The Eugene O'Neill Festival
The Eugene O’Neill Festival is an annual celebration of dramatic theatre held in the San Francisco Bay Area. Each September multiple theatrical productions exploring a common theme are presented. Festivals feature a centerpiece production of an O’Neill play at Tao House, the Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site, in conjunction with Classic American dramas by the likes of Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller and Edward Albee as well as concerts and lectures. In September 2019, the festival celebrated its 20th anniversary.
In 2008, Eric Fraisher Hayes joined the Eugene O’Neill Foundation, Tao House, which organizes the festival. His first artistic contribution to the festival came in fall of 2008 when he directed O’Neill’s rarely produced All God’s Chillun Got Wings in a tribute to the creative collaborations of Eugene O’Neill and actor, singer and activist Paul Robeson. Eric was instrumental in the expansion of the Eugene O’Neill Festival to its current month-long format which began in 2013. Tao House regularly sees sold out runs and is now the leading producer of the plays of Eugene O’Neill in the world.
In 2018, Eric’s adaptation of O’Neill’s one-act Hughie was performed at Tao House and went on to Waterford, Carlow and New Ross, Ireland as part of the One Festival, Two Countries, a partnership between Danville, CA and New Ross, Co. Wexford. New Ross, the host of the Eugene O’Neill International Festival of Theatre, has also featured EONF productions of Long Day’s Journey Into Night (2019) and Welded (2022). In the spirit of deepening the Irish-American connection, the 2022 international festival mounted a production of O’Neill’s Shell Shock featuring Irish and American actors under the direction of Eric Fraisher Hayes.
In response to the pandemic, the O’Neill Festival put a new emphasis on filming plays. In 2020, the Eugene O’Neill Festival went virtual with filmed performances of three early O’Neill plays: The Web, Recklessness, and Abortion. In 2021, the festival centerpiece was a feature length film of Beyond the Horizon. The film was supplemented by two live site-specific performances of the play on the Tao House grounds. Filmed versions of Welded and the three early plays, known as “The Lost Plays,” can be viewed on this website as well as a portion of Beyond the Horizon. The full BTH feature can be viewed at eugeneoneill.org.
The 2023 festival’s “Having Her Say” theme saw a return to two live productions with the addition of a series of thematically linked short films. The centerpiece production of O’Neill’s “Anna Christie” traveled from Tao House to Ireland the following month.
2023: “Having Her Say” (California & Ireland)
A Tao House production of Eugene O’Neill’s 1922 Pulitzer prize-winning play “Anna Christie”was the centerpiece of the California festival devoted to women’s voices. The festival also included script-in-hand performances of Jennifer Maisel’s Yellow Wallpaper 2.0 2020 as well as the addition of four new Ghosts of Tao House films highlighting some of the American theatre’s greatest female characters. The Tao House “Anna Christie” traveled to New Ross, Ireland to be the featured event at the Eugene O’Neill International Festival of Theatre.
2022: Welded and Shell Shock (Ireland)
EONF’s January production of Welded by Eugene O’Neill traveled to New Ross to be the main event on the opening night of the 2022 Eugene O’Neill International Festival of Theatre. During the week of the festival, O’Neill’s one-act Shell Shock was rehearsed and performed. It featured actors from Waterford and New Ross, Ireland as well as Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area.
2022: The Moon and Its Dreams (California)
A Moon for the Misbegotten by Eugene O’Neill was the featured event at the 2022 Eugene O’Neill Festival (CA) which celebrated the playwright’s Irish roots. The production enjoyed a sold out run at the Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site. The festival also hosted an Irish music concert and a whiskey tasting.
2021: Beyond the Horizon
The festival saw a mixture of filmed and live events. The centerpiece was a feature length film of O’Neill’s Beyond the Horizon. The play was also performed live in a progressive, site-specific presentation on the Tao House grounds. The lively performance lecture “Eugene O’Neill: 51 Plays in 51 Minutes” debuted.
2020: The Lost Plays in a Lost Year
The Pandemic redirected our festival efforts to a focus on producing videotaped recordings of three of early “lost” plays. The plays offered a glimpse into the beginnings of Eugene O’Neill’s quest to become a great dramatist.