New York's NADA Theatre is producing the first-ever retrospective of the plays of avant-garde playwright/director Richard Foreman.

The festival No Strings Attached presents 10 of Foreman's plays staged by nine different directors, running through Aug. 3. Ian W. Hill, curator of No Strings, said "One Foreman play staged by someone else (other than Foreman) was a curiosity...10 Foreman plays staged by nine directors was a statement."

No Strings Attached includes the following Foreman plays: Pain(t), Angelface, Rhoda in Potatoland (Her Fall Starts), Blvd. de Paris, Penguin Toquet, Egyptology, The Cure, Lava, Eddie Goes to Poetry City (New York version) and The Mind King.

This has been a big year for Foreman, whose first book of fiction No-Body was released by Overlook Press, his 50th production Pearls for Pigs is currently touring the world, and his Permanent Brain Damage was a part of Laurie Anderson's "Meltdown Festival" in London last month. Foreman also plans to open a new play at his NYC based, Ontological-Hysteric Theatre in January.

Foreman is the recent recipient of an Edwin Booth Award, given by City University of NY's Doctoral Theatre Students. Previous winners include La MaMa's Ellen Stewart, Joseph Papp and Wooster Group. Foreman has also won seven Obies, a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship and the NEA's Lifetime Achievement Award. The small, off-off-Broadway performance space NADA has been the site of numerous festivals in recent years, including a Hamlet festival, a Faust festival, a Todd Alcott festival, and in the fall NADA is scheduled to produce a Mac Wellman Festival.

For information, show schedule and reservations call (212) 420-1466. -- By Sean McGrath