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Playwright Eugene O’Neill is known for both his complicated personal life – and works based on it – and his ongoing impact on modern American theatre, with those two factors set to be center stage at this year’s festival celebrating his life and work.
While each year’s festival is marked by that celebration, the 2026 lineup is set to stand out with the production of O’Neill’s “Ah Wilderness!” – a rare comedic work by the late playwright – and the original play “Teddy”, which is making its U.S. debut after premiering at the 2024 O’Neill International Festival in New Ross, Ireland.
“To have the playwright and the actors coming here, for me it’s a completion of an exchange, because we’ve been bringing theater to Ireland for years, and they’ve brought music here, but this is the first time they’re bringing theater,” said Eugene O’Neill Foundation artistic director Eric Fraisher Hayes, who is directing the upcoming production of “Teddy”. “So now it feels like a true cultural, theatrical exchange.”
This year’s lineup means that Hayes – whose role consists primarily of analyzing, producing and directing O’Neill’s works – is able to devote himself to a new original piece, with Las Positas College dean and former theater arts director Titian Lish taking the reins as director for “Ah Wilderness!”
“The play contrasts with O’Neill’s usual dramas, depicting a loving family as 16-year-old Richard navigates young love, teenage rebellion, and small town sensibilities,” EONF organizers wrote of “Ah Wilderness!”. “We welcome Director Titian Lish back to Tao House as she directs an engaging radio play format for this telling of O’Neill’s nostalgic imagined family.”
While the format and tone of the rare O’Neillian comedy stand out from the dramas that characterize a majority of his work, the content – centered on family relationships – is familiar fare across O’Neill’s repertoire, with those who know his work likely able to detect the same themes he always centered on.
Nonetheless, “Teddy” is set to where the drama is this year, and a testament to O’Neill’s impact on the theater world near and far even decades after his death.
“It’s very O’Neill,” Hayes said.
The story centers on one woman’s goal of deepening her connection with a son born out of wedlock when she was a teenager after she was forced to leave him with her parents as a teenage mother, and the intergenerational battle that ensues.
In addition to speaking to the complexities of family ties, the play was inspired by current events at the time in 1980s Ireland.
“One thing that inspired the playwright was a very famous story in Ireland around 1982 of a girl who is maybe 15,” Hayes said. “She was found dead in a grotto, and she’s had a baby, and there was just this story of this woman who had nowhere to go, so she went to this grotto. It was really kind of a wakeup call for a lot of people in Ireland at the time, of what are we doing to young women to make them feel so unsupported.”
The playwright, Sheila Forsey, and the original cast arrived in the Tri-Valley this week, with rehearsals now underway as the cast and crew seek to acclimate to the unique performance space at the Tao House’s Old Barn Theater.
“Teddy” kicks off the 2026 Eugene O’Neill Festival on Sunday, followed by “Ah Wilderness!” which runs from Sept. 17-20 at the Tao House, followed by a Sept. 26 performance in downtown Danville at the Village Theatre, and a Sept. 27 fundraiser featuring Tony-nominated actor Sam Robards.
Next month, the cast and crew of “Ah Wilderness!” will complete Danville’s portion of the annual cultural exchange as they bring the production to New Ross Ireland for the International Festival of Theatre.
More information is available at eugeneoneill.org.
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