Eugene O’Neill Wrote His Final, Great Plays in the San Ramon Valley

Beginning in the twenties, Eugene O’Neill wrote plays which dealt with profound issues in revolutionary ways and changed American Theater forever. The fact that he wrote his final, great plays — including Long Day’s Journey Into Night — while living in Danville, California, is quite extraordinary.  The area was far from his East Coast roots and friends, but it did provide the solitude he needed to write.

O’Neill received the Nobel Prize for Literature (the only American dramatist to be so recognized) and three Pulitzer Prizes. According to professor Travis Bogard, “the playwright was understood to be not only an innovative and exciting writer, but a dramatist of world power, worthy of universal acclaim.”

O’Neill wrote this about his home at Tao House:

It is absolute country…without a taint of suburbia…yet only three-quarters of an hour motor ride from Frisco. We have a (beautiful) site in the hills of the San Ramon Valley with one of the most beautiful views I’ve ever seen.  This is the final home and harbor for me.  I love California.  Moreover, the climate is one I know I can work and keep healthy in.

Today, the National Park Service manages the 15-acre Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site, Tao House.  Access is restricted via a private road.  To come to the house for a ranger-led tour on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday, call  925-228-8860, Option 3.  Regular self-guided tours are scheduled on Saturdaya at 10 am and 2pm. Visitors may go to the National Historic Site by taking the shuttle from the Museum of the San Ramon Valley, 205 Railroad Avenue, Danville.

 For more information from the National Park Service go to nps.gov/euon.  To support the site and artistic programming, contact the Eugene O’Neill Foundation, Tao House at eugeneoneill.org.