Change is coming for the Ojai Playwrights Conference. Artistic Director/Producer Robert Egan has decided to step down at the end of 2022, OPC's 25th Anniversary Season. Egan has led the organization for 21 years, bringing the Ojai Playwrights Conference to national attention and making it one of the leading new play development programs in the U.S. Since 1998, the organization has supported and developed work by 142 playwrights, with workshops and readings of some 186 plays. Egan will continue to produce and oversee upcoming OPC events this year, including the Benefit Gala in June and the New Works Festival in August. A search committee is conducting a nationwide search for a new artistic leader.
"I let the OPC board know a few years ago, prior to the pandemic, that I wanted to shift my career focus onto several theatre, film and television projects that are near and dear to my creative heart. Then the pandemic struck. I decided to stay on and help the OPC family survive and sustain both financially and artistically in the most challenging of times. We have emerged stronger than ever, so now I am free to pursue my other interests, including my work with marginalized youth and community activist artists. This developmental work will include creating a writing and performance workshop, The Ramsdell Project, with my wife, writer, director, actress, storyteller,
Michelle Joyner, who has worked extensively with women writers. I do plan to continue my work in Los Angeles, where I have so loved being a part of the theatre community for 40 years, as well as on the east coast where so many of my colleagues reside," says Egan, who recently acquired a farm in Massachusetts.
"Over the 21 years I've been leading OPC, the scope and depth of the programming, the community involvement and the sheer number of plays and playwrights represented have expanded in a way even I could not have imagined. It's a satisfying moment to hand over the leadership role, especially after the last two years of continued, expanded and committed new play development work during the Pandemic by our extraordinary artistic staff." Continues Egan. "We can celebrate a successful survival and a most promising future for OPC."
Currently announced directing projects for Egan include
Jon Robin Baitz's "I'll Be Seein' Ya," which is being presented on Center Theatre Group's digital stage from March 31 - May 1, 2022; and
James Morrison's "Leave Your Fears Here" in June 30 - July 10, 2022, at the Great Barrington Public Theater. Both plays were developed at OPC in recent years.
OPC Board President Carl Thelander notes, "For more than two decades Robert brought to the OPC an immense passion for storytelling and finding ways to better understand 'the human condition.' In that journey, he never lost sight of OPC's mission to explore and understand the social changes we all face every day. His guidance over the years nurtured and elevated the OPC into the forefront of developing new works and writers who are compelled to address, with courage and conviction, the issues of these tumultuous times. On behalf of the entire board of directors, we greatly appreciate Robert's passion and leadership - he has set a very high bar for our next artistic leader. We look forward to his continuing contributions to the OPC as a passionate, creative person with a vision that simply cannot be ignored.
Luis Alfaro, an OPC playwright and associate producer, and Center Theatre Group associate artistic director, in responding to the news of Egan leaving OPC at the end of the year, said, "
Robert Egan's biggest gift to the American theatre is his love of new plays. In the sanctuary that is the Ojai Playwrights Conference, he has nurtured them, helped walk them to full maturity and provided a necessary element of the field: a safe space to experiment, interrogate and imagine the possibility of new theatre work. He is an essential element in the history of new play development in the American regional theatre. Bravo, Bob. To change!"
An award-winning producer and director,
Robert Egan has served as the artistic director/producer of the Ojai Playwrights Conference since 2002. Prior to OPC, he served for 20 years as the producing artistic director at the
Mark Taper Forum where he was director of new play development and the founder and producing artistic director of its prestigious New Work Festival. He was also the associate artistic director of
Seattle Rep where he created their new play development program. Egan has produced, directed, and dramaturged hundreds of new plays in the United States and Europe. Egan is also the founder and president of RHEgan Productions, LLC where he conceives, writes, produces and directs major live events and media projects for non-profits including Cure Autism Now, Operation Smile, L.A., Team Mentoring, Global Green USA, Homeboy Industries, Center Theatre Group and UCLA.
ABOUT OJAI PLAYWRIGHTS CONFERENCE
Since 1998, theatre professionals and enthusiastic audiences have converged in Ojai to participate in the development of new plays for the American theatre. Plays developed at OPC have gone on to have numerous productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and at regional theatres across the country. Some have been nominated for and won prestigious awards. Both "Fun Home" by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori, and Jon Robin Baitz's "Other Desert Cities" were Pulitzer Finalists; "Fun Home" won the Tony Award for Best Musical; and Danai Gurira's "Eclipsed" and Stephen Adly Guirgis' "The Motherf**ker with the Hat" were each nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. In 2019, OPC received the LADCC Gordon Davidson Award for distinguished contribution to the Los Angeles theatrical community.
For more information about Ojai Playwrights Conference, visit www.ojaiplays.org
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