Eugene O'Neill Theater Center Announces 2006 National Playwrights Conference Season
Includes Partnerships With The Abbey Theatre And The Alliance Theatre And A Theater For Youth Project
Lynn Nottage To Be Writer-In-Residence

May 10, 2006

Waterford, CT~ The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center today announced the eight plays to be developed at the 2006 O'Neill Playwrights Conference. The works were chosen from nearly 750 submissions. The selected playwrights will spend the month of July developing their work together with professional actors, directors and dramaturges.

This summer's lineup includes a Theater for Youth project, a collaboration with Ireland's famed Abbey Theatre, and a collaboration with the Alliance Theatre (Atlanta, Georgia) and its Kendeda Playwrighting Prize.

National Playwrights Conference Artistic Director Wendy C. Goldberg said "In my second season, I continue to be committed to finding the next generation of playwrights whose stories emerge as timely, poignant, comedic and profound. These writers were selected from nearly 750 plays that came to the O'Neill through our open submission process. The O'Neill was the first and remains one of the only theater organizations in the country committed to this process. Open submissions allows playwrights who may not yet have agents to submit their scripts directly to the Conference. These writers hail from various regions of the country and abroad. This summer, with renewed support from the Xerox Foundation, we welcome Ursula Sarma, a playwright from Ireland, in collaboration with Dublin's famed Abbey Theater. In addition to the eight projects, award-winning playwright Lynn Nottage will be at the O'Neill as our writer in residence."

Executive Director Amy Sullivan said: “Wendy Goldberg continues the legacy of former artistic director Lloyd Richards at the O'Neill. She is not looking for the next hit show; sometimes she may find it, but that is not the purpose of our business. The O'Neill's National Playwrights Conference seeks to find that next important voice, the next playwright who like Eugene O'Neill, America's only Nobel Prize winning playwright, passionately seeks to achieve the highest possible standard of artistic excellence. We have been quite fortunate, quite lucky, or maybe just good at what we do over the past four decades. The Playwrights Conference has launched such notables as David Lindsay-Abaire, John Guare, Christopher Durang, Kia Corthran, John Patrick Shanley, and the remarkable voices of August Wilson and Wendy Wasserstein. With the passing of both August and Wendy in this past year, the O'Neill -- and the American theater -- lost two very special and important voices. The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center will pay tribute to August Wilson this summer on July 23rd with a special performance by Charles Dutton (MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM), followed by a barbecue celebration in honor of Mr. Wilson. In October, in conjunction with the O'Neill Celebration, we will celebrate the life and career of the extraordinary Wendy.”

The O'Neill's 2006 National Playwrights Conference selections are:

Bird in the Hand
By Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas
Performances: Wed, July 5th at 8:00 pm; Fri, July 7th at 8:00 pm
A quirky and tender comedy about a young Cuban man tied in knots by romantic complications, the specter of S.A.T.'s and the fading flamingos in Miami. It's not easy to keep your color while flying the coop.

Air Conditioning
By Tommy Smith
Performances: Thurs, July 6th at 8:00 pm; Sat, July 8th at 5:00 pm
A biting and darkly-comic look at the dangers of meeting up with old friends when the rich are rich and the poor are desperate.

1001
Performances: Wed, July 12th at 8:00 pm, Fri, July 14th at 8:00 pm
By Jason Grote
Arabian Nights meets Manhattan as a touching love story unfolds inside a troubling political fantasy.

The Little Flower of East Orange
By Stephen Adly Guirgis
Performances: Thurs, July 13th at 8:00 pm, Sat, July 15 at 5:00 pm
In a New York City hospital a woman, identity unknown, goes in and out of consciousness. In prison, her son tries to figure out how she got there. By the author of Jesus Hopped the A Train and Our Lady of 121st Street.

The K of D
By Laura Schellhardt
Performances: Wed, July 19th at 8:00 pm, Fri, July 21st at 8:00 pm
The truth is, Charlotte's brother kissed her on the lips before he died. The legend is, now everything she kisses also dies. An urban legend is chronicled in a one-woman tour de force.

False Creeds*
By Darren Canady
Performances: Thurs, July 20th at 8:00 pm; Sat, July 22nd at 5:00 pm
While uncovering the source of his supernatural visions, a tormented young African American man discovers his own family's connection to one of American history's most horrific events.

The Exchange**
By Ursula Rani Sarma
Performances: Fri, July 28th at 8:00 pm; Sun, July 30th at 3:00 pm
In a small post office in the West of Ireland, one man struggles to let go of the past and, with the help of his daughters, to move into the future.

Theater for Youth Project: The Tale
By Tommy Smith
One Performance Only: Sun., July 16, 7:00 p.m.
A hilarious, fast-paced musical comedy rendering of Greek Mythology featuring Zeus, Athena, Hermes, Apollo, Aphrodite, Dionysus and many more in a zany look at the lives of the gods on Mount Olympus. Specially written for grades 5-9 and fun for the entire family.

*False Creeds is the winner of the Alliance Theatre's Kendeda Playwrighting Award.

**The Exchange comes to the O'Neill this summer as part of an international exchange with the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, Ireland.

Schedules are subject to change. Tickets will be on sale beginning Thursday, June 15. Please call the O'Neill Box Office at 860-443-1238 for times, prices and reservations. Outdoor performances will be moved indoors in the event of rain.

The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, founded in 1964, has been home to more than 1,000 new works for the stage and 2,500 emerging artists and is itself the winner of a special Tony Award, the National Opera Award, the Jujamcyn Award for Theater Excellence and the Arts and Business Council Encore Award. Today, the O'Neill is home to the National Playwrights Conference, National Music Theater Conference, Puppetry Conference, Cabaret Conference, National Critics Institute, and the fully accredited National Theater Institute, which includes semester-long, fully accredited intensive theater-training programs and a six-week accredited summer program, Theatermakers. In addition, the O'Neill owns and operates the Monte Cristo Cottage, the childhood home of Nobel Prize-winning and four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Eugene O'Neill.

For more information regarding the Center, please visit the O'Neill website at www.TheONeill.org or call 860-443-5378.