# Howard Sherman


## Posts

- [In Oklahoma, Suppressing Shakespeare’s Boy Actors](https://hesherman.com/2025/09/08/in-oklahoma-suppressing-shakespeares-boy-actors/): “People are very interested in when women were banned from the stage, but they don’t seem interested in what it meant for boys to be there,” playwright Zoe Senese-Grossberg said, in conversation about her play&nbsp;Boy My Greatness. “Even when people tell these stories, they always want there to be secretly a girl disguised as a boy who must have been at Shakespeare’s Globe. Because how could they all be boys? It freaks people out so much. But they were boys.” Boy My Greatness, first produced by The Firebird Project in NYC in 2024, and&nbsp;available on the New Play Exchange, is [&hellip;]
- [When bad curation leads to charges of reverse discrimination](https://hesherman.com/2025/05/31/when-bad-curation-leads-to-charges-of-racial-discrimination/): On its face, to those who believe in authentic representation of race and ethnicity on stage, a white woman playing Harriet Tubman is absurd if not grotesque. It would follow then that the same woman suing a library for reneging on her contract to do just that is nothing short of outrageous. Unfortunately, this is not a hypothetical construct. Writer and actor Annette Hubbell was engaged by the Rancho Santa Fe Library in San Diego County, California to perform vignettes from her “Women Warriors” program in 2024. A contract was issued for Hubbell to portray Tubman and Mary McLeod Bethune, [&hellip;]
- [When an endowment is not an endowment](https://hesherman.com/2025/05/27/when-an-endowment-is-not-an-endowment/): The National Endowment for the Arts does not deserve a premature burial, but it’s fair to say things aren’t looking good for it, at least in its current form. While the NEA as it has existed for the past 60 years is being hollowed out by design, it’s entirely possible that not unlike the people inhabited by a collective of alien pods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the building and the name may live. But in doing so, it will be a shell taken over by something entirely different. Having watched the NEA survive some four decades of attacks [&hellip;]
- [Silencing the Witches in Georgia High School “Crucible”](https://hesherman.com/2025/05/22/silencing-the-witches-in-georgia-high-school-crucible/): When the seniors graduate tomorrow at Fannin County High School in Blue Ridge GA, approximately 90 miles north of Atlanta, the sporting events will all be over and the yearbook published. But for the drama students at Fannin, there will be words left unspoken, because last weekend, following the first of two planned performances of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, the show was shut down, with students and parents being informed that the second performance would not be permitted. Over the course of the next 48 hours, the reasons given for the cancelation would change, but the show remained shuttered and, [&hellip;]
- [How the Blacklisting Starts](https://hesherman.com/2025/05/08/how-the-blacklisting-starts/): Perhaps you’ve already read the headlines about how members of the cast of Les Misérables, slated to play at the Kennedy Center next month, are opting out of the performance that President Trump plans to attend, which is tied to a fundraising event for the Center, where he has declared himself chairman. The stories thus far suggest that performers have been given the option to take the night off if they wish, while a CNN headline blares that they are boycotting the performance, which would suggest less accommodation and more precipitous action. Whatever the precise circumstances, this reflects the politicization [&hellip;]
- [In Celebration of Theatre Kids](https://hesherman.com/2025/04/30/in-celebration-of-theatre-kids/): There are those who wield the term “theatre kid” as a pejorative. It bespeaks a certain teenaged volume of expression, a distinctive depth of passion shared perhaps a bit too wantonly, a tendency to hug and cry at random moments of joy, a habit of breaking into song or monologue at restaurants after rehearsals, a predilection for listening to the showtune de jour on endless repeat, bookshelves filled not with YA novels but scripts of plays as yet unseen to be read aloud without provocation. And so on. To this I say, decades past my high school years: ich bin [&hellip;]
- [When Off-Broadway is Invisible](https://hesherman.com/2025/04/24/when-off-broadway-is-invisible/): Show of hands – who out there has read about the new play Irishtown at Irish Rep? How about the musical All The World’s a Stage at Keen Company? I ask because I saw both of these shows a couple of weeks ago and having seen little in the way of features or reviews – at the latter, I asked Keen&#8217;s artistic director when the show would open only to be told it had, three days earlier – I wondered what was at play. Playbill and Broadway World’s review round-ups show only three or four reviews for each show, even [&hellip;]
- [In New Jersey, Stopping a Play About The Power of Listening](https://hesherman.com/2024/02/14/in-new-jersey-stopping-a-play-about-the-power-of-listening/): There is a sad irony in hearing that a play about repairing relationships and rescuing people from racist ideologies through listening was shut down at a New Jersey high school less than 10 minutes into its performance, with silencing standing in opposition the act of hearing. The play’s title?&nbsp;Rift, or White Lies. Currently in production at Luna Stage in West Orange NJ, playwright Gabriel Jason Dean’s&nbsp;Rift&nbsp;is the story of two half-brothers’ encounters while one is incarcerated, and their meetings after a long silence resulting from the convicted brother’s embrace of white supremacy. It is a strongly autobiographical story, echoing that [&hellip;]
- [Dramatic Works Swept Up in Florida Book Bans](https://hesherman.com/2023/12/28/dramatic-works-swept-up-in-florida-book-bans/): “There is more than one way to burn a book,” wrote Ray Bradbury, in an afterword to his novel Fahrenheit 451. “And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.” It is no small irony, consequently, that Bradbury’s classic tale of book burning, written in the wake of Germany’s affinity for book burnings leading up to and during World War II, finds itself banned at times in the present day. Book challenges and resulting book bans may not send a plume of smoke into the sky, but the goal is the same: to make it difficult for people [&hellip;]
- [A Bright Golden Haze on “Oklahoma!” in Sherman TX](https://hesherman.com/2023/11/14/a-bright-golden-haze-on-oklahoma-in-sherman-tx/): On November 13, following close to three hours of public comment by more than 60 individual speakers, each allotted up to three minutes to speak – the vast majority of whom vigorously supported the drama students and questioned the process by which decisions were being made in the Sherman school system – and more than two hours of closed session, the board of the Sherman TX Independent School District voted unanimously that the original script and cast of the musical&nbsp;Oklahoma!&nbsp;should be allowed to proceed at the high school. This follows a week and half in which the school’s administration initially [&hellip;]
