Horse Eats Hat is a 1936 farce play co-written and directed by Orson Welles (at the time 21 years of age) and presented under the auspices of the Federal Theatre Project.

The script, by Edwin Denby and Welles, was an adaptation of the classic French farce The Italian Straw Hat (French: Un chapeau de paille d'Italie) by Eugène Marin Labiche and Marc-Michel.

Welles spoke to filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich about the production: The farce Horse Eats Hat was the best of the Mercury shows – and, though successful, it divided the town.

So, he crammed them all into their first show, which was a really crazily ambitious thing to do, which was the famous play of The Italian Straw Hat.

Houseman particularly, and his friend Virgil Thomson who helped to do the translation, were ever aware of all the new currents in theatre.