An Indispensable Theater Incubator Faces a Troubled Future

An Indispensable Theater Incubator Faces a Troubled Future

On a sun-kissed summer day at the Connecticut shore, some 200 people huddled in a darkened room. They had come to the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Conn., to hear “Dead Girl Quinceañera,” a new play by Phanésia Pharel. The story of a Miami teenager who goes missing during her own birthday party, the play was performed by four young actresses, their scripts propped atop metal music stands. When Pharel, a playwright newly sprung from…