Eugene O'Neill Center Announces Selections For Conference

The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center today announced the eight plays to be developed at the 2008 National Playwrights Conference.  The selected playwrights will spend the  month of July developing their work with professional creative and support staff, including  directors, dramaturges, actors and designers.
 
The works were chosen from the more than 700 scripts sent to the O'Neill through its Open  Submissions program, which uses scores of readers to choose works without authorship attribution. 
 
This summer's lineup includes a continuation of the collaboration begun last year with the  Goodman Theatre of Chicago, Illinois (Robert Falls, Artistic Director).  This year's collaboration  will be Regina Taylor's Magnolia, an adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard.  It  also includes a project by Irish writer Ursula Rani Sarma, who developed her play The  Exchange at the O'Neill in 2005. 
 
Susan Smith Blackburn Prize winner Lisa Loomer (The Waiting Room) and 2008 Pulitzer Prize  winner Tracy Letts (August: Osage County) will be Artists in Residence during the Conference.
 
Directors who have been confirmed for projects include NPC Artistic Director Wendy C.  Goldberg (Mistakes Were Made) and Manhattan Theatre Club Artistic Director Lynne  Meadow (Smudge).   Directors for other 2008 NPC projects will be announced soon.
 
National Playwrights Conference Artistic Director Wendy C. Goldberg said "In my fourth  season, we will continue our partnership with Chicago's Goodman Theatre and the Xerox  Foundation in tandem with our commitment to the O'Neill's 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.  The eight plays in the season represent the next  generation of playwrights.  These writers were selected from nearly 800 submissions.  These  writers hail from various regions of the country and abroad.  This summer, we welcome back  Ursula Rani Sarma, a playwright from Ireland, as well as Regina Taylor in a collaboration
with The Goodman"
 
"We are in a very exciting artistic moment for the O'Neill. In the 2007-2008 theatrical season, we  have seen nine projects from the past three summers of my tenure move to significant world  premiere productions in New York and around the country.  The O'Neill process remains unique  and helps support and profoundly nurture important theatrical storytellers."  Executive Director Preston Whiteway noted, "The National Playwrights Conference and the  O'Neill remain at the forefront of new play development evidenced by these eight plays and two  residencies chosen for our 44th season -- Wendy's fourth as Artistic Director.  The writers and  plays represent the spectrum of contemporary playwriting in America and Ireland.  Wendy C.  Goldberg has very successfully taken on the mantle of the National Playwrights Conference,  which continues to be a leader in its field.  This summer will be very exciting, and I know that  based on Wendy's track record, these plays and playwrights have quite a future ahead of them."
 
The O'Neill's 2008 National Playwrights Conference selections are:
 
THE NEAR EAST  by Alex Lewin
Performances:  Thurs. July 3 at 8:15 pm; Sat., July 5 at 8:15 pm
An American archaeologist teams up with an Arab activist to unearth "Mother of Books," the
oldest scripture, from its resting place in the desert between Mecca and Medina. But their
controversial mission affects a number of other characters, including a secretly gay Arab radical,
a British spy, and the ghost of a precocious 13-year-old boy.
 
BOX AMERICANA:  a dream of WalMart by Jason Grote
Performances:  Fri., July 4 at 8:15 pm; Sun., July 6 at 5:15 pm
Box Americana follows Kelly, a perky and passionate cheerleader for Wal-Mart, and Danae, a
devoted mother escaping a violent past, as they seek the Promised Land of retail abundance. Sam
Walton, wandering the earth as a spirit of late capitalism, haunts them as they try to make their
lives in the epicenter of Sprawlville, USA.
 
SMUDGE by Rachel Axler
Director:  Lynne Meadow
Performances:  Thurs., July 10 at 8:15 pm; Sat., July 12 at 8:15 pm
When a young couple's first child doesn't turn out as expected, they're forced to revise their
notions about what constitutes a life, and figure out -- in their own, specific ways -- how to be
parents. A very, very, very dark comedy.

MAGNOLIA* by Regina Taylor
Performances:  Fri., July 11 at 8:15 pm; Sunday, July 13 at 5:15 pm
Magnolia is set in winter, 1963, as the schools, stores and real estate markets of Atlanta, Georgia
are beginning to desegregate—much to the resentment of the white community. Lily, a white
landowner, returns from Paris to find the Forest Estate, her family's land, on the brink of ruin.
Thomas, a successful businessman and the descendent of former slaves to the estate, has a plan
to save the land: turn it into subdivisions and sell it to the white families fleeing the city.
Tensions build as members of the estranged family reunite to try and save their beloved land—
magnolia trees and all.
 
THUNDER ABOVE, DEEPS BELOW by A. Rey Pamatmat
Performances:  Thurs., July 17 at 8:15 pm; Sat., July 19 at 2:15 pm
Three homeless young friends — a Filipina-American with a hidden past, a Filipina transsexual,
and a Puerto-Rican hustler — struggle on the streets of Chicago to scrounge up enough cash to
bus it to San Francisco before the winter cold hits. All is going according to plan until Theresa
dreams of a bearded man searching for her on Lake Michigan, a mystery man in sunglasses
stalks Gil after he becomes the star performer at a drag club, a wealthy john appears to be falling
in love with Hector, and Marisol — the assistant manager of a doughnut shop — begins
practicing magic on them with her cups of far-too-strong coffee. With their hopes and
friendships put to the test, will the trio be able to spare some change?

MISTAKES WERE MADE by Craig Wright
Director:  Wendy C. Goldberg
Performances:  Fri., July 18 at 8:15 pm; Sun., July 20 at 5:15 pm
Felix Artifex is a small-time Broadway producer struggling to launch "The Machine," his pet
project about the French Revolution. Trouble is, he's trying to bring into alignment the diverse
agendas of a cranky writer, a not-too-bright movie star, dozens of agents, the American military
in Iraq, members of the insurgency, tile salesmen, airplane pilots — wait! I thought this guy was
a producer! He's that and much more in this metaphysical journey into the mind that makes —
and unmakes — the world.
 
THE LEGEND OF MINNIE WILLET by Ann Marie Healy
Performances:  Thurs., July 24 at 8:15 pm; Sat., July 26 at 8:15 pm
Ladies everywhere doing all sorts of strange things: Taking and being taken, Passing on and
being passed up, Falling in love and falling apart. What begins as a rollicking winter season of
sexual abandonment ends with a chilling blood wedding for the legendary Minnie Willet: town
maverick, town eccentric and, ultimately, town martyr.
 
WITHOUT YOU** by Ursula Rani Sarma
Performances:  Fri., July 25 at 8:15 pm; Sun., July 27 at 5:15 pm
All Simon ever really wanted was to have someone to love…but you should be careful what you
wish for. Without You looks at the wonder and chaos of love and asks how much we are willing
to sacrifice for it.
 
*MAGNOLIA is a collaboration with Chicago's The Goodman Theatre, Robert Falls, Artistic
Director
 
**WITHOUT YOU is The Irish Project at the O'Neill
 
Schedules are subject to change. Tickets will be on sale beginning Wednesday, June 11.  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, is the pre-eminent center for the  development of new works and new voices for the American theater.  It has been  home to more than 1,000 new works for the stage and 2,500 emerging artists.  Scores  of projects developed at the O'Neill have gone on to full productions at other theaters  around the world, including Broadway, off-Broadway and major regional theaters.  The  O'Neill 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. The O'Neill's programs include 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, a National Historic Landmark and 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.