Bughouse tickets

Get tickets to Bughouse when they go on sale with New York Theatre Guide to see this visionary new play about the life, and art, of Henry Darger. MacArthur "Genius" Martha Clarke, known for her interdisciplinary approach to new works, directs this play about Darger, one of America's most curious outsider artists, or those who are self-taught. Academy Award nominee and Pulitzer Prize winner Beth Henley (Crimes of the Heart) writes the script for this play, which is adapted and borrows writing from Darger's own texts. Two-time Obie Award-winning performance artist John Kelly portrays Darger in Bughouse off Broadway.

Coming to the Vineyard Theatre for a limited run starting February 18, Bughouse in New York offers audiences a kaleidoscopic look at Darger's life. Featuring an unforgettable visual and aural landscape, Bughouse offers an intimate look at a startling artist’s compulsion to create — even when no one is watching.

After a difficult childhood raised by his disabled father before being institutionalized for perceived deviance, Darger lived much of his adult life, following a stint in World War I, as a janitor and a recluse in his Chicago apartment. But inside, a whole magical world was taking shape: he wrote thousands of pages and novels about fantastical planets and created dozens of paintings and works of art that now hang in the world's most elite museums. But who was the man behind the magic?

Bughouse takes audiences inside Darger's Chicago apartment, which thought cramped was as expansive as the artist's mind. There, he created a universe, filled with child warriors, epic battles, and haunting beauty – an alternate reality through which he could escape his own.

Discover how that artist's world took shape, and what world he has left behind, in Bughouse. Step into a show like no other this winter.