BUGHOUSE World Premiere is Coming to the Vineyard Theatre
The production will star performance artist John Kelly as Darger.
Vineyard Theatre will present the world premiere of Bughouse, conceived and directed by Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, and Obie Award winner and MacArthur “Genius” fellow Martha Clarke. Bughouse features a script by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Beth Henley, adapted from the writings of Henry Darger, and will star Obie Award-winning performance artist John Kelly as Darger. Bughouse is produced in association with Jayne Baron Sherman.
Performances will begin on February 18, 2026 with an opening night of March 11, 2026, for a six week run. Vineyard Theatre Member on sale begins today, Wednesday, December 10th and public on sale begins on Tuesday, December 16th.
Visionary director Martha Clarke brings us inside the mind of one of the 20th century’s most startling outsider artists, Henry Darger — a reclusive janitor whose extraordinary body of paintings and writings was only fully discovered after his death. In his cramped Chicago apartment, Darger created a vast, fantastical universe, filled with child warriors, epic battles, and haunting beauty – an alternate reality through which he could escape his own. With text adapted from Darger’s own writings by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Beth Henley (Crimes of the Heart), featuring an unforgettable visual and aural landscape, and starring Obie Award-winning performance artist John Kelly, Bughouse offers an intimate examination of a self-taught artist’s compulsion to create — even when no one is watching.
The creative team for Bughouse is Neil Patel (Production Design), Donna Zakowska (Costume Design), Christopher Akerlind (Lighting Design), Arthur Solari (Sound Design), John Narun (Projection Design), Faye Armon-Troncoso (Set Decoration & Props), Fred Murphy (Cinematography), Ruth Lingford (Animation) and Olivia Fletcher (Production Stage Manager).
Vineyard’s final show of the season will be ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||, a co-production with American Conservatory Theatre, written by Eisa Davis and directed by Pam MacKinnon, which will play in the Spring of 2026.