- [“Oklahoma!” Sanitized For Your Protection in Texas](https://hesherman.com/2023/11/11/oklahoma-sanitized-for-your-protection-in-texas/): The Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little Ladies of River City, Iowa ain’t got nuthin’ on the district administrators and school board of Sherman, Texas. Don’t remember the Pick-a-Little Ladies? They’re the gossipy gaggle of book banning biddies who take time out of their perpetual puncturing of their neighbors’ foibles to rail against the presence of classic works by Chaucer, Rabelais and (horrors) Balzac in the local library. The Sherman Independent School District honchos are the hypersensitive monitors of morals who have found shocking sexuality and impermissible profanity in the beloved 1943 classic&nbsp;Oklahoma!, widely acknowledged as a turning point in the development of modern [&hellip;]
- [Nothing is Up to Date in Sherman, Texas](https://hesherman.com/2023/11/07/nothing-is-up-to-date-in-sherman-texas/): “It was brought to the District’s attention that the current production contained mature adult themes, profane language, and sexual content,” reads the communication from Sherman High School in Sherman, Texas. “Unfortunately, all aspects of the production need to be reviewed, including content, stage production/props, and casting to ensure that the production is appropriate for the high school stage.” The scurrilous, sensual, and shocking show in question? Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! The date of this communication? November 6, 2023. It would be easy to simply find this ludicrous. Oklahoma! is, after all, widely considered to be the first musical of the [&hellip;]
- [At a Kansas University, Censoring a Student's Anti-Censorship Project](https://hesherman.com/2022/02/18/at-a-kansas-university-censoring-a-students-anti-censorship-project/): The irony is almost too neat: a college student plans a program of songs from musicals that have faced censorship – and with less than two days’ notice, her university informs her she has to take it off-campus.  That’s the situation that confronted Friends University student Caitlyn Fox earlier this month as she was in final preparations for “The Shows They Don’t Want Us to Produce: A Study of Censorship Throughout the History of Musical Theatre.” The performance was Fox’s senior recital, part of the academic program for musical theatre students at Friends, “a Christian University of Quaker heritage” in [&hellip;]
- [Step Aside, Superstar: Charlie Brown was a Concept Album Pioneer](https://hesherman.com/2021/12/19/step-aside-superstar-charlie-brown-was-a-concept-album-pioneer/): Conventional wisdom is difficult to alter, but here goes: contrary to what has been widely written,&nbsp;Jesus Christ Superstar&nbsp;was not the first concept recording of a musical to spawn a wildly successful hit show. Sorry Andrew, sorry Tim. It may well be that&nbsp;JCS&nbsp;was the first concept album to be the basis for a hit&nbsp;Broadway&nbsp;show, but the songs that formed the core of a hugely popular international success were first heard on vinyl in 1966 and landed on stage in New York in March 1967, for a run that would last for 1,597 performances, more than four years before the biblically-based musical. [&hellip;]
- [NYC 2021: My Year in My Pictures](https://hesherman.com/2021/12/16/nyc-2021-my-year-in-my-pictures/): Perhaps because I am hyperverbal – in person, in my writing, in my consumption of information, in my choice of entertainment – it perhaps should not be surprising that I take great pleasure in the visual and silent pursuit of photography. I do not have, I have long known, a visual imagination, but my purchase of a camera in 2013 has enabled me to capture some of what I see in the world and the way in which I see it. So I when I leave my apartment, I am most often accompanied by a bulky DSLR, the better to [&hellip;]
- [In 2022, “Broadway” and “Sex” Are Free](https://hesherman.com/2021/12/15/in-2022-broadway-and-sex-are-free/): Take careful note of the quotation marks, because the headline above doesn’t nod to theatre tickets or the wholesale embrace of casual fornication. The reference, sorry to disappoint you, relates instead to the titles of two stage works created in 1926, which as of January 1, 2022 should be entering the public domain. As a result of changes in copyright law over the years, very little entered the public domain for an extended period which ended in 2019, once again starting the annual roll of works ceasing to be under the control of the estates of those who created them. [&hellip;]
- [Despite Pandemic, High School Shows Still Being Shut Down, For New Reasons](https://hesherman.com/2021/03/17/despite-pandemic-high-school-shows-still-being-shut-down-for-new-reasons/): Given the disastrous reduction in live theatre that has marked the pandemic since March of 2020, one might assume that incidences of high school shows canceled over content concerns would have been curtailed as well. But as lockdowns have been lifted and as theatre educators have devised creative means to produce safely, production shutdowns have followed. However, the reason for the cancelations that have risen to public awareness is not typical of what has come before. Over the past decade, when school theatre productions have been shut down, it is typically because of parents or community members who object to [&hellip;]
- [For My Friend Who Will Never Read My Book](https://hesherman.com/2021/01/28/for-my-friend-who-will-never-read-my-book/): Today, my book is published. This is the realization of a dream that I had given up on long ago. But my most overwhelming emotion today, and every time I look at the finished book, is sadness. It would be wrong to say that I wrote&nbsp;Another Day’s Begun&nbsp;for any one person. Presumably like any other author, I wrote it for many people to read. But the person who I most wanted to read it, who I most wanted to have place it on her bookshelf, cannot.&nbsp; Catherine “Kaki” Marshall was a mentor to me in my days as a student [&hellip;]
- [My Pandemic Year in Pictures](https://hesherman.com/2020/12/28/my-pandemic-year-in-pictures/): Taking extreme care during the pandemic, particularly when New York was the first and hardest hit in the earliest days, my journeys beyond my apartment and the immediate surroundings put significant limitations on my truest hobby: photography. Because I remained in Manhattan for all but two brief excursions beyond its borders (one lasting only a few hours, the other overnight), my range of locations and subjects was necessarily narrow. But I was compelled to take pictures whenever I could do so safely, and while the majority of my time was spent in Riverside Park and Central Park, I did venture [&hellip;]
- ["Our Town" in Our Moment](https://hesherman.com/2020/04/17/our-town-in-our-moment/): “So friends, this is the way we were in our growing up and in our marrying and in our doctoring and in our living and in our dying.” Pull out a copy of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town and, depending upon the vintage of the edition, if it’s old enough, you can find that line. That’s how it read in the 1938 hardback edition, which was drawn from the original rehearsal manuscript. But at this moment, with theatres dark, with people fearing illness and falling ill, the ultimately excised “doctoring” as a key element in our lives holds unfortunate resonance. While we cannot [&hellip;]
