Biography
1937
Born June 10 in New York City
Education
1959
B.A. Brown University (Magna cum Laude)
1962
M.F.A. (Playwriting) Yale Drama School
1993
Honorary Doctorate Brown University
1968-current
Founder Director, Ontological-Hysteric Theater
Richard Foreman has written, directed and designed over fifty of his own plays both in New York City and abroad. Five of his plays have received "OBIE" awards as best play of the year-and he has received five other "OBIE'S" for directing and for 'sustained achievement'. He has received the annual Literature award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a "Lifetime Achievement in the Theater" award from the National Endowment for the Arts, the PEN Club Master American Dramatist Award, a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship, and in 2004 was elected officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of France. His archives and work materials have recently been acquired by the Bobst Library at NYU.
Foreman is the founder and artistic director of the non-profit Ontological-Hysteric Theater (1968-present). Since the early seventies his work and company have been funded by the NEA, NYSCA, as well as many other foundations and private individuals. In the early 1980s a branch of the theater was established in Paris and funded by the French government. The theater is currently located in the historic St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery in New York City's East Village neighborhood, and serves as a home to Foreman's annual productions as well as to other local and international artists._
Foreman's plays have been co-produced by such organizations as The New York Shakespeare Festival, La Mama, The Wooster Group and the Festival d'Autumn in Paris and the Vienna Festival. He has collaborated (as librettist and stage director) with composer Stanley Silverman on 8 music theater pieces produced by The Music Theater Group & The New York City Opera. He wrote and directed the feature film, Strong Medicine. He has also directed and designed many classical productions with major theaters around the world including, Three Penny Opera, The Golem and plays by Havel, Botho Strauss, and Susan Laurie Parks for The New York Shakespeare Festival, Die Fledermaus at the Paris opera, Don Giovanni at the Opera de Lille, Philip Glass's Fall of the House of Usher at the American Repertory Theater and The Maggio Musicale in Florence, Woyzeck at Hartford Stage Company, Don Juan at the Gutherie Theater and The New York Shakespeare Festival, Kathy Acker's Birth of the Poet at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the RO theater in Rotterdam, Gertrude Stein's Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights at the Autumn Festivals in Berlin and Paris. Seven collections of his plays have already been published, and books studying his work have been published in New York, Paris, Berlin and Tokyo.
Prizes and Awards
2004
Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of France
2001
PEN/Laura Pels Master American Playwright Award
1995-2000
MacArthur Fellowship
1996
Edwin Booth Award for Theatrical Achievement
1992 & 1995
NEA Playwriting Fellowship
1992
American Accademy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award in Literature
1990
NEA Distinguished Artist Fellowship for Lifetime Achievement in Theater
1990
Ford Foundation play development grant for "Eddie Goes to Poetry City"
1974
Rockerfeller Foundation Playwrights Grant
1972
Guggenheim for Playwriting
9 Village Voice "OBIEs", (including 3 for Best play, and one for Lifetime Achievement)