A YouTube Series featuring Atlanta's finest performers as they showcase their immense talent from their own COVID-19 shelter-in-place locations.

5 Episodes

18 Artists 

THE STORY: Over the course of 30 years, the lives of Kayleen and Doug intersect at the most bizarre intervals, leading the two childhood friends to compare scars and the physical calamities that keep drawing them together.

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"Rajiv Joseph is an artist of original talent."

—NY Times.

"Irresistibly odd and exciting…This darkly humorous drama is Rajiv Joseph's most satisfying work."

—NY Daily News.

"This wondrous strange two-hander finds as much humor as horror in the play's bizarre events."

—Variety.

"Mystical, arresting, and quirkily amusing."

—Washington Post.

The Painful Cabaret: A Showcase of Afflicting Vignettes

Presented by Essence To Crux Theatre
Produced by Hannah Marie Craton
Hosted by Kyle Porter

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Join us on Friday, Feb. 28th at 8pm for a cabaret benefiting Essence To Crux Theatre's upcoming production of Gruesome Playground Injuries by Rajiv Joseph due to open this April.

The Painful Cabaret will explore the idea of "injury" from every angle and interpretation: physical, emotional, the good, the bad, and the (sometimes) funny.

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Featuring Performances by...

Ashley Huber
Becca Twiggs
Eric Lang
Halley Tiefert
Hannah Marie Craton
Hayley Brown
Josh Baldwin
Molly Penny
Meredith Bennet
Suzanne Stroup
Zac Phelps

TWO ROOMS is a drama about finding lost and/or misplaced love. The two rooms of the title are a windowless cubicle in Beirut, where an American hostage is being held by Arab terrorists, and a room in his home in the United States, which his wife has stripped of furniture so that, at least symbolically, she can share his ordeal. In fact the same room serves for both and is also the locale for imaginary conversations between the hostage and his wife, plus the setting for the real talks she has with a reporter and a State Department official. The former, an overly ambitious sort who hopes to develop the situation into a major personal accomplishment, tries to prod the wife into taking umbrage at what he labels government ineptitude and inaction, while the State Department representative is coolly efficient, and even dispassionate, in her attempt to treat the matter with professional detachment. It is her job to try to make the wife aware of the larger equation, of which the taking of a hostage is only one element, but as the months inch by it becomes increasingly difficult to remain patient. The wife is finally goaded by unforeseen developments to speak out against government policy and, in so doing, triggers the tragic series of events that brings the play to its startling conclusion. In the end, there are no winners, only a sense of futility and despair that comes when people of goodwill realize that logic, compassion, and fairness are elusive when dealing with those who would commit such barbarous acts so willingly.

THE STORY: Claire has a rare form of psychogenic amnesia that erases her memory whenever she goes to sleep. This morning, like all mornings, she wakes up a blank slate. Her chipper husband, Richard, comes in with a cup of coffee, explains her condition, hands her a book filled with all sorts of essential information, and he disappears into the shower. A limping, lisping, half-blind, half-deaf man in a ski mask, pops out from under her bed, claiming to be her brother, there to save her. Claire's info book is quickly discarded, and she's hustled off to the country-house of her mother, Gertie, a recent stroke victim whose speech has been reduced to utter gibberish. Complications ensue as a dimwitted thug with a foul-mouthed hand puppet pops up along with her doting husband, perpetually stoned son, and a claustrophobic lady-cop that they've kidnapped. Every twist and turn in this funhouse plot brings Claire closer to revealing her past life and everything she thought she'd forgotten. It's one harrowing and hilarious turn after another on this roller coaster ride to decipher the fragments of Claire’s life. This poignant and brutal new comedy traces one woman's attempt to regain her memory while surrounded by a curio-cabinet of alarmingly bizarre characters.

Want your child to find a creative outlet this summer? Come join us for our annual Summer Theatre Camp. We'll have crafts, games, snacks, and of course a SHOW! The final Showcase is open to family and friends. Send us an email today, if you are interested in joining the fun! 

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TIGERS BE STILL is a comedy that follows the misadventures of Sherry Wickman, a young woman who has recently earned her masters degree in art therapy only to find herself moving back home with her family, sending out countless résumés and waiting for the job offer that never comes. Unemployed and overwhelmed, Sherry retreats to her childhood bed and remains there until an unexpected employment opportunity gives her a renewed sense of purpose and hope. Now if only her mother would come downstairs, her sister would get off the couch, her very first therapy patient would do just one of his take-home assignments, her new boss would leave his gun at home, and someone would catch the tiger that escaped from the local zoo, everything would be just perfect.