- [C-a-n-c-e-l-i-n-g ‘Spelling Bee’ at a Maryland Middle School](https://hesherman.com/2019/04/24/c-a-n-c-e-l-i-n-g-spelling-bee-at-a-maryland-middle-school/): The communication announcing the cancelation of a production of the musical The 25thAnnual Putnam County Spelling Bee at Hyattsville Middle School in Maryland could not have been more terse. Unfortunately we have decided to cancel the Spring Musical dates of May 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. Additionally, we will hold a parent meeting after spring break, Tuesday April 23rdat 4:30pm in Mrs. Gee’s Room to address next steps and to answer any of your questions, comments, or concerns. The letter was signed by Genese Gee-Schmidtke, the Hyattsville Middle School Theatre Arts Director. The signature included the tagline, presumably common to all [&hellip;]
- [At Neil Simon Festival, A Contest Entry Fee That’s No Laughing Matter](https://hesherman.com/2019/01/29/at-neil-simon-festival-a-contest-entry-fee-thats-no-laughing-matter/): If one looks around the website of The Neil Simon Festival, a yearly theatre event held in Cedar City, Utah, there’s a list of donors to the company. On that list are seven entries at the $100+ level. But the list is perhaps some 30 short, because that’s the approximate number of unlisted individuals who sent $150 to the Festival last year. While the $150 sent by those people isn’t described by the Festival as a donation, it effectively is one for all but a single person. The $150 figure is derived from the submission fee playwrights are asked to [&hellip;]
- [Tina Landau: "A Home in the Theatre"](https://hesherman.com/2019/01/17/tina-landau-a-home-in-the-theatre/): &nbsp; I was asked to deliver the Keynote Address for BroadwayCon, a three day expo for fans of Broadway theater.  The theme of the Opening Ceremony was “Home,” and included performances by Susan Egan singing &#8220;Home&#8221; from Beauty and the Beast, Hailey Kilgore with &#8220;Home&#8221; from The Wiz, as well as Ethan Slater, Ben Cameron, and Anthony Rapp contributing other songs and an opening group performance of “BroadwayCon Today,” set to the tune of &#8220;Bikini Bottom Day&#8221; from SpongeBob SquarePants – The Musical.This is what I shared with the audience at the Opening of BroadwayCon on Friday, January 11 *   *   [&hellip;]
- [Setting Free The Plays Of 1923](https://hesherman.com/2018/12/20/setting-free-the-plays-of-1923/): While the phrase “public domain” may hold little meaning for you (or make your eyes glaze over), January 1, 2019 will mark a significant milestone in that seemingly arcane distinction. That’s because at the beginning of the new year, creative works will once again begin to enter the public domain – that is to say that they will no longer be subject to copyright protection or restrictions – for the first time in 20 years. Why the gap? Because in 1998 Congress enacted an extension on copyright protection (named for entertainer and congressman Sonny Bono, who fought for such legislation). [&hellip;]
- [Teaching Students & Audiences About Swastikas, The SS and "The Sound of Music"](https://hesherman.com/2018/12/18/teaching-students-audiences-about-swastikas-the-ss-and-the-sound-of-music/): If you see a stage production of The Sound of Music, here are some words you won’t hear: Nazi. Hitler. Here are some words you will hear in the stage version: Gauleiter. Anschluss. Third Reich. Regardless of whether you see The Sound of Music on stage or watch the perennially popular 1965 movie, here’s another word you won’t hear: Holocaust. None of this is meant as criticism of The Sound of Music in either version. They are simply facts about the musical&#8217;s book and screenplay. Coming 14 and 20 years after the end of World War II, the stage and screen musicals (respectively) [&hellip;]
- [Worry About The Censorship and Homophobia First, Then The Prayers](https://hesherman.com/2018/11/14/worry-about-the-censorship-and-homophobia-first-then-the-prayers/): As word about a scuffle over a theatre production at Mitchell High School in Mitchell County NC has started to make its way beyond the local North Carolina media, accounts seem to be placing their emphasis on what is really the least of the problems there. After all, in America, people are free to pray as they see fit. Less than 30 people gathered to pray over the presentation of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) to a high school audience. What’s getting lost, or not reported at all, is the censorship that occurred, and the homophobic outbursts during [&hellip;]
- [At One California High School, Gender Neutral & Color Conscious Casting in "1776"](https://hesherman.com/2018/07/04/at-one-california-high-school-gender-neutral-color-conscious-casting-in-1776/): Editor&#8217;s preface: Austin Tichenor of the Reduced Shakespeare Company wrote an extensive Facebook post after seeing a production of 1776, directed by his sister, the author of this essay, at their old high school in California, 38 years after having directed his own production in their hometown. His reflections prompted Arts Integrity to solicit this post, about how the production had come together; it is certainly only one example of how 1776 and many works for the stage are being reexamined in high school productions, especially in the wake of the success of Hamilton. Amy Tichenor Moorhead, teaches dance and musical theatre at Piedmont [&hellip;]
- [The Stage: Why the thrills and chills of Sweeney Todd still speak (and sing) to me](https://hesherman.com/2018/06/29/the-stage-why-the-thrills-and-chills-of-sweeney-todd-still-speak-and-sing-to-me/): When the Tooting Arts Club set up its immersive Sweeney Todd at Harrington’s Pie and Mash in 2014, I doubt it was expecting the production to become the longest-running professional production of Stephen Sondheim’s masterpiece. But that’s what happened, with the New York incarnation having recently passed 558 performances on its way to a total of 636 when it closes in August. If you tack on the London runs, it has lasted even longer. Nit-pickers can say that the so-called Tiny Todd only had to fill 130 seats per performance in Manhattan, while the original Broadway run at the Uris, [&hellip;]
- [In A Times Square Renovation, New Version of the Past](https://hesherman.com/2018/06/11/in-a-times-square-renovation-new-version-of-the-past/): There are many who remain upset with the owners of the Hotel Edison for their ejection of the Edison Cafe several years ago, and you can count me among them, because along with the cafe went the best chicken soup I&#8217;ve ever had, a balm on days when it was cold out or I had a cold. But now I have to tip my hat to those same owners, who, in the process of renovating the hotel, haven&#8217;t taken the corporate, pre-fabricated route, at least so far as the deco-ish lobby goes. Indeed, on this post-Tony Awards morning, when many [&hellip;]
