Playwright Kate Crabtree performing her one-woman-show “Somebody Else’s Youngster” at Atlanta Fringe. The manufacturing will stage at Important Theatre Fest this month. (Photograph courtesy of Atlanta Fringe)
The work of Georgia playwrights has all the time been the important ingredient to the Important Theatre Pageant.
To rejoice its twenty sixth yr, the Pageant will showcase the world premiere of A Very Particular Hospital, working August 8 by means of August 31 at 7 Phases. Winner of the 2025 Important Theatre Playwriting Award, the play is a brand new and surreal comedy from crucial care doctor Matt Hoffman based mostly upon his personal expertise. Past that, the month of occasions may even highlight readings and shows of labor from 15 different Georgia playwrights.
Hoffman mentioned in a current interview that he’s very wanting to see the brand new script delivered to life.
“I’m impressed, excited and terrified,” he mentioned. “They’re doing the whole lot they probably might do, and it’s actually wonderful to observe all of it come collectively. Now we simply need to see if this script truly works. That’s simply the final worry of the playwright. It’s out of your arms, and it’s going to occur the best way it’s going to occur. However I’m very, very excited.”
He hopes the script has a common enchantment, telling a household’s story as they deal with their father being in intensive care at a quite quirky facility. The expertise attracts up outdated recollections and emotions for the characters. The solid of the play contains Hannah Brumley, Louis Kyper, Karine Dieuvil and Jeff Hathcoat, and it’s directed by Important Theatre founder Peter Hardy.
“The longer that [you] dwell and the nearer that you simply get to individuals, individuals let their guard down, and also you let your personal guard down,” the author mentioned. “You simply discover these tales of such heavy stuff to be in all places. That’s what gave me the braveness to place this on the market, realizing the reactions may be combined. However I simply have this instinct that there’s lots of people that may join with some facet of it.”
The Pageant may even function one-time-only productions of Day by Emma Yarbrough; I’m Not Purported to Discuss About This by Lee Nowell; Learn how to Make a House by Amina S. McIntyre; and extra.
One of many performs to be featured on August 14 is Somebody Else’s Youngster, a one-woman present written and carried out by Kate Crabtree. Its path to an Important manufacturing started on the Atlanta Fringe Pageant, the place it received the Viewers Alternative and Homegrown Awards. The winner of the Homegrown Award was assured a one-time manufacturing with Important, mentioned Managing Director Jennifer Kimball.
Somebody Else’s Youngster is the story of a loner who seems to be to get nearer to her household by serving as her sister’s surrogate. Crabtree mentioned the inventive course of for the play was additionally lonesome.
“It positively felt very annoying in a method I didn’t count on,” she mentioned. “Actually, it was a little bit of a lonely course of to make it, and I believe it’s fascinating as a result of the present positively grapples with loads of emotions of loneliness. My actual life and people emotions had been type of bleeding into the story as I wrote it. Then the entire technique of rehearsing it — simply being alone on my own, repeating the identical hour of dialogue to the wall. It was very isolating in a method that I didn’t count on. It positively introduced up some new challenges and new emotions.”
Bringing Somebody Else’s Youngster to Hometown audiences at Fringe and now to audiences at Important has made the method worthwhile for Crabtree.
“It’s been nice attending to share this with individuals who’ve been there for me each step of the best way,” she mentioned. “This isn’t a lonely factor; that is what theater is about. It’s about sharing and having the chance to expertise this second with all these individuals within the room. It’s not in regards to the actor or the author. It’s about all of us collectively coming into an area to expertise the story.”
The place & When
The Important Theatre Play Pageant is August 8 by means of August 31 at 7 Phases Theatre. Tickets costs rely upon efficiency.
1105 Euclid Ave. NE.
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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 Affiliation, the Dramatists Guild, the Atlanta Press Membership and the Horror Writers Affiliation. His writing has been featured in podcasts for iHeartMedia, onstage as a part of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Brief Play Pageant and on-line in The Guardian. His debut novel, Impacted, was printed by The Story Plant.
