Photos: Get a First Look at John Kelly in BUGHOUSE at Vineyard Theatre

You can now get a first look at photos of 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 stars Obie Award-winning performance artist John Kelly as Darger.

Performances begin tonight, February 26, 2026 with an opening night of March 11, 2026 at Vineyard Theatre.

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.

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