The Life of a New American Play From Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill to David Mamet and Sam Shepard, American playwrights have defined and shaped the country’s theatre movement. New plays bring to light challenging ideas and issues, question conventionality, and identify critical moments in American culture and history. With the rolling world premiere of Rancho Mirage, Olney Theatre Center launches an initiative of presenting, developing and fostering new plays for years to come. Partnering with groups like National New Play Network, Olney joins a vibrant community of theaters dedicated to producing new plays. This timeline follows the life of Rancho Mirage, from playwright Steven Dietz’s original drafts through its rolling world premiere. Although the birth of each new play is unique, the life of this work serves as an example of how complex and multifaceted new play development can be.
1998
National New Play Network Founded
NNPN was founded by then Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center Special Programs Director David Goldman with the support of Founder and Chairman George C. White. They believed that new play development in the next generation should be recognized by linking producing and developmental theaters around the country with their playwriting communities. Goldman and White convened a group of artistic and managing leaders from 13 professional theaters across the country that had demonstrated a proven commitment to the development and production of new plays. Over the next two years, relationships were formed and annual conferences were held in 1999 and 2000. They began to offer modest Network commissions to provide all its members with access to new plays of quality.
NPNN’s Four Core Values
NEW PLAYS are vital to the cultural health of our communities and our nation. PLAYWRIGHTS who speak with unique, essential and influential voices deserve to be championed. DIVERSITY across all definitions, throughout our Network and its members, strengthens us and the field. COLLABORATION at all levels and amongst all parties is indispensable to the creation of new plays.
Rolling World Premiere
2003-04
CLNPF supports three or more theaters which choose to mount the same new play within a 12-month period. The playwright develops a new work with at least three different creative teams, for three different communities of patrons, and the play attains the momentum it needs to join the repertoire of frequentlyproduced new American works. NNPN provides grants of $7,000 to each participating theater.
Pilot of the Continued Life of New Plays Fund
The premiere of Permanent Collection at InterAct Theatre Company, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2003)
Tom Gibbons’ play Permanent Collection marked the pilot of the Continued Life of New Plays Fund (CLNPF), a program created by then-NNPN Executive Director Jason Loewith. CLNPF has expanded significantly since then with such initiatives as the MFA Playwrights Workshop program, a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Playwright and Producer Residencies, the foundation of a permanent headquarters in Washington D.C., and a Collaborative Literary Office.
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I really believe our lives are changed in rooms, across tables, in that sort of intimacy. None of this was as schematic as it sounds now, but the idea was, ‘How would a dinner party change six people’s lives?’” — Steven Dietz
June 24, 2009
August 16, 2009
First pages of what will become Rancho Mirage (originally The Dahner Party) written
First draft completed
Pictured are comments from Dietz’s notebook. The play underwent multiple revisions over the course of four years, changing from what he describes as “a big, dumb, snarky farce... to having real people do some outlandish things.”
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I’m never so happy as when I can start rewriting my play. When I finally generate the first draft, I just relax. Because now I just get to rewrite it. That’s what I really want to do.” — Steven Dietz
February 28, 2010
May 20, 2011
Revised working draft of The Dahner Party completed for Steppenwolf Theatre staged reading
Dietz’s play becomes Rancho Mirage.
Staged Readings
Various drafts of Dietz’s play were read at theaters nationwide. Dietz used the staged readings to gauge audience reaction, pose questions about character and plot, and observe his story onstage. After Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago, the script traveled to: • City Theatre (Pittsburgh, PA) • ACT Theatre (Seattle, WA) • Trinity Repertory Company (Providence, RI) • Tennessee Repertory Theatre (Nashville, TN) • National New Play Network Showcase (Woolly Mammoth, Washington DC).
March 2013 Olney Theatre Center Announces NNPN Rolling World Premiere of Rancho Mirage Theatre Center 1 Olney Olney, Maryland
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Opens September 26
Repetory Theatre 2 New Watertown, Massachusetts Opens October 13
Theatre 3 Phoenix Indianapolis, Indiana Opens October 24
Theatre Company 4 Curious Denver, Colorado Opens October 31
Pictured is Rancho Mirage’s cross-country journey beginning at Olney Theatre Center in Maryland. The image was generated through HowlRound’s newplaymap.org.
August 26, 2013
September 9, 2013
Rehearsals begin at Olney
Revised draft for NNPN finished
“ Director Jason Loweith (left) and playwright Steven Dietz (right) at the first Olney Theatre Center read-through of Rancho Mirage.
It’s the actors job to make these people fully realized and believable human beings, and it’s my job to help with that, to support them and use all the actors’ good ideas, maximize their talents. My job is to sort of signal to the actors that I’m here to work, that the play is not fragile, this play is tough. You can kick it, switch it up, try different things.”
— Steven Dietz
September 26, 2013 Rancho Mirage premiers at Olney Theatre Center
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People inherently understand story... You’ve never heard a story from a friend, and you’re walking home and you turn to your friend and say, ‘Hey you know that story that Bill told in the kitchen? I wonder if that was a good story.’ You never say, ‘I wonder if that was a good story.’ Why? We have total faith, some certainty I think. We know a good story when we hear it. But writers forget that, writers think, ‘I wonder if this is a good story.’ Now it’s hard to get to it, it’s hard to make one. It’s the Holy Grail to me.”
— Steven Dietz