Unlikely Temple: Building a Theater at Tao House

ABSTRACT:During the height of his popularity in the 1920s, Eugene O'Neill imagined "a theatre returned to its highest and sole significant function as a Temple where the religion of poetic interpretation and symbolic celebration of life is communicated to human beings." As the artistic director of the Eugene O'Neill Foundation, I have labored for the better part of a decade to establish O'Neill's "temple" with productions at the playwright's former home, Tao House, in Danville, California. Directing Chris Christophersen, The Iceman Cometh, Desire Under the Elms, The Emperor Jones, A Touch of the Poet, Hughie, and Long Day's Journey Into Night in Tao House's Old Barn has been a unique artistic and spiritual experience. My goal has been to build reverence for the sacred experience of seeing O'Neill's plays a stone's throw from where he created some of his best work.