Publisher and Editor of the Obie Award-winning PAJ Publications/PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art
Remembering Richard Foreman
One of the most important figures of the American avant-garde theatre, Richard Foreman was celebrated as a playwright, director, and founder of the Ontological-Hysteric Theatre. His recent death in January was deeply felt by the theatre community. PAJ had recently published his last play, Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey, in May 2024 (PAJ 137). We have now made the play available via open access, Read here. It was staged by Object Collection at La MaMa in December 2024.
Foreman's classic manifesto, "How to Write a Play," appeared in PAJ's first issue, May 1976. The PAJ Publications title, Richard Foreman, edited by Gerald Rabkin, a collection of interviews, writings, and reviews, remains in print. See current catalogue.
Celebrating The Final Issue of PAJ (1976-2024)
Celebrating PAJ, interview with Frank Hentschker, Segal Center, December 2024.
Recent Books by Bonnie Marranca
Alchemies of Theater: Plays, Scores, Writings by Dick Higgins, 2024
Alchemies of Theater brings together a broad selection of Higgins’s writings and theater-related work, much of it unpublished or long out-of-print. As Bonnie Marranca demonstrates in several essays in the volume, Dick Higgins deconstructed the drama long before it became a project of theater; he undercut the traditional roles of author and director and created what is now considered “devised” theater; he pioneered the use of media in theater, writing the first electronic opera, and was a precursor in deconstruction and post-dramatic avant-garde traditions.
Dick Higgins (1938-1998) was a visual artist, publisher, poet, composer, filmmaker, playwright. A founder of Fluxus, he wrote many books as well as the influential “Intermedia” manifesto.
Published by University of Michigan Press
Timelines: writings and conversations, 2021
Timelines turns to subjects that include the catastrophic imagination, cultural history, landscape and writing, as well issues of beauty, emotion, and the spiritual in art. Bonnie Marranca extends her longtime interests in theatre, visual arts, media, dance, and drama to the work of Joan Jonas, Caryl Churchill, Meredith Monk, Raimund Hoghe, Dick Higgins, Etel Adnan, and others in the thirty-four pieces in the volume from the last dozen years. A chapter entitled "Performance and Drawing" focuses on this special art practice. “Writing in the Landscape” explores new text and image approaches to short-form critical writing. There are also personal reflections on the recent loss of Carolee Schneemann, Maria Irene Fornes, and Sam Shepard.