Richard Foreman (born June 10, 1937 in New York City) is an American avant-garde playwright and the founder of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater. Achievements and awards 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 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. Archive Foreman's archives and work materials have been acquired by the Fales Library at New York University (NYU). Early life and education 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 was heavily involved in the theater department. Two years after Arthur Miller’s original production premiered on Broadway, Foreman produced and directed The Crucible at Scarsdale High School. 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 was Edward L. Friedman. Foreman admits that his adoption might have contributed his feelings of being uncomfortable in his body and in the world. He 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 an undergraduate, he was instrumental in the formation of Production Workshop, Brown University's student theatre group, while taking part in other student theatre, including set-designing Brownbrokers' 1958 production of Down to Earth. In 1993, Brown presented him with an honorary doctorate. At Yale, Foreman studied under John Gassner, the drama critic and former literary manager at The Theatre Guild. Career Early career and artistic