- [Quotation Marks Don’t Soften a Slur in Chicago](https://hesherman.com/2018/03/31/quotation-marks-dont-soften-a-slur-in-chicago/): &nbsp; Now there is a redaction, an editor’s note, and an author’s apology. But for roughly 24 hours between Wednesday and Thursday this week, in a theatre review in the Chicago Reader, the racially incendiary “n-word” was part of the text online. The review, by Justin Hayford, was of the Court Theatre’s current production of the stage adaptation of the 1967 film Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. The slur is spoken, once, during the play itself, by a black father to his black son. When the word first appeared in the Reader, it wasn’t presented as a quote, but rather [&hellip;]
- [The Stage: Ubu Bake Off gives voice to theatre’s anti-Trump insurgents](https://hesherman.com/2018/02/23/the-stage-ubu-bake-off-gives-voice-to-theatres-anti-trump-insurgents/): Four days ago, the US theatre community fostered the birth of more than 100 new short plays, on our federal holiday of Presidents’ Day. These were not, however, created in a spontaneous outpouring of national pride, but rather a coordinated – if entirely voluntary – effort that specifically sought to conflate the current presidency with Alfred Jarry’s absurdist and profane play Ubu Roi. Held at nearly two dozen theatres and theatre-related organisations, the Ubu Bake Off was the brainchild of award-winning playwright Paula Vogel, who, please pardon the expression, cooked up the idea while musing on Facebook just five weeks [&hellip;]
- [On The Front Lines, In School And In Theatre](https://hesherman.com/2018/02/17/on-the-front-lines-in-school-and-in-theatre/): &nbsp; I am tired. I am tired of reading posts about &#8220;my rights&#8221; to a hobby that includes automatic rifles. You like guns, fine. But accept the fact that guns are dangerous and require strict regulations. I am a teacher. I am tired because my job is hard. Don&#8217;t get me wrong, I love this gig, but it is hard work. It is emotionally draining, mentally challenging, and physically demanding. I am talking about a normal day here folks, and this past week was NOT NORMAL. On top of all I do, I must also include drills where we hide [&hellip;]
- [The Stage: Take to the barricades to defend the arts from Trump’s antagonism](https://hesherman.com/2018/02/16/the-stage-take-to-the-barricades-to-defend-the-arts-from-trumps-antagonism/): If I were given to cynicism, and if I thought I could get away with it, this week I would have submitted the same column as the one published on March 24 of last year. Why? Because we return to the same topic: President Trump and his antagonism of the arts. The president has, for the second time in his presidency, submitted a budget to the US Congress eliminating funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Never mind that the new budget will balloon the national debt [&hellip;]
- [Jose Jimenez is Alive and Well and Performing in Utah](https://hesherman.com/2018/02/11/jose-jimenez-is-alive-and-well-and-performing-in-utah/): Even when intended benignly, brownface is an offense. Your saying the character is not a stereotype doesn't make it true.
- [The Stage: Broadway’s longest-runners should be celebrated, but are they limiting new work?](https://hesherman.com/2018/02/02/the-stage-broadways-longest-runners-should-be-celebrated-but-are-they-limiting-new-work/): By celebrating its 30th anniversary on Broadway last week, The Phantom of the Opera marked what now seems a never-ending series of milestones, having run longer than any show in Broadway history. The seeming permanence of Phantom may mask its achievement, though it has an eight-year lead on the revival of Chicago and nine years on The Lion King. Even if it were to close tomorrow – and that’s not about to happen – it would take the better part of a decade before either of those surpassed it, if they could. Congratulations are due, of course, to Andrew Lloyd [&hellip;]
- [In a Teacher’s Declaration, Discouraging Words and A Smidgen of Insight](https://hesherman.com/2018/01/01/in-a-teachers-declaration-discouraging-words-and-a-smidgen-of-insight/): Of the many criteria one might apply when considering what makes a great teacher, I think it’s fair to say that the ability to see and encourage something in a student that they do not yet necessarily see in themselves would rank high on the list. While this is probably not possible for each and every student, nor every teacher, one often hears stories from successful people about a teacher who really helped them along on their journey of education and discovery. As I contemplate my education, it turns out that the person who did this for me was not [&hellip;]
- [The Stage: Jukebox or box-set musical? It’s time to make the distinction](https://hesherman.com/2017/11/24/the-stage-jukebox-or-box-set-musical-its-time-to-make-the-distinction/): ‘Jukebox musical.’ For musical theatre purists, it’s a term of derision. For producers, it’s the promise of marketing the music of a well-known star, with songs that audiences already love and are happy to hear again. For songwriters, it’s a chance to have their work on Broadway, in some cases creating a new earning stream and in other cases even revitalising their careers. But let’s forego our value judgments and even our commercial appraisals. What about the term itself? ‘Jukebox musical’ has been applied to a range of shows. Mamma Mia! used the songs of Abba in the context of [&hellip;]
- [The Stage: Stage stories of kindness offer balm in face of real-life dramas](https://hesherman.com/2017/11/17/the-stage-stage-stories-of-kindness-offer-balm-in-face-of-real-life-dramas/): If drama is, according to one of its dictionary definitions, “a state, situation, or series of events involving interesting or intense conflict of forces,” then one could say that several shows in New York right now – two of them being Broadway musicals – are undramatic. The Band’s Visit, which opened last week, is the story of an Egyptian police band. Due to confusion surrounding the similar pronunciation of two Israeli towns (for those who don’t speak Hebrew), the band ends up in the wrong one and is forced to stay overnight in a tiny desert community with no hotel. [&hellip;]
- [The Stage: Opportunities grow on and off stage for those with disabilities](https://hesherman.com/2017/11/10/the-stage-opportunities-grow-on-and-off-stage-for-those-with-disabilities/): Attending last week’s opening night of Uncommon Sense, a new play about people on the autistic spectrum, I was delighted to see the following message under the cast listing in the show’s programme: “The production will be presented in a judgement-free and inclusive environment. At no point will anyone be shushed or asked to leave due to noises, movements, or behaviours related to a cognition or developmental disability. The Sheen Center is committed to welcoming audiences of all abilities and appreciates your support in that commitment.” For a show about neurodiverse people, this certainly made sense and distinguished the production [&hellip;]
- [Facebook Needs To Explain Its Problem With A Sondheim Ad](https://hesherman.com/2017/10/20/facebook-needs-to-explain-its-problem-with-a-sondheim-ad/): As investigations into political tampering with the 2016 US election on Facebook have made headlines and perhaps spurred corporate introspection, one would hope that the company is in the process of tightening its ad controls. Given the huge importance of social media company in the world’s communications, we can ill afford to have false information circulating that undermines democracy – or that supports racist and hate-filled positions. But even if Facebook is placing ads under more scrutiny, it’s still pretty difficult to understand what led them to ban ads for a production of Sondheim and Weidman’s musical Assassins, currently underway [&hellip;]
