ATCA conferences past
The 2011 ATCA Weekend Meeting (aka “Mini-Meeting”) will be in New York City, Feb. 4-6. Watch the home page for details, which are supplemented every few days. Here’s the latest schedule. And here’s the registration form.
2010 Annual Conference, July 14-18, Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Waterford, Conn.
ATCA goes back to its 1974 birthplace, “America’s premiere theater laboratory.” In its 46th year, the O’Neill is a template for developmental programs for new plays, musicals and critics, and for its rich roster of playwrights of national significance.
You can learn more about the O’Neill from its website, www.theoneill.org. It’s unprepossessing, but that’s in keeping with the O’Neill itself, with its well-worn houses, barns, porches and lawns, all used for meetings, rehearsals, performances and social gatherings. It’s a casual but professional theater laboratory.
The deadline to register for the hotel has passed, but they may have a room available — otherwise, contact organizer Chris Rawson, who may have one tucked away. Contact him immediately if you hope to be a last-minute registration. Registration remains open at $185 (ATCA) and $200 (non-ATCA).
Hotel
Conference headquarters is the Radisson Hotel in New London, 15 minutes from the O’Neill oceanside campus via our school bus shuttle service. (Those who bring their own cars should find it even quicker, and parking at both hotel and O’Neill is free.) Our special hotel rate is $89 weeknights and $99 weekends. Although the conference begins at dinner on Wed., July 14, and ends after a morning meeting Sun., July 18, that rate can begin as early as July 12 and extend to July 19. Call the New London Radisson itself, 860-443-7000. If there’s a problem, email hotel manager Lisa Kasprzak at lisa.kasprzak@radisson.com.
Click here for the detailed schedule.
The conference begins with check-in at the Radisson, 3:00-5:00 pm., Wed., July 14, then off to the O’Neill for welcome, box supper and the first of three performances there, two new plays and one musical (for descriptions, scroll down). On Thurs., we take a side bus trip up the Connecticut River valley to the delicious Goodspeed Opera House (worth an article) for a revival of “Carnival!”
Our mornings will be at the Radisson, starting with breakfast buffets and including ATCA meetings, panels, discussions and a Perspectives in Criticism. A panel on the new media will be at Monte Cristo, the O’Neill family cottage, famous from his plays (also worth an article). At the O’Neill, we’ll have a panel of theater pros telling us what they think of theater criticism. There will be free time for near-by attractions, among them two big casinos and a little farther, Gillette Castle (the folly of one of America’s most successful actors). And there are beaches, for those who think, like New Englanders, that 70-72 degrees is comfortable swimming.
From lunch onward most days we’ll be at the O’Neill for an orientation, a reception, interaction with the National Critics Institute, etc. The O’Neill campus is an attraction itself, dotted with actors, designers, playwrights and even critics. Close to the hotel is a photo exhibit of O’Neill history.
Each evening many will end up in Blue Gene’s Pub, the highly liquid hang-out on the O’Neill campus, but we’ll also have a late night gathering spot at the Radisson, with the shuttle bus (and individual cars) connecting both sites. The O’Neill is giving us a welcoming reception and we’re giving them a party on the final night. For some meals (included in your registration fee) we’ll use the O’Neill cafeteria, which is like a college lunchroom, and from which many take their trays out to the porches or lawns.
The final ATCA meeting will be Sunday morning. That’s the end of the conference proper, but you can choose to stay for another new play reading at the O’Neill that afternoon.
The Area; Getting There
Other attractions in the area are considerable, starting with the rumpled charms of New London and tourist attractions of Mystic Seaport; south lies Block Island -– the ferry ride from New London is half the fun; eastward are the Golden Age mansions of Newport, R.I. (“America’s first vacationland”); further east are Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket; and west and north are New Haven, Hartford, Providence and Boston, all within two hours drive.
The closest substantial airport is Providence, just under an hour away. Other airports you might use are Hartford (also about an hour, depending on traffic, which can be worse) and New Haven (less than an hour, but tiny). But the easiest way to arrive is by bus or train: the train between New York and Boston stops about five blocks from our hotel.
