Director of Development

Eugene O’Neill Theater Center via TOC Arts Partners

Waterford, CT 06385

Rolling

Mar 19, 2026

The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, one of the American theater’s most celebrated homes for artistic creation, seeks a new Director of Development.

This is a significant opportunity for a dynamic fundraising leader, with a deep passion for new work development, to join a committed team and bring the organization’s contributed income generation to the next level. Based in Waterford, Connecticut, the organization seeks a candidate who will become an active member of the O’Neill community both locally, throughout the region, and nationally, deepening some of the O’Neill’s most important philanthropic relationships.

They will be an organized communicator and manager, well‑versed in individual donor cultivation and solicitation, and knowledgeable about working with Boards. Building a robust annual development plan, furthering event strategy, and overseeing institutional giving processes will be integral components of this position. While they will have the chance to honor the distinguished legacy of the O’Neill, they will also need to be forward‑thinking, eager to investigate how to attract new donors and engage the community in meaningful ways.

With offices overlooking the Long Island Sound, the O’Neill maintains a dedicated year‑round staff of 30, including the Director of Development and two other development staff members. This team works diligently in the fall, winter, and spring to prepare for each annual summer gathering, when the staff size grows to more than 100 artists, faculty, and seasonal staff, and the organization welcomes thousands of audience members.

Nearly each week of the summer offers a new conference dedicated to artistic evolution, teaching, learning, and creative advancement, allowing audiences and supporters to engage with a unique aspect of the new work development process in a way that few institutions provide. The Director of Development will be a central figure in orchestrating those experiences at the O’Neill, and ensuring supporters at all levels understand the enormous value of fueling artistic discovery and nurturing the most inventive artists of the time.

Mission:
In the pioneering spirit of its namesake, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center discovers, develops, and empowers new work, new voices, and creative risk‑taking. By introducing innovative artists, essential to broadening the national cultural landscape, the O’Neill serves as the Launchpad of the American Theater. Each of their five summer conferences is led by its own dedicated Artistic Director, all of whom are leaders in their respective fields and work in partnership with Executive Director Tiffani Gavin.

Founded in 1964 by George

C. White and named in honor of Eugene O’Neill, four‑time Pulitzer Prize‑winner and America’s only playwright to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, the O'Neill has launched some of the most important voices and works in American theater and has revolutionized the way new work is developed. O’Neill programs include the National Playwrights Conference, National Music Theater Conference, National Critics Institute, National Puppetry Conference, Cabaret & Performance Conference, National Theater Institute – which offers six credit‑earning undergraduate training programs – and more.

From its campus in Waterford, Connecticut, the O’Neill has been home to more than 1,000 new works for the stage and thousands more emerging artists. Writers, directors, puppeteers, singers, students, and audiences alike take their first steps in exploring, revising, and understanding their work and the potential of the theater they help create. All focus remains on the writer and script:
Performers work with simply rendered sets and costumes, script in hand, revealing for the first time the magic of a new play or musical, puppetry piece, or cabaret act.

Scores of projects developed at the O’Neill have gone on to full production at theaters around the world, and work first performed at the O'Neill has gone on to regional theaters, Broadway, film, and television. The…