- [Keynote: School Theatre Can Be More](https://hesherman.com/2017/10/18/keynote-school-theatre-can-be-more/): The Florida Association for Theatre Education invited me to be the keynote speaker at their annual conference, held in Orlando October 12-14, 2017. The text below represents an edited version of that address, which was written to be spoken, not read, so please forgive oratorical repetitions, some of which will have been minimized already. There were various ad libs during the course of the speech which, I&#8217;m afraid, have now escaped me. *    *    * At the risk of telling you things you know all too well, since it is you who do the teaching and I who spend my [&hellip;]
- [Telling James Franco's lawyer, “Your client does not have any valid claim”](https://hesherman.com/2017/09/28/telling-james-francos-lawyer-your-client-does-not-have-any-valid-claim/): This summer, when an attorney for actor James Franco sent New York&#8217;s People&#8217;s Improv Theatre a cease and desist letter regarding the venue&#8217;s planned presentation of the play James Franco and Me, PIT&#8217;s response was to cancel the booking. At the time, Kevin Broccoli, author and performer of JF and Me had no legal representation, and so the stories that emerged were that Franco had successfully shut down the production, as highlighted in numerous media outlets, including  The New York Times and Rolling Stone. Among the organizations that stepped in to assist Broccoli were the Arts Integrity Initiative and the [&hellip;]
- [The Stage: Critics should learn the language of disability](https://hesherman.com/2017/09/17/the-stage-critics-should-learn-the-language-of-disability/): Sam Gold’s production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie produced a wide range of critical responses when it opened last week, and that surely wasn’t unexpected. Based upon Gold’s 2015 staging for Toneelgroep Amsterdam, it is a radically deconstructed version of the play, different in look and feel than most (presumably) of those that came before it. Where Gold’s staging likely differs from the vast majority of its predecessors is in the director’s decision to cast Madison Ferris, an actor with a mobility disability (in her case deriving from muscular dystrophy) in the role of Laura. Williams’ text certainly made [&hellip;]
- [The Stage: Mourning playwright AR Gurney and the end of an Off-Broadway era](https://hesherman.com/2017/09/15/the-stage-mourning-playwright-ar-gurney-and-the-end-of-an-off-broadway-era/): Playwright AR Gurney would have found great irony in the fact that his life was commemorated at Broadway’s Music Box Theatre this week because, despite his success, Broadway was never much of a home to him. Only four of his nearly 40 plays ever made it to the Great White Way, and the longest run was for his 1987 work Sweet Sue, which eked out six months including previews. Gurney attributed that entirely to the presence of Mary Tyler Moore and Lynn Redgrave in the four-strong cast. The playwright, known to one and all as Pete for reason long lost to [&hellip;]
- [At North Shore Music Theatre, An Absence of Race, Ethnicity and Understanding Prevails](https://hesherman.com/2017/09/14/at-north-shore-music-theatre-an-absence-of-race-ethnicity-and-understanding-prevails/): It’s a bit hard to follow the thinking of Bill Hanney, the owner and producer at North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, Massachusetts. Initially, it was hard because Hanney was silent, not responding to complaints – initiated by Lauren Villegas of Project Am I Right? – over the lack of Latinx casting in the company’s production Evita, which has no Latinx performers in principal roles and seemingly few in the entire cast. The theatre’s first response came on the personal Facebook page of Kevin P. Hill, producing artistic director at North Shore, who wrote, in part: North Shore Music Theatre understands [&hellip;]
- [The Stage: Do parodies like a rock musical of Game of Thrones risk burning out the genre?](https://hesherman.com/2017/09/01/the-stage-do-parodies-like-a-rock-musical-of-game-of-thrones-risk-burning-out-the-genre/): Earlier today, I received an invitation to an Off-Broadway show called Game of Thrones: The Rock Musical – The Unauthorized Parody. While I appreciate the offer, I’m not putting the show on my theatre calendar. The simple reason for this is that I’ve never seen Game of Thrones. So spending time with a spoof of something I know only from a deluge of comments on social media seems unappealing. Yet it’s only the latest in a line of shows which exploit similar territory, creating a theatrical sub-genre: a veritable unauthorized parody parade. I can think of a few predecessors, including [&hellip;]
- [Contrary to What You’ve Heard, You Can Cast Albee Plays Diversely](https://hesherman.com/2017/08/18/contrary-to-what-youve-heard-you-can-cast-albee-plays-diversely/): It is unlikely that many people in the theatre are unaware of the controversy that arose in mid-May, when a small Portland, Oregon theatre company proposed a production of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with a black actor in the role of Nick. Outcry built swiftly after Michael Streeter of the Shoebox Theatre posted the following message to Facebook: “I am furious and dumbfounded. The Edward Albee Estate needs to join the 21st Century. I cast a black actor in Who&#8217;s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The Albee Estate called and said I need to fire the black actor [&hellip;]
- [James Franco Won’t Like This and There’s Nothing He Can Do About It](https://hesherman.com/2017/08/07/james-franco-wont-like-this-and-theres-nothing-he-can-do-about-it/): Those who have followed the career of James Franco, and at times it has almost been hard to avoid, are aware that the actor had a period where he was a perpetual student, described in 2008 in Vanity Fair as displaying a “pan disciplinary omnivorousness.” He has a bachelor’s degree in English from UCLA, did graduate studies at Columbia, NYU Tisch, Yale and Brooklyn College, and has lectured at the UCLA School of Film, Television and Theater. Since English, writing and other creative endeavors were part of his studies, presumably along the way he might have learned a few things [&hellip;]
- ["Judas Iscariot" Doesn’t Deserve This Treatment](https://hesherman.com/2017/08/04/judas-iscariot-doesnt-deserve-this-treatment/): If you happen to be going to see the current production Stephen Adly Guirgis’s The Last Days of Judas Iscariot at the Shelton Theater in San Francisco the next ten days, you’ll find an insert in the program that declares, “The play you are seeing tonight has been improperly and extensively cut &amp; edited. These edits were made without permission, against the wishes of the playwright, and in violation of Federal Copyright Law.” There’s a red, stencil-like image, similar to an old rubber stamp, declaring “WARNING” across the text. You might think this is some sort of joke, some meta-theatrical [&hellip;]
