EN D A R EN D A R

98 Degrees at Libbey Bowl

August 17, Doors: 5 p.m.,

Headliner: 7 p.m.

210 S. Signal St.

Tickets: axs.com or call 888-645-5006

Queen Nation at Libbey Bowl

August 18, Doors: 5 p.m.,

Headliner: 7 p.m. 210 S. Signal St.

Tickets: axs.com or call 888-645-5006 entering its 25th year, ojai playwrights conference has been a beloved haven for emerging playwrights.

The conference’s mission is to “develop unproduced plays of artistic excellence from diverse writers both emerging and established, and to nurture a new generation of playwrights.”

When Producing Artistic Director Robert Egan stepped down after 20 years in the role, OPC was poised to embark on a new chapter. The change comes at a time when programs that “grapple with the important social, cultural, and political issues of our day” have never been more urgently needed.

We sat down with Jeremy B. Cohen, OPC’s new producing artistic director, to discuss his love of the theater and his vision for the conference and festival this summer.

Cohen, a nationally renowned director and playwright, comes to Ojai with an impressive list of accolades and awards. For the past 13 years, he’s served as producing artistic director at Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis. Before that, he spent seven years at Hartford Stage in Connecticut and was a founding member of Naked Eye Theatre Company in Chicago.

Cohen grew up on the East Coast in a single-family home. “The arts were not necessarily part of that whole thing,” he tells us, though he had some early experiences with the theater. Those performances stayed with him until he thought, “I want to stop my life and do nothing else but gather 500 people in a room to have a shared experience that I can help create.”

As founding artistic director of Naked Eye Theatre Company, Cohen developed and directed over 15 plays, including several premieres. “It was all about elevating women playwrights,” he says. “Looking at sustainability and compensation practices, and more plays by women, not just developing them, but moving them into production. That was critical. And then, doing it with BIPOC writers as well.”

In the 2000s, he became associate artistic director and director of new work at Hartford Stage. “It was amazing, and I learned I not only wanted to make work, but I wanted to support other artists making work, especially those who had been traditionally disallowed practice or resource or opportunity,” he says. “So, more marginalized communities. It became a central part of my practice because I did a lot of activism.”