Performing Arts in New Waterford, Connecticut

Founded in 1964 by George C. White and named in honor of Americas only Nobel Prize-winning playwright, The ONeill is home to six distinct programs: the ONeill Playwrights Conference, Music Theater Conference, Puppetry Conference, National Theater Institute, Critics Institute and the Monte Cristo Cottage, ONeills childhood home located in neighboring New London. At The ONeill, writers and directors, puppeteers and singers, students and audiences alike take their first steps in exploring, revising and understanding their work and the potential of the theater they help create. The work of The ONeill focuses on the script as it begins its journey to the stage. The actors work with minimal props and no sets or costumes, holding scripts in their hands, revealing for the first time the magic of a new play or musical, puppetry piece or cabaret act. Work first performed at The ONeill has gone on to regional theaters, Broadway, movies and television. Students and professionals who have honed their skills at The ONeill can be seen in these venues every day across the country. Others work behind the scenes as playwrights, directors, in stage management, publicity and a hundred other roles that the public never sees but are nonetheless essential to every production. Staff and alumni from The ONeill have won every major award in theater arts. The ONeill itself is the winner of a special Tony Award, the National Opera Award, the Jujamcyn Award of Theater Excellence and Arts and Business Council Encore Award. The seven hundred plays and musicals developed and premiered at The ONeill include such notable works as John Guares THE HOUSE OF BLUE LEAVES, Brian Crawley and Jeanine Tesoris VIOLET, Wendy Wassersteins UNCOMMON WOMEN AND OTHERS, August Wilsons MA RAINEYS BLACK BOTTOM, FENCES and THE PIANO LESSON, Lee Blessings A WALK IN THE WOODS, NINE by Arthur Kopit, Mario Fratti and Maury Yeston, AVENUE Q, IN THE HEIGHTS, and STORY OF MY LIFE. Photobar: ( l to r ): playwright Kia Corthron, BREATH, BOOM ; composer Tan Dun, MARCO POLO ; Kena Dorsey, THE BUBBLY BLACK GIRL SHEDS HER CHAMELEON SKIN by Kirsten Childs ; Julia Murney, THE WILD PARTY by Andrew Lippa, based on the poem by Joseph Moncure March ; Beatrice Winde ( l ) and playwright Sarah Diamond, MADININA ; composer Maury Yeston, NINE