Eugene O'Neill Theater Center

Waterford, United States

Freely accessible

Public space — no opening hours to check.

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The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit theater company founded in 1964 by George C. White on an estate overlooking Long Island Sound in Waterford Beach Park. The campus, featuring Federal and Gothic Revival architectural elements, comprises four major performance spaces—two indoor and two outdoor—with a main theater seating just over 1,000 guests. The center pioneered play development and staged readings as tools for new works and is home to the National Theater Institute (established 1970). It hosts major conferences including the National Playwrights Conference (founded 1964), the National Critics Conference (1968), the National Musical Theater Conference (1978), and others. The O'Neill has received two Tony Awards—a Special Award in 1979 and the Regional Theatre Award in 2010—and was presented the National Medal of Arts by President Obama in 2016. The property, also known as Walnut Grove or Hammond Estate, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005 for its architectural significance and its historical associations with Revolutionary War Colonel William North and railroad magnate Edward Crowninshield Hammond.