The Monte Cristo Cottage: Boyhood Home of Eugene O’Neill

In 1981, I created a 2-projector slide-show as an orientation show for the Monte Cristo Cottage, the boyhood home of the great American playwright Eugene O’Neill. The cottage, in New London, Connecticut, served as the inspiration and setting for several O’Neill plays including Long Day’s Journey Into Night. The show introduces visitors to the early life and works of O’Neill, his troubled family relationships, and the role the cottage played in his dramas.
Over the years, the original slide show was transferred to video, and then copies were made. The production suffered in quality in the generations of duplication.
Finally, after 38 years, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center asked me to re-create the show digitally. I had to work with the original soundtrack as several of the all-star actors who narrated the film and played parts in it had passed away. I found a lab in England that could transfer the original 8-track master sound tape to digital files for me to use.
I re-photographed almost all the visuals. I used the power of modern digital production software (Adobe PhotoShop and Premiere Pro) to bring the cottage and O’Neill’s story to life in ways I could not dream of in 1981. The result is a far more layered, textured and compelling presentation.
It is rare for an artist to have a chance, after almost four decades, to truly re-imagine an earlier work. This project gave me that chance.
The original production won a Grand Prize “AMI” Award for Best Documentary at the Association of Multi-Image International Festival in 1982. I hope this new version will last 38 years! If it does, it may be the longest-running orientation show in history.

[@stephaniestanley8041]

I'm writing a one act play featuring O'Neill. This research will help me show him in an honest light. This is a complete and haunting bio of the greatest playwright of the 20th century. Thank you Todd.

[@gipstein]

You are welcome. Glad my film could be of help. I hope it will be shown at the Cottage as an orientation show (as was th eversion I did in 1981) when it opens again. Good luck with the project. Keep me posted.