Essential

I worked with each of the 24 actors during the COVID-19 shutdown to create suitable camera-ready environments for their unique stories within the constraints of their homes. Collaborating with them was challenging, exciting, and lots of fun with improvisation and creativity. Essential is a documentary theater project that explores who and what became essential during the unprecedented moments of 2020. Watch the performance HERE. Presented as a 24-episode original series, Essential explores the richness of the human experience in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our company members share incredibly moving and personal stories with you through a series of monologues based on interviews with real people from all walks of life. Student actors portray frontline workers, medical professionals, creatives, community leaders, drag queens, Black Lives Matter organizers, parents, and more.

Playwright: 
Co-Conceived by Bill Fennelly, David Lee White, and members of the Company
Director: 
Bill Fennelly
Bill Fennelly's work has been seen on Broadway, Off-Broadway, at New York City Opera at Lincoln Center, Cirque du Soleil, and regionally at Dallas Theatre Center, Goodspeed Opera House, Hartford Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Portland Center Stage, TheaterWorks Hartford, TheatreWorks Palo Alto, Playwright’s Horizons, Roundabout Theatre Company, and People’s Light. He is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Drexel University. His directing projects at Drexel include THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE, THE APPLE TREE, DOG SEES GOD, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, AVENUE Q, THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK, and five seasons of Page to Stage, the new play development lab in collaboration with Drexel Screenwriting and Playwriting. B.M. Hartt School and M.F.A. in Directing from U.C.S.D.
Lighting Designer: 
Patricia Nichols
Costume Designer: 
Alison Roberts
Projection Designer: 
Video Production Designer: Jorge Cousineau, Video and Media Designer: Janelle Kaufman
Venue : 
Drexel University Co-op Theatre Company Online Production
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