Signing Up
The registration fee is $185 for ATCA members and $200 for non-member guests. It includes 3 shows at the O’Neill and 1 at Goodspeed; a session at Monte Cristo, the O’Neill family cottage, the setting for “Ah, Wilderness” and “A Long Day’s Journey into Night”; some 7 panels and discussions; 8 meals; Michael Phillips’ “Perspectives in Criticism”; a panel in which actors, directors and designers tell us what they think of critics; and 2 parties/ receptions at which to bandage any wounds. Evenings will end in Blue Gene’s Pub on the O’Neill campus and/or our own gathering spot at the Radisson.
The O’Neill shows
“Eden” is a musical of chaos in two acts, a story of natural and unnatural disaster. Ranging between the Scylla of Hurricane Katrina and the Charybdis of the War in Iraq, Eden follows the story of six characters in search of survival, who bump up against one another and come away with varying degrees of triumphs and bruises.
“The Dream of the Burning Boy”: In a high school classroom, a poster on the wall reads: “EVERYTHING WILL BE ALL RIGHT.” The poster offers little comfort to English teacher Larry Morrow, who is trying to move on after the sudden death of a popular student, but finds himself haunted by a troubling dream.
“Follow Me to Nellie’s”: If you follow the footsteps to Nellie Jackson’s Whorehouse, you may discover a hopeless blues singer looking for a way out, a brave freedom fighter looking for a way in, and a house of wounded women, looking for a new day. In 1955 Mississippi, during the reign of segregation, to get what they’re looking for may cost everything they have …
Print out the attached registration form and bring it with you, but not until contacting conference organizer Chris Rawson.
JUST PAST: Humana Festival of New American Plays, Special Visitors (formerly Critics) Weekend
Actors Theatre of Louisville, March 25-28
Not an ATCA event, but many critics attend and ATCA annually annouces the Steinberg/ATCA and Osborn new play award winners. Click here to read some blog entries on the weekend just completed.
SLIGHTLY MORE PAST: Denver Mini-Meeting
Feb. 11-13, 2010
Colorado New Play Summit, Denver Center Theatre Company, Denver, Colorado
Some ATCA members at the Denver conference: (left to right, in rear) Jim Steinberg, Chris Jones, Christine Dolen, Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, Bill Hirschman, Chris Rawson, Jonathan Abarbanel, Lynn Rosen, Barry Gaines, Rick Pender and Brad Hathaway; (left to right, in front) Juliet Wittman, Glenn Loney, Barbara Bannon, Judith Reynolds and Sylvie Drake.
ATCA blog about Denver>>
Details about the content of the CNPS>>
History of ATCA conferences
Each year ATCA holds both a weekend mini-meeting and a five or six day annual conference, with the ATCA members in the relevant city playing lead roles in planning and organization. In addition, there’s a tradition of occasional Critics’ Seminars.
For many years the mini-meetings were regularly in New York in February, when many papers traditionally sent their critics to report on new Broadway openings — how the world has changed. Recently the mini-meetings have branched out, going to New York every other year, sometimes based on a festival of new plays, and going in alternate years to theater festivals elsewhere, such as the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Harriet Lake Festival of New Plays (at the Orlando Shakespeare Festival) or Humana Festival.
The main annual conference (aka convention) continues to be held in a national theater center other than New York, allowing ATCA members over time to develop an acquaintance with American theater geography. Many of these conferences have also had add-ons at near-by cities or festivals.
1978 - Minneapolis/St. Paul
1979 - Chicago
1980 - San Francisco
1981 - Nashville
1982 - Washington, DC
1983 - San Diego
1984 - Providence, R.I. (including New Haven and Cambridge, Mass.)
1985 - Oregon Shakespeare Festival
1986 - Los Angeles
1987 - Stratford/Shaw Festivals, Canada
1988 - Houston
1989 - Atlanta
1990 - The Berkshires, Mass.
1991 - Chicago
1992 - Cleveland
1993 - Seattle
1994 - Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, Conn.
1995 - Miami
1996 - Dallas/Ft. Worth
1997 - Salt Lake City/Utah Shakespeare Festival
1998 - Denver
1999 - Philadelphia
2000 - Actors Theatre of Louisville/Humana Festival
2001 - Oregon Shakespeare Festival
2002 - Chicago
2003 - St. Paul/Minneapolis
2004 - San Francisco
2005 - Los Angeles/National Critics Conference
2006 - Stratford/Shaw Festivals, Canada
2007 - Las Vegas
2008 - Washington, D.C./Arlington, Va.
2009 - Sarasota, Fla.
2010 - Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, Conn.