But Richard Foreman, the experimental playwright and director and fixture of the downtown scene, has always thought differently.

This week she is launching her new season, her 29th, with the premiere of "Elephant Memories," a theater piece by the experimental playwright and choreographer Ping Chong.

So it goes in the world of Richard Maxwell, the experimental playwright and director whose talent is as fierce as his characters are phlegmatic.

Our actors, directors and designers must take these things into account, for they turn Shakespeare, on these shores at least, into an experimental playwright.

Still, most seasoned audiences would expect that a drama by an experimental playwright at Performance Space 122 featuring four ministers discussing God's glory is inviting smirks.

Speculations: An Essay on the Theater is a treatise by one of today's major experimental playwrights: Mac Wellman.

And it's not as if we're short of experimental playwrights, innovative directors or competent performers.

Major experimental playwrights were Syed Waliullah (1922-1971) and Saeed Ahmed (b 1931).

Lee was called "one of the best experimental playwrights in America" by David Cote in Time Out New York.

The company presents reworked Shakespeare and classical texts as well as new works by experimental contemporary playwrights.