25 YEARS ON: A (very) Brief History of the Ojai Playwrights Conference (so far...)
By Christopher Breyer, OPC Literary Director - August 2022
It began (of course) with a playwright, Rick Cleveland, who proposed to Ojai friends Dwier Brown and Kim Maxwell and a Los Angeles friend, the director Chris Fields, that the Ojai Valley would be the ideal site for a program dedicated to helping playwrights develop their new work. Thanks to an Ojai community that enthusiastically volunteered time, skills, labor, money, food and housing, the Ojai Playwrights Conference debuted on the weekend of July 24-26, 1998.
If 1998 was the start of what one might call the First Age of OPC, the Second Age and the Ojai Playwrights Conference as it is now known to the world began with the 2002 Conference, the first under the leadership of new Artistic Director, Robert Egan, who was then also Producing Artistic Director of L.A.’s Mark Taper Forum. Robert, who had been developing new plays for over twenty years — and developed some of the era’s defining plays – was attracted by OPC’s grass-roots communitarian character and saw in it an opportunity to do playwright-focused play development at its purest. And, as he told Backstage, he intended the Conference to have a specific focus: “Not only are we looking for great quality theatre pieces that need development, but we are particularly looking for writers and projects that are attempting to grapple with the important social, cultural, and political issues of our day.”
OPC grew significantly over the next two decades but never at the cost of its mission or local roots. The original program of five readings/workshops increased to eight. The five day format expanded to two weeks, and two public events, known as “Intersections,” added. The Conference began hosting and providing dramaturgical support for Writers-in[1]Residence. The size of the artistic staff tripled, as did the Reading Committee that selects Conference projects. In 2015, the Ojai Playwrights Conference became international, inaugurating an ongoing partnership with Zimbabwe’s Almasi Arts Alliance, the organization co-founded by OPC alumna and Board member, Danai Gurira. The OPC Board expanded as well. And in everything it did, OPC was guided by a commitment to expanding diversity and representation. All of this was possible because of the steady growth of the Ojai community’s involvement in and support for the Conference.
And there has been a steady growth, evolution and refinement of the Conference’s play development process. One of Robert Egan’s most important innovations was establishing a “pre-Conference” preceding the arrival of actors and start of rehearsals, a period of first three and eventually six days during which the playwrights, directors, dramaturges and artistic staff meet together to read and discuss each play. When the Covid pandemic forced the Conference to move online, OPC seized the opportunity to extend the duration of the development process and spend months rather than weeks working with the playwright and their play. It was also an opportunity for OPC to work with more writers — and directors, actors and dramaturges — at a time when theatres were closed and theatre artists deprived of their art and community. Over the 17 months from August 2020 to December 2021, OPC developed 24 plays.
Ultimately, the history and achievement of the Conference is the plays it developed [they are listed elsewhere in this program]. It has become commonplace for OPC plays to be produced, even to get major productions and win major awards. And there are OPC plays that have not had major productions but have had a major influence on American theatre. Sometimes it’s the play a playwright writes after being at the Conference that wins accolades, and that’s fine; developing playwrights is as much the work of the Conference as developing plays. Today, the Ojai Playwrights Conference is among the most respected play development programs in America, a reputation that reflects both the plays that have come out of OPC and the opinion of the playwrights, directors and actors who have participated in the Conference.
The 2022 Conference and New Works Festival was the final overseen by Robert Egan. OPC is about to begin its Third Age – and at a critical moment for America and theatre. The nation is riven by turmoil and strife. Over the last year, two of the largest and best known play development programs closed. The future of the Ojai Playwrights Conference is still to be written, but surely there has never been a greater need for a program which supports playwrights “attempting to grapple with the important social, cultural, and political issues of our day.”