- [David Mamet Doesn’t Feel Well](https://hesherman.com/2017/07/24/david-mamet-doesnt-feel-well/): On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal published an essay by the playwright and screenwriter David Mamet, entitled “Charles Dickens Makes Me Want To Throw Up.” As it turns out, the essay was just one chapter in the forthcoming book, “David Mamet’s Physiological Responses To Classic Literature.” While we must wait for publication to fully understand precisely why Mr. Mamet takes issue with so many well known writers, a small selection of leaked chapter headings provide some sense of his thinking. &nbsp; Elizabeth Barrett Browning makes me itch in places I can&#8217;t reach. ≈ F. Scott Fitzgerald’s words yield the sensation [&hellip;]
- [“Assassins” in the Age of Trump](https://hesherman.com/2017/07/10/assassins-in-the-age-of-trump/): This week, Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s 1990 musical Assassins will have its first major New York performances since the 2004 Roundabout Theatre Company production*, in a concert version as part of City Center Encores!’s Off-Center series. Given the controversy sparked last month by The Public Theater’s Julius Caesar, in which Caesar and his wife were portrayed as analogues of Donald and Melania Trump, prompting the withdrawal of sponsors, sparking disruptions of performances and precipitating threats against the production, the theatre, the artists and the staff, it seemed an appropriate moment to speak with Weidman about how Assassins has been perceived [&hellip;]
- [So Are They All, All Honorable Corporations](https://hesherman.com/2017/06/12/so-are-they-all-all-honorable-corporations/): Does anyone remember last summer’s The Taming of the Shrew in Central Park? It opened with an entirely non-Shakespearean beauty pageant and talent show, led by a buffoonish figure costumed to look very much like a billionaire presidential candidate who has owned, and exploited, beauty pageants of his own. Coming in a production in which the entire cast was women, in a play that is widely considered to be misogynist in our era, it was a broad parody, a buffoonish portrayal of a political figure who had yet to consolidate his electoral power. But there was no mistaking that this [&hellip;]
- [Was Boston Children’s Theatre Censored for Pushing Boundaries?](https://hesherman.com/2017/05/09/was-boston-childrens-theatre-censored-for-pushing-boundaries/): One doesn’t expect to hear the words “nudity” and “children’s theatre” discussed in the same sentence. But there’s been a lot of that juxtaposition going around up in Boston as a result of the Boston Children’s Theatre production of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest in the latter half of April. “Artistic director caught in storm over nude scene at Boston Children’s Theatre” blared the headline in The Boston Globe one day late last week, only to be followed the next day by “Amid nudity flap, board member resigns at Boston Children’s Theatre.” WBUR’s The Artery had commentary headed “Nudity [&hellip;]
- [Staff Bites Board, at a Seattle Service Organization](https://hesherman.com/2017/04/24/staff-bites-board-at-a-seattle-service-organization/): According to an old aphorism, “dog bites man” is not big news, however “man bites dog” is something to report. Consequently, in the arts world, “board of directors fires staff” may be of interest, but it’s hardly novel. “Staff fires board of directors” is something else entirely, and that’s what’s playing out right now in Seattle. Of course, that’s highly reductive, but the fact is, on April 24, the majority of the staff of Theatre Puget Sound, a theatrical service organization for the greater Seattle community, signed a letter to their board which began, “In good faith, we ask you [&hellip;]
- [When A Censored Play Was Already In Violation of Copyright](https://hesherman.com/2017/04/12/when-a-censored-play-was-already-in-violation-of-copyright/): The shutting down of a high school play at East Newton High School in Granby, Missouri last week may have set a new low in bad timing for such incidents. The show was not canceled after casting, during rehearsals, just prior to opening night or following the first performance. No, at East Newton the show was canceled roughly 10 minutes into the second act on its first night. Why? Because two parents, watching the show, demanded that their child be pulled off the stage. The reasoning? As one of the parents claimed on Facebook, “The play consisted of extreme amounts of [&hellip;]
- [In Minnesota, Change Play’s Title Or Lose A Production?](https://hesherman.com/2017/04/05/in-minnesota-change-plays-title-or-lose-a-production/): If you happen to have been giving any thought to producing Langston Hughes’s 1935 play Mulatto at the Ames Center in Burnsville MN, save yourself some time and either move on to another play or another venue. Why? Because the Ames Center is uncomfortable with the word “mulatto,” and won’t approve it in the title of an offering in their building. Hughes’s stature, and the fact that the Black Repertory Group in Berkeley play produced the show as recently as 2015, probably wouldn’t make any difference. How do we know this, since the scenario above is hypothetical, in addition to being [&hellip;]
- [At Princeton, A New Layer for "Hairspray"](https://hesherman.com/2017/04/04/at-princeton-a-new-layer-for-hairspray/): Despite its origin in a 1988 film from John Waters, the underground master of camp, shock and transgression, the story of Tracy Turnblad, as told in multiple iterations, has become wholly mainstream. Thanks in large part to the 2002 stage musical version, Tracy’s story of leading an effort to integrate a local TV music program in Baltimore has had America singing and dancing along for years now. Beyond its more conventional musical numbers, it offers up a craven TV producer who laments her salad days as “Miss Baltimore Crabs” and teens miming the crushing bugs as part of a dance [&hellip;]
- [In Hell, Damning That Accursed Howard Sherman](https://hesherman.com/2017/03/29/in-hell-damning-that-accursed-howard-sherman/): I cannot claim that I was completely surprised. By the same token, I didn’t know exactly what to expect. A press release first made me&nbsp;aware of Diva: Live From Hell, and I lingered on it longer than most I receive. The plot synopsis, of a high school drama kid doomed to Hell for his thespian transgressions while alive, ticked off some of the boxes that usually interest me, school theatre in particular. But thinking about the already heavy theatergoing schedule I keep in late March and April, I decided I’d better give it a pass. So many shows, so little [&hellip;]
- [Disrobing "The Foreigner" at a Minnesota High School](https://hesherman.com/2017/03/28/disrobing-the-foreigner-at-a-minnesota-high-school/): Context is everything. If you ask the average parent whether, in the abstract, they want to hear a student, any student, saying the n-word from the stage of their local high school auditorium, the answer (hopefully) would  be no. Put that word in its full context in the musical Ragtime, or in the plays of August Wilson, and those familiar with the works may feel differently. Ask parents whether they’d like to hear students say words like “ass” and “skanky” from a school stage, and odds are they wouldn’t be keen on it. But put it in the context of [&hellip;]
