H.M. "Harry" Koutoukas (June 4, 1937 – March 6, 2010) was a surrealist playwright, actor and teacher. Along with

Sam Shepard Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American actor, playwright, author, screenwriter, and director whose career spanned half a century. He won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most by any write ...

Lanford Wilson Lanford Wilson (April 13, 1937March 24, 2011) was an American playwright. His work, as described by ''The New York Times'', was "earthy, realist, greatly admired ndwidely performed."Margalit Fox, Fox, Margalit"Lanford Wilson, Pulitzer Prize-Wi ...

Doric Wilson Doric Wilson (February 24, 1939May 7, 2011) was an American playwright, director, producer, critic and gay rights activist. He was born Alan Doric Wilson in Los Angeles, California, where his family was temporarily located. Originally from the ...

Tom Eyen Tom Eyen (August 14, 1940 – May 26, 1991) was an American playwright, lyricist, television writer and director. He received a Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for ''Dreamgirls'' in 1981. Eyen is best known for works at opposite e ...

and

Robert Patrick Robert Hammond Patrick (born November 5, 1958) is an American actor. Known for portraying villains and honorable authority figures, he is a Saturn Award winner with four other nominations. Patrick dropped out of college when drama class sparked ...

, Koutoukas was among the artists who gave birth to the

Off-Off Broadway Off-off-Broadway theaters are smaller New York City theaters than Broadway and off-Broadway theaters, and usually have fewer than 100 seats. The off-off-Broadway movement began in 1958 as part of a response to perceived commercialism of the prof ...

theatre movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

Life and work

Born Haralambos Monroe Koutoukas in

Endicott, New York Endicott is a village in Broome County, New York, United States. The population was 13,392 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Binghamton Metropolitan Statistical Area. The village is named after Henry B. Endicott, a founding member of the En ...

, Koutoukas moved to Manhattan in the early 1960s to pursue theater.

Simonson, Robert Robert Simonson (born September 11, 1964) is an American journalist and author. Personal life Robert Simonson was born in Wisconsin; he has lived in Brooklyn since 1988. Career Robert Simonson began writing about cocktails, spirits and bars for ...

H.M. Koutoukas, Flamboyant Figure of Early Off-Off-Broadway, Dies at 72
, playbill.com, March 18, 2010 A prolific playwright, Koutoukas helped establish

venues such as La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club and the Caffe Cino with low-budget, absurdist works he liked to call "

camp Camp may refer to: Outdoor accommodation and recreation * Campsite or campground, a recreational outdoor sleeping and eating site * a temporary settlement for nomads * Camp, a term used in New England, Northern Ontario and New Brunswick to descri ...

".Grimes, William
H. M. Koutoukas, Author of Surrealist Plays, Dies at 72
nytimes.com, March 18, 2010 In 1975 he said, "we... get together a play in a weekend, rehearse on a rooftop, rummage through the garbage for our props and, if we needed extra cash, we hustled our bodies in the streets. We men, that is — we didn’t think we should ask the women to do it." Describing Koutoukas' unusual artistic approach to theater, William Grimes of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' wrote, "In works like ''Medea in the Laundromat'' and ''Awful People Are Coming Over So We Must Be Pretending to Be Hard at Work and Hope They Will Go Away'', outoukaspresented cartoonishly stylized characters, equipped them with arch dialogue and set them loose in outlandish situations. He obeyed no rules but those that one of his characters called 'the ancient laws of glitter.'" Though renowned in

lower Manhattan Lower Manhattan (also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York) is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with ...

, he never became as commercially successful as some of his contemporaries, such as

. His works include ''Afamis Notes'', ''The Brown Book'', ''Butterfly Encounter'' and ''Turtles Don’t Dream''.Mueller, Cookie
H.M. Koutoukas (BOMB magazine interview)
bombsite.com, Spring 1983, Retrieved April 1, 2010 One play, ''Disarming Attachments'', he described like this:

The play opens with this ruined Greek philosopher. Whenever he smiles his teeth are so bad that you see the Acropolis. He lives in a Greek take out paper cup with the Acropolis on it. And then there’s Malvina Falkland who has buck teeth: she throws them into the ocean so the Penguins can escape to the Antarctic. She is in love with this Ghetto type character; he’s a vineyard owner and then Attila the Hun comes in wearing carrier-ship battle shoes and she dances with the five headed general who always talks you to death. Then there’s the boy who’s just seen the abyss and can’t get over it.

In 1966, he received a ''

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the creat ...

Obie Award The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...

for "Assaulting Established Tradition". Koutoukas also ran a theater workshop called the "School for Gargoyles" whose alumni included

Gerome Ragni Gerome Ragni (born Jerome Bernard Ragni; September 11, 1935 – July 10, 1991) was an American actor, singer, and songwriter, best known as one of the stars and co-writers of the 1967 musical '' Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical''. On Jun ...

and

James Rado James Alexander Radomski (January 23, 1932 – June 21, 2022), known professionally as James Rado, was an American actor, playwright, director, and composer, best known as the co-author, along with Gerome Ragni, of the 1967 musical ''Hair''. He ...

, the writers of the rock musical ''

Hair Hair is a protein filament that grows from follicles found in the dermis. Hair is one of the defining characteristics of mammals. The human body, apart from areas of glabrous skin, is covered in follicles which produce thick terminal and f ...

'';

Tom O'Horgan Tom O'Horgan (May 3, 1924 – January 11, 2009) was an American theatre and film director, composer, actor and musician. He is best known for his Broadway work as director of the hit musicals '' Hair'' and ''Jesus Christ Superstar''. During his ...

, the director of ''Hair''; and the actor and playwright

Harvey Fierstein Harvey Forbes Fierstein ( ; born June 6, 1952) is an American actor, playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for his theater work in ''Torch Song Trilogy'' and ''Hairspray'' and movie roles in ''Mrs. Doubtfire'', '' Independence Day'', and ...

. Fierstein also performed Koutoukas's "One Man's Religion/The Pinotti Papers" at La MaMa in 1975.La MaMa Archives Digital Collections
"Video Work: Documentation of 'One Man's Religion/The Pinotti Papers' (1975)"
Retrieved June 27, 2017. He won a

Robert Chesley Award The Robert Chesley Award was an annual literary award, presented by Publishing Triangle to honour drama works by playwrights in the LGBT community. First presented in 1994, the award was named in memory of playwright Robert Chesley. The award was di ...

in 2003.

References

Images

(4th image down)

(multiple images)

(image, tribute poem)
Koutoukas and Gerry Ragni

Koutoukas' 1966 Caffe Cino play

Charles Stanley as Koutoukas' Medea - 1

Charles Stanley as Koutoukas' Medea - 2

Color photo of Koutoukas with friends in the Caffe Cino

Koutoukas with friends in the Caffe Cino

Koutoukas with friends at benefit for the Caffe Cino

Koutoukas with Joe Cino and friend

Caffe Cino window poster portrait of Koutoukas

Koutoukas with other Off-Off Broadway playwrights

Koutoukas with Joe Cino and friends in front of the Caffe Cino

Koutoukas with friends onstage at the Caffe Cino

Koutoukas at 1985 Caffe Cino exhibit at Lincoln Center

Koutoukas at installation of Joe Cino plaque

Koutoukas watching Charles Stanley in ''Kill, Kaleidoscope, Kill''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Koutoukas, H. M. 1937 births 2010 deaths Writers from New York (state) People from Endicott, New York 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights

Life and work

References

Further reading

External links

Images