Patrick Kennedy Phenomenological Theatre today announces Foreman At Fifty, a yearlong project at the New Wimbledon Theatre celebrating American avant garde theatre pioneer Richard Foreman’s 50th anniversary as a theatre maker.
The three plays Pain(t) (1974), Lava (1989) and Zomboid! (2006) cover unique periods in Foreman’s idiosyncratic career as he developed his complex, cerebral and deeply beautiful work on stage. New Wimbledon Theatre’s Time and Leisure Studio (previously New Wimbledon Studio) will become home to these works in March, July and December. Each production will be accompanied by a specially curated exhibition displaying Foreman’s notebooks, designs and production photography.
Critically acclaimed avant garde auteur Patrick Kennedy said, “I’m delighted to bring three extraordinary and enigmatic works to the UK for the first time. Since 2014 my company has introduced Foreman to the UK theatre scene for the first time allowing audiences to experience his remarkable and celebrated genius. It’s particularly rewarding to have Richard Foreman’s personal approval for this season and I look forward to bringing the works to life in what has become our unofficial home at the New Wimbledon Theatre.”
Richard Foreman has been leading the theatrical avant-garde in the USA and throughout the world since 1968, when he founded the Ontological-Hysteric Theater in New York City. He has written, directed and designed more than fifty of his own plays both in NYC and abroad. He has received numerous OBIE awards, a Lifetime Achievement in the Theater Award from the National Endowment for the Arts and a MacArthur ‘Genius’ Fellowship amongst other notable citations. His new collection of plays PLAYS FOR THE PUBLIC will be published in January.
