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85-641: Foreman has written, directed and designed over fifty of his own plays, both in New York City and abroad. He has received three Obie Awards for Best Play of the Year, and received four other Obies for directing and for sustained achievement. Foreman has received the annual Literature Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters , a "Lifetime Achievement in the Theater" award from

170-846: A choreographer, performer, painter, sculptor, video artist , and sound and lighting designer . Wilson is best known for his collaboration with Philip Glass and Lucinda Childs on Einstein on the Beach , and his frequent collaborations with Tom Waits . In 1991, Wilson established The Watermill Center , "a laboratory for performance" on the East End of Long Island , New York, regularly working with opera and theater companies, as well as cultural festivals. Wilson "has developed as an avant-garde artist specifically in Europe amongst its modern quests, in its most significant cultural centers, galleries, museums, opera houses and theaters, and festivals". Wilson

255-456: A fifteen-minute wordless prolog. Holmberg describes these works stating, Language does many things and does them well. But we tend to shut our eyes to what language does not do well. Despite the arrogance of words – they rule traditional theatre with an iron fist – not all experience can be translated into a linguistic code. Celebrated twentieth century playwright Eugène Ionesco said that Wilson "surpassed Beckett " because "[Wilson's] silence

340-553: A freshman, he starred as Willie Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman , receiving much acclaim, despite his later stated antipathy for Miller’s work. Later at Brown, Foreman founded the Production Workshop , Brown University's student theatre group, while taking part in other student theater productions. In 1993, Brown presented him with an honorary doctorate. At Yale, Foreman studied under John Gassner ,

425-460: A full-scale model of each prop be constructed before the final one is made, in order "to check proportion, balance, and visual relationships" on stage. Once he has approved the model, the crew builds the prop, and Wilson is "renowned for sending them back again and again and again until they satisfy him". He is so strict in his attention to detail that when Jeff Muscovin, his technical director for Quartett , suggested they use an aluminum chair with

510-401: A goddess who had been standing in the same spot for a thousand years". Allowing an actor to have such stage presence without ever saying a word is very provocative, which is precisely what Wilson means to accomplish with any sense of movement he puts on the stage. Wilson believes that "the most important part of theatre" is light. He is concerned with how images are defined onstage, and this

595-474: A learning how to look at 'A' and 'B' and see not them but a relation that cannot be 'seen.' You can't look at 'it' (that relation) because it IS the looking itself. That's where he looking (you) is, doing the looking." Davy points out that "by eliminating internal punctuation in long complicated sentences," Stein's writing produces a similar effect for her readers who have to actively take part in discerning Stein's words. The Ontological-Hysteric Theater (OHT)

680-468: A playwright. She abandoned the theatrical conventions of narrative structure in favor of a theatrical experience that focuses on the real-time consciousness—one in which "the spectator can move 'out' of the composition, or stop, at any moment without creating syncopated emotional time." Foreman's theatrical experiences invoke Stein's theories in that they both abandon narrative, focusing on the here-and-now, and they seem to include Foreman's "process of making

765-625: A profound impact on Foreman. In The Lower East Side Biography Project documentary, Foreman states, "those [films] really got to me. I thought this is the most poetic, beautiful, creative art that I've seen Americans producing." Foreman claims that, for a long time, he was too shy to introduce himself to Judith Malina and Julian Beck (the founders of The Living Theatre) or to Jonas Mekas, but fascinated by Mekas' work, Foreman and his wife, Kate Manheim , began following Mekas as he filmed various projects in New York. Foreman finally inserted himself into

850-496: A renowned autistic poet, has allowed Wilson to attack language from many views. Wilson embraces this by often "juxtaposing levels of diction – Miltonic opulence and contemporary ling, crib poetry and pre-verbal screams" in an attempt to show his audience how elusive language really is and how ever-changing it can be. Visually showing words is another method Wilson uses to show the beauty of language. Often his set designs, program covers, and posters are graffiti'd with words. This allows

