Vineyard Theatre Delays First Performances of BUGHOUSE Due to Illness in Company
Performances will now begin February 24, with opening night unchanged.
By: A.A. Cristi Feb. 12, 2026
Vineyard Theatre has announced that due to an illness in the company, the technical rehearsals for Bughouse have been delayed by one week. Performances will now begin on February 24, 2026. The opening night for Bughouse remains March 11, 2026.
The previously scheduled performances on February 18-22 are cancelled, and tickets will be rescheduled as quickly as possible into another performance by contacting the Vineyard Theatre Box Office. Refunds are available until February 21, 2026.
Bughouse is 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.
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), Michael Bonesteel (Art Historian Consultant), and Olivia Fletcher (Production Stage Manager). Bughouse is produced in association with Jayne Baron Sherman.
