O’Neill Reimagined: Warnings Before Breakfast and A Wife for a Life: A Backstage Story, Adaptor and Director

The year 2024 was devoted to adapting early plays by Eugene O’Neill. As the new year approached, I decided to blend two plays that previously held no interest for me. Eugene O’Neill’s Warnings is a play about an isolated man and his play Before Breakfast is about an isolated woman. The challenge of putting the two plays in conversation with each other by toggling back and forth sparked my imagination. To make this work, I needed to write short scenes that allowed the audience to see the two stories of isolation as a larger story of a relationship in crisis. This new take on the two plays entitled Warnings Before Breakfast was performed January 12-14 at the Museum of the San Ramon Valley in Danville, CA. In the spring, WBB was approved for a remount in New Ross, Ireland but needed another one-act to fill out the bill. I decided to contextualize Eugene O’Neill’s first play A Wife for a Life by writing new scenes that framed the original play in the biography of Eugene O’Neill and his relationship to his father, the famous actor James O’Neill. A Wife for a Life: A Backstage Story begins with aspiring young playwright Eugene O’Neill knocking on his father’s dressing room door with his first play in hand. The two men discuss the play, argue about the play and ultimately play out the play in the dressing room. The program “O’Neill Reimagined” featuring Warnings Before Breakfast and A Wife for a Life: A Backstage Story was performed at the Eugene O’Neill International Festival of Theatre in New Ross, Ireland in October. 2024 marked a big step in my creative growth as I gained confidence in my ability to write theatrically.