935-676: A residency at the television channel LAB HD . Since then Wilson, with producer Esther Gordon and later with Matthew Shattuck, has produced dozens of high-definition videos known as the Voom Portraits . Collaborators on this well-received project included the composer Michael Galasso , the late artist and designer Eugene Tsai, fashion designer Kevin Santos, and lighting designer Urs Schönebaum. In addition to celebrity subjects, sitters have included royalty, animals, Nobel Prize winners and hobos. In 2011, Wilson designed an art park dedicated to

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1020-450: A series of performances, conversations, film screenings, and discussions. The centerpiece of the residency is a room filled with objects from the artist's personal collection in New York, including African masks, a Shaker chair, ancient Chinese ceramics, shoes worn by Marlene Dietrich and a photo of Wilson and Glass taken in the early 1980s by Robert Mapplethorpe . Wilson lives in New York. As of 2000, he estimated that he "spends 10 days

1105-433: A single category titled "Performance." There are no announced nominations. Awards in the past have included performance , direction , best production, design , special citations, and sustained achievement. Not every category is awarded every year. The Village Voice also awards annual Obie grants to selected companies; in 2011, these grants were $ 2,000 each to Metropolitan Playhouse and Wakka Wakka Productions . There

1190-474: A span of only ninety minutes. He is a perfectionist, persisting to achieve every aspect of his vision. A fifteen-minute monolog in Quartett took two days for him to light while a single hand gesture took nearly three hours. This attention to detail expresses his conviction that, "light is the most important actor on stage." In a conversation with theater expert Octavian Saiu , Wilson was asked whether he

1275-458: A theater collective in 1968 called "A Bunch of Experimental Theaters of New York Inc," which included seven theater companies: Mabou Mines , The Manhattan Project, Meredith Monk/The House , The Performance Group , The Ridiculous Theatrical Company, Section Ten, and Foreman's company, Ontological-Hysteric Theatre. From this point on, Foreman began producing works under the moniker "Ontological-Hysteric." A number of scholars have called attention to

1360-443: A wood skin rather than a completely wooden chair, Wilson replied: No, Jeff, I want wood chairs. If we make them out of aluminum, they won't sound right when they fall over and hit the floor. They'll sound like metal, not wood. It will sound false. Just make sure you get strong wood. And no knots. Such attention to detail and perfectionism usually resulted in an expensive collection of props. "Curators regard them as sculptures" and

1445-445: A year at his apartment in New York". For many years he was romantically involved with Andy de Groat , a dancer and choreographer with whom he collaborated in the 1970s. Wilson is known for pushing the boundaries of theater. His works are noted for their austere style, very slow movement, and often extreme scale in space or in time. The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin was a 12-hour performance, while KA MOUNTain and GUARDenia Terrace

1530-455: Is "the only major director to get billing as a lighting designer" and is recognized by some as "the greatest light artist of our time". He designs with light to be flowing rather than an off-and-on pattern, thus making his lighting "like a musical score." Wilson's lighting designs feature "dense, palpable textures" and allow "people and objects to leap out from the background. In his design for Quartett , Wilson used four hundred light cues in

1615-401: Is a $ 2,000 grant awarded to a theatre that nurture innovative new plays. Previous recipients include: Robert Wilson (director) Robert Wilson (born October 4, 1941) is an American experimental theater stage director and playwright who has been described by The New York Times as "[America]'s – or even the world's – foremost vanguard 'theater artist. ' " He has also worked as

1700-457: Is a play without a plot, it produces its own kind of structure of "thematic webs of visual and verbal ideas and references." Foreman achieves this visual structure through "picturization.' By picturization, Kirby means that Foreman's staging is presented as "sequences of static pictures" in which the actors adjust themselves into tableaux as opposed to moving continuously throughout the play. Kirby also notes that Foreman makes use of written text that

1785-419: Is a silence that speaks". This silence onstage may be unnerving to audience members but serves a purpose of showing how important language is by its absence. It is Wilson's means of answering his own question: "Why is it no one looks? Why is it no one knows how to look? Why does no one see anything on stage?" Another technique Wilson uses is that of what words can mean to a particular character. His piece, I

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1870-432: Is also a Ross Wetzsteon Grant, named after its former theater editor, in the amount of $ 2,000 (in 2009; in 2011 the grant was $ 1,000), for a theatre that nurtures innovative new plays. The first awards in 1955-1956 for plays and musicals were given to Absalom (Lionel Abel) as Best New Play, Uncle Vanya , Best All-Around Production and The Threepenny Opera as Best Musical. Other awards for off-Broadway theatre are

