In an unexpected move, J Ranelli has resigned as artistic director of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center a little more than half a year after he was named to the post at the 40-year-old Waterford, Conn., institution, it was announced on Monday. In a press release, O'Neill board chairman Tom Viertel cited "personal reasons" for Ranelli's abrupt departure.
"We don't know any more than that at this time," said John Pike, the center's press and marketing consultant. "And we will start a national search for his replacement shortly." Richard Kuranda, the O'Neill's artistic associate and producer of the current Playwrights and Music Theater conferences, will serve as the center's interim artistic director.
Pike added, "J Ranelli's departure in no way affects the upcoming performance schedule. In fact, J's work for the season was completed more than two weeks ago." He went on to praise Ranelli's accomplishments, including the planning of the current season and, in particular, the integration of the Playwrights Conference and the Music Theater Conference, which "has created a cross-pollination that we've never had here before. Up until this season, the two conferences were scheduled a month apart."
Ranelli, who participated in the institution's founding, was the O'Neill's first resident artistic director, with jurisdiction over all of the center's programs, and as such he represented an attempt to forge a unifying vision under which all the various programs would function. As reported last December, Ranelli was appointed one month after the sudden resignation of James Houghton, who had served as artistic director of the Playwrights Conference since 1999.
Ranelli came on board -- and Houghton departed -- in the midst of several controversies, not least Houghton's decision to suspend the Playwrights Conference's open submissions policy. Houghton cited the high administrative costs as grounds for his decision, which caused a brouhaha among theatre insiders. By mid-January, Ranelli had reversed Houghton's decision. According to Pike, this year more than 800 plays were submitted and read under the restored open submissions policy.
The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center is a learning community dedicated to advancing the American theatre through programs such as the Playwrights and Music Theater conferences, the Puppetry Conference, the Critics Institute, and the National Theater Institute, a college-accredited training program for theatre artists.