June 20-July 14
About the Conference
The National Playwrights Conference — the O’Neill’s founding program — is a national laboratory offering resources vital to creative risk-taking. Every year, innovative, unproduced works are selected from a pool of 1,300+ submissions to be developed with the support of a professional company of actors, designers, dramaturgs, and directors. For this development, the Conference proudly implements a staged reading process born of the workshop model developed early in the O’Neill’s history by its founder, George C. White, and NPC’s inaugural artistic director, Lloyd Richards. The remaining time in each writer’s residency is self-directed — to think, create, and interact with other artists. This year’s talented group of writers join a cadre of O’Neill playwright alumni who have reimagined the American theater in fundamental ways, including August Wilson, David Henry Hwang, Wendy Wasserstein, Jeremy O. Harris, Dominique Morisseau, Martnya Majok, and more.
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As their ancestors broadcast a radio show with Japanese pop songs that no living person can hear, three generations of the Nishiyama clan gather in the wake of a family tragedy. Lyrical and overtly theatrical, this bilingual radio play explores what’s lost and what’s gained when we hold too tightly to our grief—and delves into the unexpected consequences of language, legacy, and what’s left unsaid.
June 17 7:00pm
June 21 7:00pm
FACT: Maria was last seen at her Quinceañera. FACT: The party ended early due to an unknown emergency. FACT: Maria has not responded to any messages in 36 hours. Now, Maria’s three best friends must race against the clock to find out what, exactly, happened at her Quince—and bring her home alive—in this comic thriller about secrets, sisterhood, and solving crime.
June 18 7:00pm
June 22 3:00pm
When Marco meets Marco in 1997 Albuquerque, an unlikely friendship begins between two boys with the same name but vastly different personalities and outlooks on life. When they discover a mutual love of comic books, the local comic shop becomes a sanctuary for both teens as they’re introduced to an Aztec superhero who becomes their guide through a time long forgotten.
June 24 7:00pm
June 28 7:00pm
In this fleet-footed riff on Hannah Cowley’s 18th-century comedy, The Belle’s Stratagem, we find our romantic leads in a serious bind. Engaged since childhood, Leticia and Doricort will inherit a fortune upon marriage—unless one of them calls off the wedding, granting the jilted party the full estate. Both use every bit of trickery at their disposal to give the other cold feet in this spirited metatheatrical ode to comedy, the follies of youth, and the theater itself.
June 25 7:00pm
June 29 3:00pm
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE:
ADAM RAPP
Adam Rapp will be on campus offering mentorship and support to participating playwrights while he works on his play Goats and Monkeys, which will receive a developmental residency at the O'Neill later this year.
Adam Rapp’s plays include Red Light Winter (OBIE, Pulitzer Prize Finalist) and The Sound Inside (nominated for 6 Tony Awards, including Best Play). His numerous awards include the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation Award and the Benjamin H. Danks Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.