I’ve just returned from the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Conference in Waterford, CT where I was working with the composer Mel Marvin for two days. The O’Neill very generously offered to house and feed us while we worked on our musical, JOAN OF ARC. And this all occurred with very little advance planning or notice and was accomplished with a phone call, which resulted in a very quick and very welcoming “Yes!”
I am lucky enough to have been part of both the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference and the Music Theatre Conference. In fact, the Playwrights Conference was the first significant break in my career and the Music Theatre Conference was instrumental in launching a whole new phase of my writing life.
Being at the O’Neill again brought back floods of memories. We had Indian summer weather and were able to walk the beach in shirtsleeves. It almost felt like those divine summer days during the Playwrights Conference. I found the piano I had stood at to hear “White Moon” from MARTIN GUERRE for the first time. I sat at the table where the composer Conrad Susa told me that every musical has a “cluster of images” and you need to both limit and be true to that cluster.
I remembered being in the dining room when Rita Gardner told one of the critics, in no uncertain terms, to stop bad-mouthing LUCY’S LAPSES, the picnic table we sat at with our critics and mentors, the profound sense of despair I felt as I realized that our little show, which seemed so full of promise was now being talked about and considered the “dog” of the conference. And then our director, Stuart Ross, whose FOREVER PLAID was debuting at the Conference, just calmly keeping us on course through the ups and downs and re-writes and criticism. And the magical way that fortunes can reverse in an instant as our sublimely funny and heartbreaking reading became a little hit.
Walking the grounds, climbing the stairs, entering the main building, I found myself very aware of all the people I had met there and grew to love who are no longer with us: playwrights August Wilson and Alan Bowne, artistic director Lloyd Richards and founder George White. But their spirits remain in this place so strongly. Here is where I talked to George about singing and here is where August held forth for hours, a drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other. Here is where I saw the four-hour version of FENCES, and knew, as we all did, that we were in the presence of a new American master. Here is where Alan made me laugh until I cried. Here is where Lloyd made us all feel welcome and important and chosen. And I was struck with their heart and their generosity and the small miracle that their work lives on as the O’Neill continues to be a haven and a home for theatre artists.
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