The O’Neill Invites Connecticut Teachers Inside The Creation Of New Plays Through
Educators Observership Program

Waterford CT, March 17, 2003 – The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center is seeking Connecticut high school teachers who direct plays at their schools or teach dramatic literature to take part in the O’Neill Educators Observership Program, a residency designed to give them a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of new plays by professional artists.

During the Educators Observership Program, which runs July 1 through July 27, ten teachers each spend a week at The O’Neill and observe the process of the acclaimed O’Neill Playwrights Conference, where new plays progress from a read-through to their first script-in-hand performance in front of an audience over the course of 5 days. Teachers are assigned to separate projects, with the opportunity to be in on every aspect of new play development: table readings, script discussion, staging rehearsals, technical rehearsals, production meetings and the final staged public workshops. During the residencies they live with the O’Neill company members — actors, directors, dramaturgs and critics — at Connecticut College. Participants in the program’s first two years included teachers from Cheshire, Ellington, Fairfield, Groton, Hartford, Meriden, Milford, New London, Old Saybrook, Pomfret, Ridgefield, Waterbury, Waterford and Woodbridge.

More than 550 plays have evolved at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference since it began in 1965. Conference participants represent a wide range of experience, from playwrights working on their first play to Broadway veterans; directors and actors have also worked on and off Broadway and in regional theaters and represent emerging artists and seasoned professionals. This year, more than 800 proposals were received in the first phase of OPC’s selection process. In addition to writers selected through this process, vital professionals from a variety of fields both artistic and otherwise, take part in OPC’s free all-conference speaker series. Last year’s speakers included playwrights Horton Foote, Romulus Linney and August Wilson as well as Slam Poet Patricia Smith, Yale Rep Artistic Director and Yale Drama School Dean James Bundy and Anatoly Smeliansky of the Moscow Art Theater. Under the leadership of Artistic Director James Houghton, the Conference continues to be a vital national exchange of artists and of ideas and issues facing writers and the field at large.

The O’Neill Educators Observership Program is supported by the George A. & Grace L. Long Foundation and the Connecticut Humanities Council. All expenses, including housing, meals, tickets and materials are provided for the participants.

Teachers who are interested in the program may call the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center at (860) 443-5378 or e-mail info@oneilltheatercenter.org to request an application; applications must be received by Monday, April 15.

The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, founded in 1964 and based in Waterford CT, is a learning community dedicated to advancing the American Theater through programs that encourage creative excellence and develop diverse voices and new work. These include the Puppetry Conference (June 2 ñ 15) Playwrights Conference (June 23 ñ July 27), Critics Institute (July 1 ñ 12 & July 15 ñ 28), Music Theater Conference (July 28 ñ August 17) and the National Theater Institute, a college-accredited training program for theater artists. The O’Neill also owns and operates the Monte Cristo Cottage, childhood home of America’s only Nobel Prize-winning playwright, Eugene O’Neill, and holds an annual celebration honoring the life and works of its namesake every October.