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ArtPlace America and Theater of War Productions present
The Addiction Performance Project

The Addiction Performance Project is an innovative drug/alcohol abuse awareness/prevention project that presents dramatic readings of scenes from Eugene O'Neill's classic American play Long Day's Journey into Night as a catalyst for town hall discussions about drug/alcohol abuse and addiction as they affect individuals, caregivers, families, and communities. The Addiction Performance Project was originally developed in 2011 with the partnership and support of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Since then, it has toured widely throughout the United States—featuring award-winning actors such as Blythe Danner, Kathryn Erbe, Dianne Weist, Arliss Howard, and Zach Grenier—generating powerful, candid dialogue about drug/alcohol abuse and addiction.

Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night depicts the struggles of Mary Tyrone, a woman who abuses prescription painkillers and relapses into full-blown morphine addiction. It is also the story of how Mary's addiction rips her family apart, as her morphine use slowly becomes apparent to her husband and two sons. It is widely believed that Long Day's Journey into Night is an autobiographical play, and that the troubled characters in it are based on members of O'Neill's own family, including his mother, Ella, who struggled with morphine addiction for most of her life. O'Neill wrote the play for deep personal reasons, and the Addiction Performance Project presents the play to diverse audiences to elicit deep personal responses and candid discussion about drug/alcohol abuse and addiction.

SCENE at the Center, our small plates eatery, offers bar and food service two hours prior to most performances in Whitney Hall and the Bomhard Theater. Kitchen service ends as the curtain rises, but beverage service will continue throughout the performances and extend through midnight on Friday and Saturday nights.