1955-435: Is disturbed by the fact that his style is often imitated. His response was that "the world is a library", and therefore every artist is free to borrow from other artists. Wilson's interest in design extends to the props in his productions, which he designs and sometimes participates in constructing. Whether it is furniture, a light bulb, or a giant crocodile, Wilson treats each as a work of art in its own right. He demands that

2040-445: Is interpreting a text. They worry about how to speak words and know nothing about their bodies. You see that by the way they walk. They don't understand the weight of a gesture in space. A good actor can command an audience by moving one finger. This emphasis on silence is fully explored in some of his works. Deafman Glance is a play without words, and his adaptation of Heiner Müller 's play Quartet  [ de ] contained

2125-414: Is projected on screens on the set. These projected words, Kirby describes, are both direct addresses to the spectator and "expository information". Kirby also writes about how Foreman literally controlled the pace and tempo of every performance of "Sophia." During the performance, Foreman would sit at a table in front of the stage, controlling the projections and sound cues. By acting as stage manager, Foreman

2210-476: Is related to the light of an object or tableau. He feels that the lighting design can really bring the production to life. The set designer for Wilson's the CIVIL warS , Tom Kamm, describes his philosophy: "a set for Wilson is a canvas for the light to hit like paint." He explains, "If you know how to light, you can make shit look like gold. I paint, I build, I compose with light. Light is a magic wand." Wilson

2295-951: The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao . His tribute to Isamu Noguchi was exhibited at the Seattle Art Museum and his Voom Portraits exhibition traveled to Hamburg, Milan, Miami, and Philadelphia. In 2012, Times Square Arts invited Wilson to show selections from his three-minute video portraits on more than twenty digital screens that lined Times Square. In 2013 he participated at the White House Biennial / Thessaloniki Biennale 4. He collaborated with artist Bettina WitteVeen on an exhibition space based on her photography book "Sacred Sister." The book consisted of photos of women that WitteVeen captured in Indonesia and Southeast Asia in 1995. The exhibition space

2380-1056: The Lucille Lortel Awards , the Drama Desk Awards , the Drama League Award , and the Outer Critics Circle Awards . In September 2014, the American Theatre Wing joined the Village Voice as co-presenters, with the Wing having "overall responsibility for running" the Awards. In 2021, the Wing took over as sole presenter of the Obie Awards. Obie Grants are awarded each year to select theatre companies. Previous recipients include: Ross Wetzsteon Award

2465-901: The National Endowment for the Arts , the PEN American Center Master American Dramatist Award, a MacArthur Fellowship , and in 2004 was elected an officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of France. Foreman's archives and work materials have been acquired by the Fales Library at New York University (NYU). Richard Foreman was born in New York City, but spent many of his formative years in Scarsdale, New York. At Scarsdale High School (SHS), from which he graduated in 1955, Foreman

2550-1039: 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, Molière's Don Juan at the Guthrie 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 Doctor Faustus Lights

2635-544: The Paula Cooper Gallery , Wilson's storyboards were described by one critic as "serial art, equivalent to the slow-motion tempo of [Wilson's] theatrical style. In drawing after drawing after drawing, a detail is proposed, analyzed, refined, redefined, moved through various positions." He won the Golden Lion at the 1993 Venice Biennale for a sculptural installation. In 2004, Ali Hossaini offered Wilson

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2720-560: The Vienna Festival . Foreman has collaborated (as librettist and stage director) with composer Stanley Silverman on eight music theater pieces produced by The Music Theater Group and The New York City Opera . He has also directed and designed many classical productions with major theaters around the world including, The Threepenny Opera , The Golem and plays by Václav Havel , Botho Strauss , and Suzan-Lori Parks for The New York Shakespeare Festival , Die Fledermaus at

2805-400: The "continuous present." Stein's method of writing is meditative practice that requires the writer's "deliberate detachment of oneself from the external world while documenting one's own consciousness in the act of writing." Therefore, this type of writing is said to reflect the workings of the writer's mind in its presentation. Stein adopted this theory of the "continuous present" to her work as

