Brustein will be honored with the award for his work in the American theatre as a critic, author, playwright, educator, actor and director. Over the years Brustein, who was the founder of Boston's American Repertory Theatre, has served as director of the Loeb Drama Center, dean at Yale University and as a professor and director at Harvard University.

He was also responsible for bringing productions of Wings, The 1940's Radio Hour, Grown Ups, 'night, Mother, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Big River, Mastergate and The Old Neighborhood to Broadway.

The Tao House Award was previously bestowed upon Edward Hastings, founding member and former executive and artistic director of the American Conservatory Theatre.

The O'Neill International Conference will also acknowledge Stephen Black, professor emeritus of English at Simon Fraser University and author of "Eugene O'Neill: Beyond Mourning and Tragedy"; and Jackson Bryer, professor emeritus of English at the University of Maryland and author of several books on O'Neill and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The O'Neill International Conference is a five-day event focused on the work of award-winning playwright Eugene O'Neill. Sponsored by the Eugene O'Neill Foundation and the National Park Service, the conference incorporates various events at O'Neill's Tao House estate in Danville, CA. O'Neill's Pulitzer Prize-winning dramas, Long Day's Journey Into Night and A Moon for the Misbegotten, were penned at Tao House.