Eugene O'Neill Theater Center


The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit theater company founded in 1964 by George C. White. It is commonly referred to as The O'Neill, seating just over 1,000 guests. The center has received two Tony Awards, the 1979 Special Award and the 2010 Regional Theatre Award. President Obama presented the 2015 National Medal of Arts to The O'Neill on September 22, 2016.
The O'Neill is a multi-disciplinary institution; it has had a transformative effect on American theater. The O'Neill pioneered play development and stage readings as a tool for new plays and musicals. It is home to the National Theater Institute, an intensive study-away semester for undergraduates. Its major theater conferences include the National Playwrights Conference ; the National Critics Conference, the National Musical Theater Conference, the National Puppetry Conference, and the Cabaret & Performance Conference. The first full-fledged National Playwrights Conference took place in the summer of 1966. The Monte Cristo Cottage, Eugene O'Neill's childhood home in New London, Connecticut, was purchased and restored by the O'Neill in the 1970s and is maintained as a museum. The theater's campus, overlooking Long Island Sound in Waterford Beach Park, has four major performance spaces: two indoor and two outdoor. The O'Neill is led by Executive Director Tifanni Gavin.
The estate, also known as Walnut Grove or Hammond Estate, was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 21, 2005, for its architectural significance, and its associations with Revolutionary War Colonel William North and Edward Crowninshield Hammond, a wealthy railroad tycoon who frequently had the young O'Neill thrown off of the property when he owned it.
WWW Official Site

Major works

The following is a list of plays, musicals, and performance pieces first developed at the O'Neill that have gone on to further success.
; National Playwrights ConferenceSlave Play - Jeremy O. Harris I'm Gonna Pray For You So Hard – Halley Feiffer The Nether – Jennifer Haley, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, 2012The Receptionist – Adam Bock Fuddy Meers – David Lindsay-Abaire Trueblinka – Adam Rapp Seven Guitars – August Wilson The Piano Lesson – August Wilson Joe Turner's Come and Gone – August Wilson Fences – August Wilson Danny and the Deep Blue Sea – John Patrick Shanley Ma Rainey's Black Bottom – August Wilson Agnes of God – John Pielmeier FOB – David Henry Hwang Bent – Martin Sherman Uncommon Women and Others – Wendy Wasserstein A History of the American Film – Christopher Durang Madmen and Specialists – Wole Soyinka House of Blue Leaves – John Guare
; National Musical Theater ConferenceTales of the City In the Heights, Tony Award, Avenue Q, Tony Award, The Wild Party Nine, Tony Award, Best Musical, 1982
; Cabaret & Performance ConferenceThe Story of My Life title of show
; National Critics ConferenceChelsea on the Edge: The Adventures of an American Theater – Davi Napoleon

Notable O'Neill alumni

; National Theater Institute
; Conference Playwrights