2005 O’Neill Playwrights Conference

Waterford, CT~ The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center today announced the eight plays to be developed at the 2005 O’Neill Playwrights Conference. The projects were chosen from nearly 500 submissions. The selected playwrights will spend the month of July developing their work together with professional actors, directors and dramaturges.

Artistic Director Wendy Goldberg, in her inaugural year at the O’Neill, commented: “The plays selected for the National Playwrights Conference this summer consist of an eclectic and diverse range of material. These artists were chosen because of my belief in the theatrical potential of their work and their voices and my continued interest in creating a dynamic community for artists and audience alike. I am confident that these writers will have a profound impact on the future of the American Theatrical landscape. The O’Neill community will provide a stimulating atmosphere for these artists to develop their work, and the audience that joins us in my premier season as Artistic Director will help these artists launch their latest creations in this exciting new phase of Conference history.”

Executive Director Amy Sullivan said: “Wendy has crafted a truly splendid season that will introduce our audiences to some of the most creative voices in the American theater today. I am thrilled to have her at the helm of the Playwrights Conference. Wendy brings a fresh, dynamic vision to the O’Neill that embraces the theater’s 40-year history. Together with O’Neill Producing Director Richard Kuranda, she will offer new and exciting ways to re-envision and reinvent ourselves.”

PERILOUS NIGHT
by Lee Blessing
Directed by Lucie Tiberghien
Performances: July 8th, 8:00 pm & July 9th, 3:00 pm
In an upscale, private mental health facility, two patients and a nurse try to make it through the night.

CRADLE OF MAN
by Melanie Marnich
Directed by Michael John Garcés
Performances: July 9th, 8:00 pm & July 10th, 3:00 pm
Two American couples meet near Olduvai Gorge, the birthplace of mankind, and their comedic, romantic and existential crises are exposed. Bodies come together while lives fall apart to reveal the anthropology and evolution of the human heart. Anything is possible, and survival of the fittest means only the strongest couple survives.

REARVIEWMIRROR
by Eric Winick
Directed by Carl Forsman
Performances: July 15th, 8:00 pm & July 16th, 3:00 pm
With your soul, self-esteem, and reputation on the line, how far would you go to fit in? In this modern-day BACCHAE set in an outdoor rock festival, three disaffected twentysomethings embark on a desperate search for artistic and spiritual fulfillment. A sexy, disturbing 21st century-style meditation on religion and its many guises.

NORMAN ROCKWELL KILLED MY FATHER
by Samuel D. Hunter
Director TBA
Performances: July 16th, 8:00 pm & July 17th, 3:00 pm
A young artist journeys home to the family trailer in rural Idaho desperate to reconcile with his estranged family. But as they soon learn, his obsession with Norman Rockwell goes far beyond artistic admiration.

ANTEBELLUM
by Robert O’Hara
Directed by Carey Perloff
Performances: July 22nd, 8:00 pm & July 23rd, 3:00 pm
On the evening of the World Premiere of Gone with the Wind, A woman shows up on a farm outside Atlanta while a world away, a man shows up in a detention center outside Berlin and a romance unfolds.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ORSON
** by Jessica Cooke
Directed by Joe Grifasi
Special One Night Engagement: July 23rd, 8:00
In 1931, a teenage Orson Welles persuades Hilton Edwards and his lover Micheál MacLíammóir to let him play Hamlet in their Dublin theatre, The Gate. Orson blows apart the fragile relationship between Hilton, Micheál and their favorite actress Meriel, but cannot master Hamlet without facing his own dead father.

DURANGO
by Julia Cho
Directed by Chay Yew
Performances: July 29th, 8:00 pm & July 30th, 3:00 pm
A single father takes his two sons on a road trip through the Southwest desert. As the trip goes on longer than planned, secrets are spilled, revelations are made and all three realize nothing will ever be the same.

SNAKE TANK
by Rebecca Gilman
Directed by Wendy C. Goldberg
Performances: July 30th, 8:00 pm & July 31st, 3:00 pm
Set in a small town in Iowa, Snake Tank is the story of a social worker who becomes embroiled in one family’s problems at the expense of her own objectivity.

**THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ORSON comes to the O’Neill this summer as part of an international exchange with the Abbey Theater in Dublin, Ireland. .

Schedules are subject to change. Ticket will be on sale beginning June 7th. 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. Some material may not be appropriate for children.

The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, founded in 1964, has been home to more than 1000 new works for the stage and 2500 emerging artists and is itself the winner of a special Tony Award, the National Opera Award, the Jujamcyn Award of Theater Excellence and the Arts and Business Council Encore Award. Today, the O’Neill is home to the National Playwrights Conference, Music Theater Conference, Puppetry Conference, National Critics Institute, and the fully accredited National Theater Institute, a 14-week intensive theater-training program. In addition, the O’Neill owns the Monte Cristo Cottage, the childhood home of Nobel 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. .