2890-551: The 1990s: Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights (1992), Four Saints in Three Acts (1996), and Saints and Singing (1998). Wilson considers language and, down to its very ingredients, words, as a sort of "a social artifact". Not only does language change with time but it changes with person, with culture. Using his experience of working with mentally handicapped children and enlisting the collaboration of Christopher Knowles ,

2975-461: The 2014 ceremony, the American Theatre Wing became the joint presenter and administrative manager of the Obie Awards. The Obie Awards are considered off-Broadway's highest honor, similar to the Tony Awards for Broadway productions. The Obie Awards were initiated by critic Jerry Tallmer and Edwin (Ed) Fancher, publisher of The Village Voice, who handled the financing and business side of

3060-650: The Blueprint Series for emerging directors. In 2005, OHT reorganized their emerging artists program under the name INCUBATOR, "creating a series of linked programs to provide young theater artists with resources and support to develop process-oriented, original theatrical productions." The INCUBATOR programs include a residency program, two annual music festivals, a regular concert series, a serial work-in-progress program called Short Form, and roundtables and salons. The program received an OBIE grant in 2010. Foreman's work has been primarily produced by and performed at

3145-623: The Byrds and started to use professional actors. In 1983/84, Wilson planned a performance for the 1984 Summer Olympics , the CIVIL warS : A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down ; the complete work was to have been 12 hours long, in 6 parts. The production was only partially completed; the full event was canceled by the Olympic Arts Festival, due to insufficient funds. In 1986, the Pulitzer Prize jury unanimously selected

3230-683: The CIVIL warS for the drama prize, but the supervisory board rejected the choice and gave no drama award that year. In 1990 alone, Wilson created four new productions in four different West German cities: Shakespeare's King Lear in Frankfurt, Chekhov's Swan Song in Munich, an adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Orlando in West Berlin, and The Black Rider a collaboration by Wilson, Tom Waits and William S. Burroughs , in Hamburg. In 1997, he

3315-564: The Finnish designer Tapio Wirkkala (1915–1985), situated in the Arabianranta district of Helsinki. His plans for the rectangular park feature a central square divided into nine equally sized fields separated by bushes. Each field will be installed with objects related to the home. For example, one unit will consist of a small fireplace surrounded by stones that serve as seating. The park will be lit by large, lightbox-style lamps build into

3400-609: The Lights at the Autumn Festivals in Berlin and Paris. In 2024, The Wooster Group staged a new interpretation, with Foreman's permission, of Symphony of Rats. Seven collections of his plays have been published, and books studying his work have been published in English, French, and German. In 2004, Foreman established The Bridge Project with Sophie Haviland to promote international art exchange between countries around

3485-644: The Nancy Festival in France and to the Brooklyn Academy of Music . It later opened in Paris, championed by the designer Pierre Cardin . The Surrealist poet Louis Aragon loved it and published a letter to the Surrealist poet André Breton (who had died in 1966), in which he praised Wilson as: "What we, from whom Surrealism was born, dreamed would come after us and go beyond us". In 1975, Wilson dissolved

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3570-606: The Ontological-Hysteric Theater in New York, though he has gained acclaim as director for such productions as Bertolt Brecht 's The Threepenny Opera at Lincoln Center and the premiere of Suzan-Lori Parks 's Venus at the Public Theater . Foreman's plays have been co-produced by The New York Shakespeare Festival , La Mama Theatre , The Wooster Group , the Festival d'Automne in Paris and

3655-697: The United States was 21 years ago. As of 2010, he continued to direct revivals of his most celebrated productions, including The Black Rider in London, San Francisco, Sydney, Australia, and Los Angeles; The Temptation of St. Anthony in New York and Barcelona; Erwartung in Berlin; Madama Butterfly at the Bolshoi Opera in Moscow; and Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Wilson also directs all Monteverdi operas for

3740-475: The audience member who cannot project themself into the experience of the character. Through Foreman's alienating characterization, the audience is made to look at Foreman's actors as "self-enclosed units," or theatrical props, rather than characters. Therefore, Foreman's aesthetics demand that the spectator not escape into the play, but become conscious of their own process of interpretation. In Foreman's essay, "14 Things I Tell Myself," he elaborates, "Our art then =

