DANVILLE, CALIF.: The Eugene O’Neill Foundation has named the recipients of the 2020 Tao House Fellows. The four selected artists will live near Tao House, a home and property owned by Eugene O’Neill from 1937 to 1944, from stays of a week up to a month. This year’s winners are Tira Palmquist, Erin K. Considine, Paul William Kruse, and Dan Venning.
Established in 2015, the artist in residence program offers fellows the opportunity to work without distraction. Fellows are provided with housing off-site and access to the Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site and the Tao House Library. Housing, meals, and local transportation are provided. As part of the residency program, the Eugene O’Neill Foundation also awards the Carey Perloff Fellowship to award a theatre artist interested in becoming a writer. The award honors Perloff, who was a 2017 Tao House Fellow.
Considine is an Atlanta-based actress/playwright. She has written for the theatre and television. Some of her stage works include Dragging Angels as They Go and Flaming Out, and stage credits include Into the Woods, Hamlet, and King Lear. Considine is the first recipient of the Carey Perloff Artist in Residence Fellowship.
Palmquist is a playwright whose works include The Way North, which won two honorable mentions for appearing on the 2019 Kilroys List. The Way North was also a finalist in the 2018 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. Palmquist will work on a new play, The Body’s Midnight, while at Tao House.
Kruse writes, teaches, and films in western Wisconsin. The New York Times describes his work as having humor, heart, and an elegant, deceptive surface simplicity. He will be finishing a documentary performance. Kruse is currently a fellow at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Austin.
Venning is an assistant professor of theatre and English at Union College in Schenectady, New York. As a Tao House artist in residence, Venning plans to do scholarly research and write an article about O’Neill’s first Pulitzer Prizes, awarded for Beyond the Horizon and Anna Christie.
Theatre artists can apply for the 2021 residencies here.
