As Artistic Director for the Eugene O’Neill Foundation, Tao House, Eric Fraisher Hayes provides the artistic vision at the Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site. He directs and produces reimagined classic plays, develops new works and script-in-hand performances, which he often pairs with dynamic discussions. During the pandemic, he branched into the digital arts, directing a feature film of Eugene O’Neill’s Beyond the Horizon as well as a short film series entitled “Ghosts of Tao House.” From 2010-2019, he also served as Artistic Director for Role Players Ensemble of the Bay Area. Eric transformed these companies from local community organizations to professional companies attracting audiences from around the country. He built networks of talented actors, designers, directors and scholars that continue to work together to create challenging and engaging performances.

Eric’s ability to establish programming partnerships with organizations in the Bay Area community has been critical to the growth and success of the Eugene O’Neill Festival.  Each September, EONF, National Park Service and numerous community partners come together to produce the Eugene O’Neill Festival, which explores and honors the work of O’Neill and other great dramatists. Under his leadership, the Eugene O’Neill Festival has grown from a single weekend event to a month-long festival and the Eugene O’Neill Foundation, Tao House has become the leading producer of the plays of O’Neill in the world. Since 2018, he has been instrumental in the success of the Eugene O’Neill International Festival of Theatre in New Ross, Ireland for which he also serves as Artistic Director.

Eric has directed over 100 productions, with a specialty in adapting and re-imagining the plays of Eugene O’Neill. He has directed 34 of O’Neill’s 51 plays, making him the foremost interpreter of the plays of Eugene O’Neill in the world.  He has helmed eights shows in Ireland including five remounts traveling from America and the premiere of three new works. The spirit of artistic international cultural exchange is often found in the mixture of Irish and American actors on stage and the collaborative relationships he has formed with Irish playwrights. Eric has also developed and taken shows to Boston and St. Louis. His directing resume consists of a wide range of playwrights, including William Shakespeare, Aphra Behn, August Wilson, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Charles Morey, Carey Perloff, Gilbert and Sullivan and David Lindsay-Abaire.

As a scholar/practitioner of the works of Eugene O’Neill, Eric has made presentations at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, A Noise Within Theatre Company, the American Literature Association Annual Conference in Chicago and San Francisco, the Comparative Drama Conference in Orlando, and the International Eugene O’Neill Conference in Galway, Ireland. He has published numerous articles on directing O’Neill for the prestigious Eugene O’Neill Review. His theatrical lecture “Eugene O’Neill: 51 Plays in 51 Minutes” debuted in fall of 2021 and went on to be a featured event at the International Eugene O’Neill Conference in Boston in July 2022. In May 2025, he will make a presentation at the Eugene O’Neill International Conference in Athens, Greece.

2024 was a busy year for Eric. January saw the American premiere of his adaptation of two early O’Neill plays (Warnings and Before Breakfast) into a single play in dialogue with itself, Warnings Before Breakfast. In September, he directed a site-specific production of Eugene O’Neill’s epic Mourning Becomes Electra at Tao House. Eric followed up in October by directing three shows for the Eugene O’Neill International Festival of Theatre. In addition to a remount of Warnings Before Breakfast, he directed the World premiere of his adaptation of O’Neill’s first play A Wife for a Life entitled A Wife for a Life: A Backstage Story as well as the World premiere of Wexford playwright Sheila Forsey’s play Teddy.

His 2025 started with directing the American premiere of A Wife for a Life: A Backstage Story. Eric is looking forward to a busy fall directing a production of O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape for the Tao House and New Ross festivals in addition to directing another World premiere of an Irish play in October.