3825-421: The audience to look at the "language itself" rather than "the objects and meanings it refers to.". The lack of language is essential to Wilson's work as well. In the same way an artist uses positive and negative space, Wilson uses noise and silence. In working on a production of King Lear , Wilson inadvertently describes his necessity of silence: The way actors are trained here is wrong. All they think about

3910-627: The avant-garde scene when police interrupted a screening and seized a copy of the 1963 film, Flaming Creatures , and charged Jonas Mekas , Ken Jacobs , and Florence Karpf for violating New York's obscenity laws. Foreman called Mekas, offering his help, and over the following years, Foreman and Mekas became close friends and collaborators. Through his connection to Jonas Mekas, Foreman became acquainted with architect and artist, George Maciunas . Foreman began working for Mekas and Maciunas, overseeing their movie theater, Film-Maker's Cinematheque at 80 Wooster Street. Foreman also became heavily involved in

3995-404: The body that have nothing to do with what we say. It's more interesting if the mind and the body are in two different places, occupying different zones of reality. These rhythms keep the mind on its toes, consciously and subconsciously taking in the meanings behind the movement and how it is matching up with the language. Similar to Wilson's use of the lack of language in his works, he also sees

4080-410: The development of Maciunas' Fluxhouse Cooperatives , which consisted of converted SoHo lofts designed to be living and working spaces for artists. During the 1960s, Foreman also got to know theater director Robert Wilson , filmmaker and actor Jack Smith , and theater director and scholar Richard Schechner , all of whom encouraged Foreman to start producing his own work. With Schechner, Foreman formed

4165-603: The drama critic and former literary manager at The Theatre Guild . Richard Foreman moved to New York City directly after graduating from Yale School of Drama and worked as a manager of apartment complexes. Before finding his footing as a theater practitioner, Foreman became an avid patron of New York's downtown experimental theater and film scene. Foreman described feeling "overwhelmed" upon seeing The Living Theatre 's productions of The Connection and The Brig . Foreman also attended screenings of avant-garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas at The Living Theatre. Mekas' early cinematic work had

4250-502: The early 1970s, creating Einstein on the Beach with composer Philip Glass and choreographer Lucinda Childs . This work brought the artists worldwide renown. Following Einstein , Wilson worked increasingly with major European theaters and opera houses. For the New York debut of his first opera, the Metropolitan Opera allowed Wilson to rent the house on a Sunday, when they did not have a production, but would not produce

4335-481: The ground and by smaller ones modeled on ordinary floor lamps. In 2013 American pop singer Lady Gaga announced that she would collaborate with Wilson as part of her ARTPOP project. He subsequently designed the set for her 2013 MTV Video Music Awards performance. Wilson also suggested that Gaga pose for his Voom Portraits. Knowing he had an upcoming residency as guest curator at the Louvre , Wilson chose themes from

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4420-478: The importance of movement in Wilson's works, Seth Goldstein , another actor in the CIVIL warS , stated "every movement from the moment I walked onto the platform until I left was choreographed to the second. During the scene at table all I did was count movements. All I thought about was timing." When it comes time to add the text in with movement, there is still much work to be done. Wilson pays close attention to

4505-409: The importance that a lack of movement can have. In his production of Medea , Wilson arranged a scene in which the lead singer stood still during her entire aria while many others moved around her. Wilson recalls that "she complained that if I didn't give her any movements, no one would notice her. I told her if she knew how to stand, everyone would watch her. I told her to stand like a marble statue of

4590-421: The intentional manipulation of an audiences emotional responses by eliminating the 'lifelike' qualities of drama (clearly developing situation involving imaginary people in imaginary places), thereby creating a world into which the spectator has great difficulty projecting himself." Davy gives the example of Foreman's characters often referring to themselves in the third person, which creates an alienating effect for

4675-601: The janitor danced dressed as Miss America". During this period, he also attended lectures by Sibyl Moholy-Nagy (widow of László Moholy-Nagy ), and studied painting with artist George McNeil . In 1968, he founded an experimental performance company, the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds (named for a teacher who helped him manage a stutter while a teenager). With this company, he directed his first major works, beginning with 1969's The King of Spain and The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud . He began to work in opera in

