Where & When
The Essential Theatre Play Festival is August 8 through August 31 at 7 Stages Theatre. Tickets prices depend on performance.
1105 Euclid Ave. NE.
::
Benjamin Carr is an ArtsATL editor-at-large who has contributed to the publication since 2019 and is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association, the Dramatists Guild, the Atlanta Press Club and the Horror Writers Association. His writing has been featured in podcasts for iHeartMedia, onstage as part of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival and online in The Guardian. His debut novel, Impacted, was published by The Story Plant.
