Founded in 1970, the O'Neill's National Theater Institute provides credit-earning training across multiple theatrical disciplines.
The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's National Theater Institute’s immersive semester-long and summer intensive training programs are designed to serve as enrichment for students at the gap-year, undergraduate, and postgraduate level. In addition, NTI offers support to theater departments of colleges and universities across the United States and serves as a resource for institutions that do not have drama departments.
The National Theater Institute believes that students can best learn their craft from working theater professionals who provide practical training and skill building for a long life in the profession. The training environment is a simulacrum to a professional schedule, allowing students to build habits and discover the ways in which they work best.
The key to the National Theater Institute experience is the realization of theory through practice, where emerging artists are challenged, nurtured, and supported by faculty mentors. It is a time of exploration and self-discovery. The ultimate aim is that all National Theater Institute alumni will utilize the self-awareness, connections, and many skills gained at the O’Neill to the benefit of their professional careers.
PROGRAMS
NTI SEMESTER
13 WEEKS 16-20 CREDITS​
THEATERMAKERS
SUMMER INTENSIVE
6 WEEKS 8 CREDITS
MISSION & VALUES
The National Theater Institute is a program of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and, as such, shares the O’Neills mission and values.
EUGENE O'NEILL THEATER CENTER MISSION
In the pioneering spirit of its namesake, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center discovers, develops, and empowers new work, new voices, and creative risk-taking. By introducing innovative artists, essential to broadening the national cultural landscape, the O’Neill serves as the Launchpad of the American Theater.
EUGENE O'NEILL THEATER CENTER VALUES
Discovery: We commit to the discovery of new and daring voices, vital to the future of American theater, through rigorous and direct outreach in our open submission process, and the curation of our artistic programs.
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Diversity: Our community strives to honor the experiences, abilities, heritage, and expression of all artists, faculty, students, and staff. Within our artistry and administration, we pledge to empower a full range of individual identities.
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Collaboration: We endeavor to provide time and space for artistic collisions, bold risk-taking, and deep reflection by all of our artists.
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Risk. Fail. Risk Again: These words ring out from every rehearsal room, performance space, classroom, office, and individual on the O’Neill’s campus. We encourage artistic impulse and exploration of the exchange between art and audience.
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Education: To be in the theater is to be a student for life. Whether one comes to the O’Neill early or the midst of their career, we work to offer a radically accepting space of mentorship, collaboration, and camaraderie.
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Community: The O’Neill’s legacy and artistry relies upon its engagement with the robust and vibrant local audiences. We create spaces and programming in support of one another, the Waterford community, and the American theater.
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The O’Neill's campus sits on the traditional lands of the Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, and Nehantic tribes. They honor and respect these nations, peoples, and their enduring relationship to this land.
EQUITY, DIVERSITY, & INCLUSION
The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center is committed to diversifying the future of the American theater through the stories we tell, the artists telling those stories, the staff supporting our work, and the audiences in our theaters. The O’Neill strives to cultivate a healthy and diverse community that recognizes the value of each individual and helps foster safety, civility, and respect for all people. All participants and employees in any O’Neill program, including students, staff, faculty, guests, and visitors, have the right to be free from sexual and gender-based discrimination, harassment, and violence and all other forms of prohibited conduct.