4760-521: The kitchen floor in the dark of night and you're barefoot. So Bob clears a path he can walk through words without getting hurt. Bob changes the values and shapes of words. In some sense they take on more meaning; in some cases, less. Wilson shows the importance of language through all of his works and in many varying fashions. He credits his reading of the work of Gertrude Stein and listening to recordings of her speaking with "changing [his] way of thinking forever." Wilson directed three of Stein's works in

4845-630: The mid 1970s, however, OHT gained traction with relatively popular works such as Sophia = (Wisdom) Part 3: The Cliffs (1972). In his 1973 essay, "Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theatre," theater critic Michael Kirby aptly breaks down the aesthetics of OHT through the case study of Foreman's play Sophia = (Wisdom) Part 3: The Cliffs. Kirby uses the elements of setting, picturization, speech, written material, control, movement and dances, sound, objects, relation to film, structure, content , and effect to analyze Foreman's theatrical vocabulary. Among his observations, Kirby notes that although "Sophia"

4930-503: The museum's collection, all dealing with death. They shot the videos in a London studio over three days, Gaga standing for 14 or 15 hours at a time. Called "Living Rooms," the resulting exhibition included two video works: one inspired by Jacques-Louis David 's The Death of Marat , hung in the painting galleries, and another in which Lady Gaga brings to life a painting by Ingres . In the Louvre's auditorium, Wilson hosted and took part in

5015-425: The necessity of it. In his auditions, "Wilson often does an elaborate movement sequence" and "asks the actor to repeat it." Thomas Derrah , an actor in the CIVIL warS , found the audition process to be baffling: "When I went in, [Wilson] asked me to walk across the room on a count of 31, sit down on a count of 7, put my hand to my forehead on a count of 59. I was mystified by the whole process". To further cement

5100-795: The opera houses of La Scala in Milan and the Palais Garnier in Paris. In 2021 Wilson directed a revival of Shakespeare's The Tempest at the Ivan Vazov National Theatre in Sofia , Bulgaria . In 2022 he directed UBU , a theatrical performance, premiered at Es Baluard Museu in Palma . In addition to his work for the stage, Wilson has created sculpture, drawings, and furniture designs. Exhibited in December 1976 at

5185-477: The parallels between the theories of Gertrude Stein and Richard Foreman's theatrical aesthetics. Foreman himself has spoken about the significance of her writings to his work. In 1969, Foreman declared, "Gertrude Stein obviously was doing all kinds of things we haven't event caught up to yet." Kate Davy analyzes Stein's influence on Foreman in her article, Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theatre: The Influence of Gertrude Stein . The primary connection between

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5270-494: The play" in the presentation of the play. In his essay, "How I Write My (Self: Plays)," Foreman explains his process of taking text to performance: "The writing tending towards a more receptive, open, passive receiving of 'what wants to be written' and the staging tending towards more active organization of the 'arrived' elements of the writing -- finding ways to make the writing inhabit a constructed environment." Davy notes that like Stein, Foreman tends to avoid "'emotional traps' or

5355-529: The prayer box." He was stuttering and taken to a local dance instructor called Bird "Baby" Hoffman, who helped him overcome his stutter. After attending local schools, he studied business administration at the University of Texas from 1959 to 1962. He moved to Brooklyn , New York in 1963 to change fields, study art and architecture. At some point he went to Arizona to study architecture with Paolo Soleri at his desert complex. Wilson found himself drawn to

5440-506: The project. They were first given in 1956 under the direction of Tallmer. Initially, only off-Broadway productions were eligible; in 1964, off-off-Broadway productions were made eligible. The first Obie Awards ceremony was held at Helen Gee 's cafe. With the exception of the Lifetime Achievement and Best New American Play awards, there are no fixed categories at the Obie Awards, and the winning actors and actresses are all in

5525-719: The props have been sold for prices ranging from "$ 4,500 to $ 80,000." Extensive retrospectives have been presented at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (1991) and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (1991). He has presented installations at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam , Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam (1993), London's Clink Street Vaults (1995), Neue Nationalgalerie (2003), and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and

