When Hygienic Art, Connecticut College and the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center decided to collaborate on a project to demonstrate various artists' interpretations of O'Neill's life and work, they decided to repaint the author's New London boyhood home, Monte Cristo, on Pequot Street. Just kidding. If anyone's going to volunteer to repaint a dwelling, please consider my peeling abode.

Anyway, in the meantime, "Eugene O'Neill: Artists Interpret His Life and Work" is an actual exhibition opening Saturday in New London's Hygienic Galleries. The show is timed to coincide not just with the 50th anniversary of the O'Neill Theater in Waterford, but also the June gathering there of the scholar-clustered Ninth International Conference of the Eugene O'Neill Society. The exhibit kicks off with an artists' reception from 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday and runs through June 28. The Hygienic is at 79-83 Bank St., New London. Hours 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Thurs., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Fri. and Sat., and noon-3 p.m. Sun.; (860) 443-8001, hygienic.org.