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(Photo courtesy Essential Theatre)

Essential Theatre artistic director Peter Hardy has announced the lineup of the 2008 Power Plays Festival, a monthlong repertory staging of three regional and world premiere productions. Formerly a fixture of January theater, the Power Plays Festival will continue to run in summer, this year playing June 27-July 27 at 7 Stages’ Backstage Theatre. (The photo is from last year’s production of Fix Me So I Can Stand.)

The festival opens June 27 with the Southeastern premiere of Valhalla, a historical fantasy about Ludwig, the Mad King of Bavaria, by Paul Rudnick, playwright of Jeffrey. (It’s an intriguing showbiz paradox that Rudnick appears to remain an esteemed comedic playwright, even though he’s written screenplays for two of the most unfunny movies in history, Marci X and The Stepford Wives remake. Addams Family Values was hilarious, though.)

Also, Gina Gionfriddo’s After Ashley, first produced by Louisville, Ky.’s Humana Festival, recounts the powerful, darkly humorous story of a boy trying to endure a media circus that follows his mother’s murder.

The final production will be West of Eden by Letitia Sweitzer, this year’s winner of the annual Essential Theatre Playwriting Award for Georgia Playwrights. West of Eden presents a satirical take on Adam and Eve at middle age, and may evoke memories of Essential’s prior production of The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, a revisionist take on biblical history (beginning with Adam and Steve) written by Paul Rudnick. There’s that name again.

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