5610-518: The same monologue twice." Rather than tell his audience what words are supposed to mean, he opens them up for interpretation, presenting the idea that "meanings are not tethered to words like horses to hitching posts." Movement is a key element in Wilson's work. As a dancer, he sees the importance of the way an actor moves onstage and knows the weight that movement bears. When speaking of his "play without words" rendition of Ibsen 's When We Dead Awaken , Wilson says: I do movement before we work on

5695-439: The text and still makes sure there is enough "space around a text" for the audience to soak it up. At this point, the actors know their movements and the time in which they are executed, allowing Wilson to tack the actions onto specific pieces of text. His overall goal is to have the rhythm of the text differ from that of the movement so his audience can see them as two completely different pieces, seeing each as what it is. When in

5780-477: The text. Later we'll put text and movement together. I do movement first to make sure it's strong enough to stand on its own two feet without words. The movement must have a rhythm and structure of its own. It must not follow the text. It can reinforce a text without illustrating it. What you hear and what you see are two different layers. When you put them together, you create another texture. With such an emphasis on movement, Wilson even tailors his auditions around

5865-424: The text/movement stage, Wilson often interrupts the rehearsal, saying things like "Something is wrong. We have to check your scripts to see if you put the numbers in the right place." He goes on to explain the importance of this: I know it's hell to separate text and movement and maintain two different rhythms. It takes time to train yourself to keep tongue and body working against each other. But things happen with

5950-481: The work by the Russian author Daniil Kharms . The play premiered at MIF13, Manchester International Festival. Wilson wrote that he and Baryshnikov had discussed creating a play together for years, perhaps based on a Russian text. The final production included dance, light, singing and bilingual monolog. Since 1999, Wilson has premiered nine theatrical works in Berlin. By contrast, as of 2013, his last commission in

6035-465: The work of pioneering choreographers George Balanchine , Merce Cunningham , and Martha Graham , among others. He engaged in therapeutic theater work with brain-injured and disabled children in New York. He received a BFA in architecture from the Pratt Institute in 1965. He directed a "ballet for iron-lung patients where the participants moved a fluorescent streamer with their mouths while

6120-521: The work. In 1970, Wilson and a group of collaborators, including choreographer Andy deGroat and the dancer and actor Sheryl Sutton, devised the "silent opera" Deafman Glance in Iowa City , where it premiered at the Center for New Performing Arts on December 15. The large cast of the premiere production of Deafman Glance included Raymond Andrews and Ana Mendieta . The show subsequently traveled to

6205-469: The works of Stein and Foreman, she proposes, is the writers' conception of consciousness in writing. Stein preferred "entity writing" over "identity writing." According to Stein's model, "entity writing" is "the 'thing-in-itself' detached from time and association, while identity is the 'thing-in-relation,' time-bound, clinging in association." "Entity writing" is free from any notion of remembering, relationships, or narratives, and it expresses what Stein called

6290-609: The world through workshops, symposiums, theater productions, visual art, performance and multimedia events. Foreman has won seven Village Voice Obie Awards , including three for "Best Play", and one for Lifetime Achievement. In addition, he has received: Notes Obie Award The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given since 1956 by The Village Voice newspaper to theater artists and groups involved in off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway productions in New York City . Starting just after

6375-634: Was Edward L. Friedman. Foreman’s birth mother was an orthodox Jew, and his birth father was Catholic “with artistic talent,” according to information he received from the Jewish adoption agency, Louise Wise Services. Both his adopted parents were Jewish. Foreman says, "...my parents were very supportive, but nevertheless, I didn't feel that close to them in certain ways." Richard Foreman went on to study at Brown University (B.A. 1959), and received an MFA in Playwriting from Yale School of Drama in 1962. As

6460-521: Was a starting point for many artists making their mark in New York City and internationally including David Herskovitz, Artistic Director of Target Margin Theater, Damon Keily Artistic Director of American Theater in Chicago , Radiohole , Elevator Repair Service , Pavol Liska , NTUSA , as well as Richard Maxwell , Sophie Haviland, Bob Cucuzza, DJ Mendel , Ken Nintzle and Young Jean Lee ." In 1993, OHT began their emerging artists program by initiating

