Avant-garde theatremaker Richard Foreman died January 4 at New York City's Mount Sinai West Hospital, due to complications of pneumonia, according to The New York Times. Mr. Foreman was 87 years old.
Born Edward L. Friedman June 10, 1937, he was given the name he would use throughout his life by his adoptive parents, Albert and Claire Foreman of Scarsdale, New York, where the budding playwright and director would grow up. He spent his high school years focused on theatre, a passion that would continue during his time studying for a Bachelor of Arts at Brown University and an MFA in playwriting from Yale School of Drama.
Mr. Foreman would return to NYC following his time at Yale, where he quickly became a fixture of the downtown experimental theatre and film scenes of the 1960s. He soon founded the Ontological-Hysteric Theater, largely as a vehicle to produce his own experimental works. Early productions, such as 1968's Angelface and the following year's Ida-Eyed, did not make much of a splash, though by the early 1970s, the company gained traction with works like Sophia = (Wisdom) Part 3: The Cliffs. Mr. Foreman used his work to explore the metaphysical nature of life, often blending avante-garde spectacle with music and other delights. Brash and political, most of his work was not a great commercial success, but then that was never the goal.
Mr. Foreman's plays have not only been produced by Ontological-Hysteric, having also worked with such companies as The New York Shakespeare Festival, La MaMa Theatre, The Wooster Group, The New York City Opera, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and more. Along with his work as a playwright, Mr. Foreman was a noted and prolific director and designer as well. His final major self-produced and directed play was Old-Fashioned Prostitutes (A True Romance), which played The Public Theater in 2013. He was still creating plays, if solely as a playwright, as recently as this past December, when his Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey premiered at La MaMa.
Beyond his many plays, Mr. Foreman wrote a number of operatic works, mostly with composer Stanley Silverman along with single works with music by Michael Gordon and John Zorn. He directed and wrote a feature film in 1981, titled Strong Medicine.
Mr. Foreman was a seven-time Obie Award winner. Three of his honors are for Best Play, three for his directing, and the last for Lifetime Achievement. He is survived by his second wife, Kate Manheim. An earlier marriage to Amy Taubin ended in divorce.
