NYT: The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, an Indispensable Theater Incubator, Faces a Troubled Future

[MezzA101]

Posted: 7/14/25 at 3:35pm

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/14/theater/eugene-oneill-theater-center-waterford-connecticut.html?unlocked_article_code=1.WU8.qHiq.UVPNZvQlwGHg&smid=nytcore-android-share

[BorisTomashevsky]

Posted: 7/14/25 at 4:09pm

Thanks for posting this. A decade ago I was at the O’Neill and saw a reading for a musical about zombie hamburgers (or something) by the writers of Urinetown. Totally abysmal in every way, and I had been hopeful prior because of the brilliance of Urinetown.

If it’s any indication (and maybe it’s no indication), then maybe the majority of stuff that passes through the campus just isn’t great. And while it’s fabulous that Quiara had the happiest time of her life there, there are likely writers who had a terrible time if they didn’t make the progress they’d hoped, or if they weren’t affirmed like they needed to be, or if it became clear that they maybe shouldn’t write. Maybe donors and audiences just aren’t in a mood for less-than-great anymore, especially if their discretionary spending is more limited. 

If places similar to the O’Neill are having to close, perhaps it’s time to pull a David Merrick and close with dignity. Plenty of great plays and musicals have been written without a Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, and plenty more will be. And as for finding out what works and what doesn’t work in front of an audience, Neil Simon did just find standing at the back of the house during previews and rewriting based on what the audience gave him. Maybe micro-workshopping isn’t entirely necessary.

I’d be curious about the selection criteria. If there’s no aim for commercial production, what are the submissions being judged on?

Updated On: 7/14/25 at 04:09 PM

[verywellthensigh]

Posted: 7/15/25 at 10:19am

Artists should have a place to fail and, if you had been paying any attention, places where they can do that are being defunded or closed at an alarming rate.  Judging an entire incubating process on one production that turned you off is very silly. 

[darquegk]

Posted: 7/15/25 at 10:59am

I'm not a huge believer in the traditional incubation process, having developed show three ways (commissioned, incubated at Theatre Barn and NYMF, and just "do the thing"). But also, I live in Pittsburgh, where you're close enough to NYC to be connected, but things are significantly cheaper and less crowded. I had the luxury of spending two years writing and revising a show, then rented a concert hall for a weekend and ran a bare-bones version of that show with ten actors, six chairs and a piano for an open audience. Total budget? About four hundred dollars, and the equivalent in NYC would likely be around ten thousand dollars for a single night.

My advice to people writing right now is not to worry about "the right people seeing it first" until your show is polished and finished enough for that to matter. Just worry about what the "wrong people" will see and respond to, and take it to a place where you can get it in front of them without breaking the bank. That, and sometimes just "do the thing:" putting a show on its feet in a setting that isn't a traditional world premiere can tell you more about how the material actually works than endless table reads or scripts-on-stands will.

[BorisTomashevsky]

Posted: 7/15/25 at 11:06am

verywellthensigh said: "Artists should have a place to fail and, if you had been paying any attention, places where they can do that are being defunded or closed at an alarming rate. Judging an entire incubating process on one production that turned you off is very silly."

Artists had been failing just fine for centuries before any labs or workshops came along. And the thousands of submissions that get rejected have to find their own place to fail. The phrase “indispensable” in the article is disingenuous. These places are pretty dispensable. 

[verywellthensigh]

Posted: 7/16/25 at 4:58pm

OK, landlord. 

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 7/16/25 at 5:57pm

I expect more of these to shutter, sadly.