6545-573: Was able to insert himself into he performance as it unfolded. Kirby also discusses the role of sound in Foreman's plays. He writes, "Noise, too, serves as both background and as an explicit part of the action." At times, recordings of lines take over for the actors' actual voice, creating a sense of alienation. The Ontological-Hysteric Theater prides itself on nurturing the talents of young and emerging theater practitioners. According to their website, "the OHT

6630-703: Was awarded the Europe Theatre Prize . In 1998, Wilson staged August Strindberg's A Dream Play , at Stockholms Stadsteater, Sweden. It later headlined festivals in Recklinghausen, Nice, Perth, Bonn, Moscow, New York and London. In 2010 Wilson was working on a new stage musical with composer (and long-time collaborator) Tom Waits and the Irish playwright, Martin McDonagh . His theatrical production of John Cage 's Lecture on Nothing , which

6715-485: Was born in Waco, Texas , the son of Loree Velma (née Hamilton) and D.M. Wilson, a lawyer. He had a difficult youth as the gay son of a conservative family. "When I was growing up, it was a sin to go to the theater. It was a sin if a woman wore pants. There was a prayer box in school, and if you saw someone sinning you could put their name in the prayer box, and on Fridays everyone would pray for those people whose names were in

6800-673: Was commissioned for a celebration of the Cage centenary at the 2012 Ruhrtriennale , had its U.S. premiere in Royce Hall , UCLA, by the Center for the Art of Performance. Wilson performed Lectures on Nothing in its Australian premiere at the 2019 Supersense festival at the Arts Centre Melbourne . In 2013 Wilson, in collaboration with Mikhail Baryshnikov and co-starring Willem Dafoe , developed The Old Woman , an adaptation of

6885-651: Was founded by Foreman in 1968. The core of the company's annual programming has been Richard Foreman's theater pieces. Foreman mounted his first production with Ontological-Hysteric Theatre in 1968 at the Film-Maker's Cinematheque on Wooster Street, where he worked under the Fluxus leader George Maciunas . Ontological-Hysteric Theatre balances a primitive and minimal art style with extremely complex and theatrical themes. OHT's first productions, Angelface (1968) and Ida-Eyed (1969), received almost no critical attention. By

6970-511: Was heavily involved in the theater department. A 2018 documentary produced by the Lower East Side Biography Project outlined Foreman's early motivations for pursuing work in the theater. The documentary maintains that Foreman suffered from extreme shyness as a child. The documentary also reveals that Foreman was adopted — a fact he did not discover until he was in his 30s. The name given to him by his birth mother

7055-589: Was set up in 2003 at Art Basel Miami Beach, and was also composed of layers of autumn leaves on the floor of a studio. Wilson is represented exclusively and worldwide by RW Work, Ltd. (New York), and his gallerist in New York City is Paula Cooper Gallery . In 1991 Wilson established The Watermill Center on the site of a former Western Union laboratory on the East End of Long Island , New York. Originally styled as "a laboratory for performance", The Watermill Center operates year-round artist residencies, public education programs, exhibitions, and performances. The center

7140-457: Was sitting on my patio this guy appeared I thought I was hallucinating , features only two characters, both of whom deliver the same stream-of-consciousness monolog. In the play's first production one character was "aloof, cold, [and] precise" while the other "brought screwball comedy … warmth and color … playful[ness]". The different emphases and deliveries brought to the monolog two different meanings; "audiences found it hard to believe they heard

7225-759: Was staged on a mountaintop in Iran and lasted seven days. Language is one of the most important elements of theater and Robert Wilson feels at home with commanding it in many different ways. Wilson's impact on this part of theater alone is immense. Arthur Holmberg, professor of theater at Brandeis University , says that "In theatre, no one has dramatized the crisis of language with as much ferocious genius as Robert Wilson." Wilson makes it evident in his work that whats and whys of language are terribly important and cannot be overlooked. Tom Waits , acclaimed songwriter and collaborator with Wilson, said this about Wilson's unique relationship with words: Words for Bob are like tacks on

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