Playwrights' Theatre Event Features Work by Danville Student

Audiences attending the January 11 and January 12 Playwrights' Theatre event, presented by the Eugene O'Neill Foundation, will be treated to a selection of short plays by an important group of emerging Bay Area playwrights, plus a work by a Danville student.

Writers from Playground Theatre Company of San Francisco and Pear Avenue Playwright's Guild in Mountain view will offer seven 10-minute plays inspired by the very O'Neillian theme "Haunted by the Past," provided by the Eugene O'Neill Foundation.

The seven plays were selected from over 40 submissions.

Performances are scheduled for 8 p.m. on January 11, and at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, January 12 at the Museum of the San Ramon Valley, 205 Railroad Avenue, Danville.  

Tickets are available online at www.eugeneoneill.org, or by phone at(925) 820-1818.

Seating at the Museum is limited, so advance reservations are recommended. 

The January program augments the annual Playwrights' Theatre events held each May at the Old Barn at the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site in Danville, where playwright O'Neill lived from 1937-1943, and where he wrote his most famous plays, including A Long Days Journey into Night, The Iceman Cometh, and A Touch of the Poet, among others. 

The seven plays included in the January program are:  
Attention Must Be Paid by Patricia Cotter
Spring Cleaning by Ruben Grijalva
Only Forever by Karen Macklin
What Doesn't Kill You by Diane Gribschaw
Dibs on the Scotty Dog by Katie May
Significant People by Amy Sass
So Much History by Robin Lynn Rodriguez

"Both Playground and Pear Avenue Theatre have done presentations at Tao House before," says O'Neill Foundation program director Eric Fraisher Hayes. "We want to encourage the fine work that they do."

In addition to the short plays from Playground and Pear Avenue Theatre, a short "curtain warmer" will be featured at the top of the program.

A Girls' Night Out by Jenelle Doolittle, a student at Monte Vista High School in Danville, was written as part of the Foundation's educational O'Neill Studio Retreat held each summer at Tao House. 

The Eugene O'Neill Foundation, Tao House is a non-profit membership organization dedicated to promoting and preserving the legacy of the only American playwright to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Foundation works closely with the National Park Service at the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site in the Danville hills.