Plays and musicals performed at the O'Neill

The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center is astonishingly, enjoyably busy every summer.

Consider what's going on this week:

The center's National Music Theater Conference continues, giving two musicals staged readings.

Going up Friday night is "String," a musical with book by Sarah Hammond, and lyrics and music by Adam Gwon. Here's the description: "A workaholic Greek god gets tangled up with a security guard in the basement of the tallest building in the world. One mistake leads to another ... and soon Atropos is breaking her own rules to offer forever to an ordinary man."

On Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday, the musical "A Good Man" is in the spotlight. The piece, with book and lyrics by Philip S. Goodman and music by Ray Leslee, is set in post-WWII Mississippi. A black sharecropper makes a simple decision - to paint his tenant house white - that sets off significant drama.

The O'Neill's fabled National Playwrights Conference begins its staged readings Wednesday with "Provenance" by Anne García-Romero. Two sisters living in California get a stolen painting created by their Mexican grandfather - and they struggle to figure out whether to keep it or sell it to survive.

And National Theater Institute undergrads give their own performance Monday night.

- KRISTINA DORSEY

O'Neill performances, Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, 305 Great Neck Road, Waterford; "String," 7 p.m. Fri.; "A Good Man," 8 p.m. Sat. and Wed. and 3 p.m. Sun.; "Provenance," 8:15 p.m. Wed.; free Theatermakers NTI performance, 7 p.m. Mon.; $28, with discounts for members; (860) 443-1238.