Early Stages

Already the county’s main community theater town--both in terms of productions per capita and consistency of quality--Ojai is shaming larger communities in yet another way: The Ojai Playwrights Conference begins its second season next week, culminating in a weekend series of five plays, virtually all of which will make their public debuts after being worked out by the authors, directors and a company of nearly 30 actors.

Chris Fields, the conference’s artistic director, is coordinating with Dwier and Kim Maxwell Brown, founders of the local Theater 150.

The idea, he said, came in part from his knowledge of the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference in Waterford, Conn. (Robert Redford based Sundance on it), and a suggestion from playwright Rick Cleveland. “He said it wouldn’t work in L.A., that the playwrights wouldn’t want to be subjected to the pressures of an urban setting.”

Cleveland, who works with Fields in the L.A.-based Echo Theater Company, had gone to school with Dwier Brown; Fields had just been in Ojai on a vacation; and things came together fairly quickly.

Successfully, too: After last year’s conference, internationally known Christopher Durang’s “Betty’s Summer Vacation” was named an award-winning production by Playwrights Horizons in New York, and Cleveland’s “Danny Bouncing” went to Chicago.

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For the first time, the conference is offering open rehearsals. For a one-time fee of $10, you can watch as many of the plays being worked out by the playwright, actors and director as you want.

“We’re offering the audience the opportunity to watch the process from the inside,” Fields said. “It might crash and burn, but it has worked very well for the Actors Theater of Louisville. While the plays won’t be costumed or fully staged, there will be some movement in the productions rather than simply readings of the scripts. Another addition to this year’s program will be a series of discussions with the audience and participants after each performance.”

Among the playwrights will be John Quincy Long, whose characters in “Year of the Baby” are prone to burst into song; and Adam Rapp, recommended to Fields by Marsha Norman, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of “Night, Mother.”

Said Fields about Rapp: “The guy is just . . . different. Puts you in mind of Sam Shepard, Harold Pinter, but is totally Gen-X.”

The only playwright from the debut conference to return this year is Neena Beeber, whose theatrical career is bolstered by television work. She was head writer of the Nickelodeon series “Clarissa Explains It All,” currently writes for the MTV animated “Beavis and Butt-Head” spinoff “Daria” and is working on “Act Normal,” a live-action series for which Shaun Cassidy is executive producer.

Flying in from New York for the conference, Beeber will, like many other participants from out of town, stay with local friends of the conference while she works on “Hard Feelings.”

Beeber came to Fields’ attention because some of her plays were on what she calls “the reading circuit . . . [Fields] had started doing readings of my plays [at Echo] and I didn’t even know about it.”

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Last year, Beeber came in at the end of the conference. “I didn’t do any rewriting and didn’t participate in the rehearsals,” she said. Still, the play she debuted last year, “Tomorrowland,” was subsequently produced in Washington, D.C., and New York City. This year, she vows to “be in from the beginning.”

The new play’s director, Wendy Goldberg, was chosen by Beeber after Goldberg directed “Tomorrowland” in Washington, D.C. Because she and Beeber won’t be in town until Monday, the cast for her “Hard Feelings” has already been chosen and has been reading under Fields’ supervision.

“The actors will have heard the play more often by Monday than I have,” Beeber said with a laugh, adding, “I hope they haven’t memorized it, though; I intend to do a lot of rewriting.”

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Rehearsals will begin Tuesday in preparation for the Ojai Playwrights Conference, which runs July 23-25 at the Happy Valley School, 8585 Highway 150 in Ojai.

A limited number of passes for rehearsals will be available for $10. Adam Rapp’s “Finer Noble Gases” will be performed July 23 at 8 p.m. The July 24 program includes “The Room Plays” (for younger audiences) at noon; Heather Dundas’ “Rules for Cheaters” at 3 p.m.; and Kira Obolensky’s “Lobster Alice” at 8 p.m. On July 25, Neena Beeber’s “Hard Feelings” will be performed at 4 p.m., and John Quincy Long’s “Year of the Baby” at 7:30 p.m.

Each performance will be followed by a discussion among the playwright, director, cast and audience.

Tickets to each show are $10. Free children’s workshops, including theater games, will be held at the school July 24 and 25 between 9:30 and 11 a.m., by reservation only.

For reservations or more information, call the conference office at 640-0400.

Todd Everett can be reached at teverett@concentric.net.