- [Two High School Shows That Couldn’t Be Saved](https://hesherman.com/2017/03/02/two-high-school-shows-that-couldnt-be-saved/): When incidences of high school theatre censorship arise, the point at which they occur, and when that breaks out beyond school walls, can be central to efforts to reverse the decision. At other times, one finds webpages like the one above, from Danville Area High School in Pennsylvania in late January. The recent debate in Cherry Hill NJ over Ragtime is an excellent case in point. The decision by the school administration to alter all “offensive” language in the play, without permission from the licensing house or the authors, arose while the show was in rehearsals, six weeks before performances [&hellip;]
- [Zeros and Ones Don’t Add Up To Live Action](https://hesherman.com/2017/02/27/zeros-and-ones-dont-add-up-to-live-action/): For those who work in the theatre, the idea of defending the term “live action” would seem an unnecessary task. But as movie marketers, abetted uncritically by the entertainment press, seem determined to diminish the concept, it appears that a brief primer is warranted. Live-action has, for many years, been a term reserved for that which actually occurs in real life, that is to say the activities of humans (and other animals). Whether performed on stage or captured on a camera, real people have been the central tenet of live action. In the theatre, while everything that surrounds people on [&hellip;]
- [Winston Churchill's Famous Arts Quote Is, Alas, Bogus](https://hesherman.com/2017/02/21/winston-churchills-famous-arts-quote-is-alas-bogus/): Even if you’ve never read the quote, you’ve no doubt seen the meme, in all of its arts-affirming, damn the torpedoes glory. Just one small detail: it isn&#8217;t true. I am referring to the story that goes as follows, and here I’ll quote an op-ed piece from TheHill.com, dated February 19, 2017: At the height of WWII, Winston Churchill was challenged to defend a budget that called for an increase in arts funding. “How can you propose this at a time of extreme national crisis?” asked one member of Parliament. Churchill replied, “I do it, sir, to remind us what we [&hellip;]
- [Supposition Is No Support As NEA Is Threatened](https://hesherman.com/2017/02/20/supposition-is-no-support-as-nea-is-threatened/): Let’s start with the positive, though I’m afraid that won’t last long. In her New York Times article, “Might Ivanka Trump Speak Up If Her Father Guts The Arts?,” Robin Pogrebin makes a series of suppositions rooted in an aspect of arts education that is rarely discussed. That element is the reality that the vast majority of students – elementary, secondary, university – who study or participate in the arts won’t probably go on to careers in the arts. However, their exposure might yield a lifelong affinity. This isn’t something that’s unique among the many subjects students are exposed to in [&hellip;]
- [At University of Washington, Anonymous Hate Messages Extend To Campus Theatre](https://hesherman.com/2017/02/18/at-university-of-washington-anonymous-hate-messages-extend-to-campus-theatre/): This is a revised and updated version of a prior post from earlier today, which has been withdrawn, because it suggested, based upon news accounts, that the UW theatre department had been singularly targeted. This incorporates additional information provided by Todd London, executive director of the UW Department of Drama. At a time in the life of America when The New York Times has been compelled to create a column called “This Week in Hate,” some localized instances of actions that are overtly oppositional to a culture that embraces all people, regardless of race, religion, sexuality, gender identity or disability, can still run the risk of being [&hellip;]
- [Kate Fodor's "Rubber Knife," from Primary Stages' "Morning in America"](https://hesherman.com/2017/02/16/kate-fodors-rubber-knife-from-primary-stages-morning-in-america/): Beginning one week after the November presidential election, New York&#8217;s Primary Stages commissioned a collection of over 70 pieces written by a diverse array of playwrights from their artistic community. Each artist crafted a short monologue from the perspective of a character in America on the morning of November 9th. The resulting works will be presented twice, under the collective title Morning in America, November 9, 2016 9 AM, on February 18 and 19. Kate Fodor&#8217;s Rubber Knife is but one of pieces that came out of this call to the writing community. Kate Fodor&#8217;s plays have been produced across the US and [&hellip;]
- [Long Before “Ragtime,” Musical Lessons From Lynn Ahrens](https://hesherman.com/2017/02/06/long-before-ragtime-musical-lessons-from-lynn-ahrens/): Two weeks ago, the musical Ragtime came under fire at a high school in Cherry Hill, New Jersey for its deployment of racial slurs in telling a anti-racism story that is intended to evoke the evolving nature of what it means to be American, blending the stories of white, black, and Jewish characters according to the template set by E.L. Doctorow’s best-selling novel from 1975. Following efforts to censor its language, which would have resulted in the rights to the show being withdrawn due to unauthorized edits, Ragtime will go in Cherry Hill, serving not only as entertainment but education about the [&hellip;]
- [With Curricular Context Added, "Ragtime" to Play On in Cherry Hill](https://hesherman.com/2017/01/27/with-curricular-context-added-ragtime-to-play-on-in-cherry-hill/): On January 20, the Cherry Hill Public School system in New Jersey announced their intent to censor racially charged language for their upcoming drama group&#8217;s production of the musical Ragtime at Cherry Hill High School East. The announcement prompted a vocal response from advocates on both sides of the issue: those who felt the language in the play was unacceptable under any circumstances, and those who believed that the play must be performed intact, with the potentially offensive words used to serve the work&#8217;s overall message of American diversity and inclusion. On Tuesday, January 24, there were two hours and 40 [&hellip;]
- [Cherry-Picking the Words of “Ragtime” in Cherry Hill](https://hesherman.com/2017/01/24/cherry-picking-the-words-of-ragtime-in-cherry-hill/): There is no question that there are racially charged words in the musical Ragtime, just as there were in the novel upon which it is based. In telling the story of black characters, of Jewish characters, of Irish characters at the turn of the 20th century, these words are integral to portraying the racism and bigotry that were rampant in that era. The artists who created the show – Terrence McNally, Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens – and the many who have since staged and performed it, understand the ugliness that is inherent in that language and have not deployed it [&hellip;]
- [Times Square Weirdness: 2016 In Review](https://hesherman.com/2016/12/26/times-square-weirdness-2016-in-review/): Given that it was merely a stray amusement that became a popular offshoot of my photography hobby, &#8220;Times Square Weirdness&#8221; went worldwide this year with my discovery of Mike Hot-Pence (aka Glen Pannell), who used his resemblance to the Vice-President-elect to raise funds for progressive causes. Profiles everywhere from the Washington Post to People magazine to BuzzFeed all got their start on this site, and while the inspired idea was 100% Glen&#8217;s, it was my photos and blog post that caught the media&#8217;s attention – until such time as the media just keep feeding upon itself. And I should say that both Glen [&hellip;]
