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August 2015 Eugene O’Neill’s Tao House Welcomes Artists in Residence By Jody Morgan
In 2014, the Eugene O’Neill Foundation Tao House (EOF) announced a three-year pilot offering EOF had been hoping to launch since its founding forty years earlier. This spring, the Travis Bogard Artist-in-Residence Program, Tao House (AIR), welcomed the first two Tao House Fellows: David Palmer and Herman Farrell. A third, Adrienne Pender, arrives in September to work on the Danville property where O’Neill completed his final, and many experts believe great- Herman Farrell thanks EOF for the opportunity to be an est, plays. All were chosen Artist-in Residence at Tao House (photo courtesy of EOF). from a pool of highly qualified applicants by a panel of experts in the fields of scholarship and drama. America’s only Nobel Prize winning playwright, O’Neill, along with his third wife Carlotta, purchased 158 acres and built the home they called ‘Tao House” where they resided from 1937-1944. Sited with unbroken views of Mount Diablo to the east and sheltered by the Las Trampas hills to the west, the retreat gave O’Neill the serene setting he required to transform tragic personal experiences into epic dramas. Carlotta honored her husband’s request for privacy by reinforcing the natural seclusion of Tao House with a stringent set of social prohibitions. During his Danville days, Eugene penned The Iceman Cometh, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Hughie, A Touch of the Poet and Long Day’s Journey into Night, the play for which he was posthumously awarded his fourth Pulitzer Prize. “I cannot begin to express how pleased the committee is with the way AIR is working,” remarks Florence McAuley, Chair of the AIR Committee. “It is everything we wanted and more. The fellows have felt that Tao House is a special place and the atmosphere is conducive to the creative process.” Both Fellows working at Tao House this spring concurred that the experience exceeded their expectations. David Palmer notes: “The Artist in Residence Program at Tao House is a unique opportunity to be in a place where an author did a significant body of work. By returning day after day at different times of day, I found broader ideas coming into focus. In the evening at Tao House I sensed the remoteness and loneliness that was part of what was driving O’Neill to complete the plays he wrote there.”
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Serving Alamo and Diablo National Night Out Comes to Alamo Plaza
Alamo Plaza is hosting its first National Night Out (NNO) event on Tuesday, August 4th from 4pm-6pm. There will be entertainment, live music, a treasure hunt in participating stores, visits from the local police and fire department, and much more. NNO is a community-police awareness-raising event that enhances the relationship between neighbors and law enforcement while bringing back a true sense of community.
Twenty Questions: How Well do You Know Alamo? Answer and Win! By Sharon Burke
How well do you know Alamo? Just for fun, I put together twenty questions to test your knowledge of our town. Some of these answers can be found by “Googling” and some you can only find out if you’ve lived in Alamo a long, long time, or if you have a friend or neighbor who has lived here a long time. There's a reward! The winner of the quiz will receive two tickets to the San Francisco Giants vs. San Diego Padres game Friday night, September 11, at AT&T Park, Section 118, lower reserved box, valued at $56 each. Tickets will be awarded to the entrant with the most correct answers by August 15, 2015. If there are multiple entries with the same amount of correct answers a random drawing will be held from those entries. The fine print: Prize is tickets only, no cash substitution. Email your answers to editor@yourmonthlypaper.com on or before August 15, 2015. Answers will be printed in September’s Alamo Today. 1. This Spanish name is given to a ridgeline, an East Bay Regional Park, Alamo's highest peak in the Westside hills, and one of Alamo's oldest streets. What is the Spanish name, and what does it mean in Spanish? 2. What Alamo street is named after a football team? 3. What Olympic gold medalist lives in Alamo? 4. What early Alamo pioneer is Stone Valley Road and School named for? 5. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, Alamo’s Elegant Bib Restaurant drew customers from all over the county. What is now located on the former site of the Elegant Bib? 6. What agricultural innovation took place in Alamo in 1873, leading to the creation of a major industry in California? 7. What Native American tribe were the first residents of Alamo? 8. What year did the last freight train run down the railroad tracks which became the Iron Horse Trail? 9. Alamo has three school districts and two fire districts, name them. 10. What was the original purpose Volume XV - Number 8 of the building that houses Cherubini’s? 3000F Danville Blvd. #117, 11. Originally a stagecoach road Alamo, CA 94507 Telephone (925) 405-NEWS, 405-6397 from Martinez to San Jose, Danville Fax (925) 406-0547 Boulevard was known as the Alamo Highway for most of the 20th century. Alisa Corstorphine ~ Publisher Editor@yourmonthlypaper.com It was a California state highway before Sharon Burke ~ Writer 680 was built. What number was this The opinions expressed herein belong to the writers, and do not necessarily reflect that of Alamo Today. Alamo Today state highway through Alamo?
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