Coming Up This Week At The O'Neil Theater

 The National Playwrights Conference continues with two new projects, THUNDER ABOVE, DEEPS BELOW and ITALIAN SOJOURN.  National Music Theater Conference continues performances of IRON CURTAIN.

IRON CURTAIN
Book by Susan DeLallo, Lyrics by Peter Mills, Music by Stephen Weiner

Directed by Cara Reichel

Performances:  Sat., July 12 at 8:00 pm; Weds., July 16 at 8:00 pm; Fri., July 18 at 8:00 pm;

Sat., July 19 at 3:00 pm

New York, 1956: two down-on-their luck songwriters are kidnapped by the KGB and brought to Moscow, where they are forced to write Communist Propaganda musicals.   A madcap farce about fame vs. freedom, filled with divas and dominatrixes, stooges and spies, mishaps and misdirects as our heroes try desperately to get back home.  

IRON CURTAIN is funded in part through The ASCAP Residency.

CAST:

David Abeles
Alison Briner
Stephen Bogardus
Monique French
David Gregory
Daniel Levine
Anne Torsiglieri
Dan Sharkey
Robby Sharpe
Lucy Sorenson
Gordon Stanley
Jessica Snow Wilson

THUNDER ABOVE, DEEPS BELOW by A. Rey Pamatmat

Directed by Jesse Berger

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?
CAST:

Rey Lucas
Curtix McClaren
Stephen Conrad Moore
Jon Norman Schneider
Maureen Sebastian
Heather Alicia Simms

ITALIAN SOJOURN By Neena Beber

Directed by Wendy C. Goldberg

Performances: Friday, July 18 at 8:15pm and Sunday, July 20 at 5:15pm.

An American exchange student goes on the lam in Italy after the murder of her roommate.  Escaping arrest, she traverses the Italian landscape, experiencing its beauty and its sorrows.  A chance encounter with the victim's brother causes her to reexamine her ideas about fate, free will, guilt and freedom.  Very loosely based on a current true crime case, ITALIAN SOJOURN explores the passions of youth and the seductions of foreign lands.
 
THE PUB is open to the public before and after all performances.  Come enjoy your favorite beverage and spend some time with our artists!
 
THE SUMMER GALA July 19th, 6:30pm

"MUSICALS UNDER THE STARS"

On Saturday, July 19, 2008 at 6:30pm the O'Neill Theater Center will host its Summer Gala honoring one of its flagship programs, the National Music Theater Conference (NMTC) and its founding Artistic Director, Paulette Haupt.

The Gala will be held under a tent in the Sunken Garden, overlooking the Long Island Sound.  After a silent auction and dinner, entertainment will commence with selections from many of the musicals developed at O'Neill's NMTC.  Michael Bush, Artistic Director of the O'Neill's Cabaret and Performance Conference, will direct the evening's program.

For tickets and Information contact Suzanne Hendrix at 860-443-5378 x 217 or shendrix@theoneill.org.

COMING UP NEXT WEEK will be performances of THE LEGEND OF MINNIE WILLET and WITHOUT YOU at the National Playwrights Conference!

All schedules and artists subject to change.  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 has received 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  & Performance Conference, National Critics Institute, and the 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.

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