NYC Arts: The Complete Guide to Art and Culture

Part of the arts complex at St. Mark’s Church in the East Village, the Ontological-Hysteric Theatre presents a wide range of irreverent performances on its small stage.  Founded in 1968 by Richard Foreman, the theater seeks to strip the theater bare of everything but the static tension of interpersonal relations in space.

Five of Foreman's 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 and a "Lifetime Achievement in the Theater" award from the National Endowment for the Arts among many others.

Significant past productions have included My Renaisance Faire Lady, by Evan Cabnet and Richard Foreman’s Maria Del Bosco: A Sound Opera (Sex & Racing Cars) which was performed for sixteen weeks.

OHT also nurtures  a new generation of theater artists by showcasing their work. In 2005, the OHT thoroughly revamped its programs for emerging artists by starting the Ontological-Hysteric Incubator.  The INCUBATOR is programming which guides artists from workshop phases to fully realized productions. The INCUBATOR houses artists follow in the compositional theater footsteps of Foreman, but have their ownaesthetic strategies for tracing out the Ontological-Hysteric Theater's aim of unsettling perception and disorienting understanding.