- [Of Pleas, Pants, Race, Rights and Lin-Manuel: My Top Blog Posts of 2016](https://hesherman.com/2016/12/23/of-pleas-pants-race-rights-and-lin-manuel-my-top-blog-posts-of-2016/): In some ways, it might make more sense if I wrote this post about some of my least-read pieces of 2016, because I value almost everything I write equally and never quite know why some get widely read and others just seem to be of only marginal interest to others. I of course prefer to blame social media and its vagaries, but in some cases it might be the photos I chose, the headline I drafted or the relative idiosyncrasy of the subject. Because this year was the first during which I was writing for not one but two sites – [&hellip;]
- [Considering An Unsweetened “Charity” Review  ](https://hesherman.com/2016/12/07/considering-an-unsweetened-charity-review/): Last week was not the first time I’ve been puzzled by Hilton Als’s writing on theatre. I didn’t understand the rather cruel rationale by which he described the late playwright Wendy Wasserstein as follows, in a capsule review of Julie Salomon’s biography of Wasserstein: Wendy Wasserstein was the kind of woman many women didn’t feel comfortable befriending, especially since she was what they feared being themselves: overweight, single, and a fag hag. I was stumped when Als, wrote the following about Annie Baker, in reviewing her play John. Baker has produced only one play about a woman’s life, and it [&hellip;]
- [The Incredibly True Origins of Mike Hot-Pence, Times Square Icon](https://hesherman.com/2016/12/04/the-incredibly-true-origins-of-mike-hot-pence-times-square-icon/): For those unfamiliar with “Times Square Weirdness,” my series of photos of the odder denizens of Times Square, shared frequently on my Facebook page, you may be surprised to learn of my familiarity with the Elmos and Spider-Men that people The Crossroads of the World. One by-product of this frivolous pastime is that whenever a new “character” appears, I note it almost immediately and, whenever possible, record it for posterity. Today I was surprised to encounter a nattily attired, white-haired gent calling himself “Mike Hot-Pence,” playing off the name of our Vice-President-elect, to whom the man bore a strong resemblance. [&hellip;]
- [Seeking Equity In Theatre, Fighting Wrong With Wrong Won’t Go Right](https://hesherman.com/2016/11/25/seeking-equity-in-theatre-fighting-wrong-with-wrong-wont-go-right/): Anyone claiming that there is equity or equality – by gender, by race and ethnicity, by disability – in the American theatre would have to be willfully ignoring the evidence. The Dramatists Guild’s The Count showed that only one in five plays produced in the U.S. is written by a woman. The annual survey of performers on Broadway issued by the Asian American Performers Action Coalition most recently showed that only 22% of Broadway performers in 2014-15 were people of color. The executive summary of a study of leadership in LORT theatres by gender states that at no time have [&hellip;]
- [A Short Play By Warren Leight: "Union Square Incident"](https://hesherman.com/2016/11/21/short-play-by-warren-leight-union-square-incident/): Union Square Incident premiered on November 14, 2016 as part of The 24 Hour Plays on Broadway (Mark Armstrong, Executive Director; Tina Fallon, Founding Producer) at the American Airlines Theatre. It was directed by Elena Araoz with the following cast: Ashlie Atkinson, Jason Biggs, Michael Cerveris, Russell G. Jones, Olivia Washington and Julie White. Warren Leight&#8217;s plays include Side Man (Tony Award), No Foreigners Beyond This Point (Drama Desk nomination), Glimmer, Glimmer and Shine (ATCA nomination).  In TV he&#8217;s been the Showrunner and Executive Producer of Law and Order: SVU (Imagen, NAACP, and Prism Awards), In Treatment (Peabody Award), Lights Out, and the Edgar-winning Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Union Square Incident is copyright [&hellip;]
- [The 24 Hour Plays On Broadway: From Warren Leight, Christopher Oscar Peña and Jonathan Marc Sherman](https://hesherman.com/2016/11/14/the-24-hour-plays-on-broadway-warren-leight-christopher-oscar-pena-and-jonathan-marc-sherman/): Having spent 13 of the past 21 hours embedded at the American Airlines Theatre with The 24 Hour Plays, I&#8217;m reaching my natural state of exhaustion, without the participatory exhilaration of pending performance to boost my energy. But here are images from the latter group of plays on tonight&#8217;s bill, once again with the caution that these may not be the costumes, props or lighting that will end up on stage in just two hours time. For a post about the meet and greet, click here. For a post with rehearsal photos from the other three plays, click here. UNION [&hellip;]
- [The 24 Hour Plays on Broadway: From Hansol Jung, David Lindsay-Abaire & Bess Wohl](https://hesherman.com/2016/11/14/the-24-hour-plays-on-broadway-from-hansol-jung-david-lindsay-abaire-bess-wohl/): The best laid plans: any effort to write meaningfully about being embedded with The 24 Hour Plays will have to wait. All I can manage to do is process some of the many photos I&#8217;ve taken – and share them with you even in advance of the performance. Mind you, these are rehearsal photos, with actors wearing their own clothes, some temporary costumes and some outfits that will appear on stage this evening at 8. The lighting was in constant flux as spacing rehearsals took place regardless of whether the lights were on or off, swirling disco lights or a [&hellip;]
- [The 24 Hour Plays on Broadway: Meet and Greet](https://hesherman.com/2016/11/14/the-24-hour-plays-on-broadway-meet-and-greet/): &nbsp; Having long been intrigued by the 24 hour play concept, it was a stroke of fortune that when I affiliated with The New School a year ago, I was provided with office space that is shared with the official 24 Hour Plays. While we occupy the same small spot, we’re not affiliated. That said, it’s impossible for us to not know what the other is up to much of the time. In proximity, I saw possibility. Beginning at 9 pm on November 13 and continuing until roughly the same time on the 14th, I’ve been afforded access to every [&hellip;]
- [At An NYC Bat Mitzvah, “Hamilton” Becomes A Hymn](https://hesherman.com/2016/11/11/at-an-nyc-bat-mitzvah-hamilton-becomes-a-hymn/): How to describe how I’ve felt this week? In approximate order: anxious, worried, heartsick, afraid, resolved, exhausted, embraced. But it wasn’t until this morning that I felt something that made me break into a wide grin, while sitting alone in an office watching YouTube. It is well known by now that I am a Hamilton partisan, and exist unofficially at the fringes of show’s orbit due to my near-obsessive recordings of the outdoor #Ham4Ham shows. As a result, people constantly share articles and videos about Hamilton with me – and even with those and the ones I see on my [&hellip;]
- [A Post-Election Plea, To The Theatre And Its Artists](https://hesherman.com/2016/11/09/a-post-election-plea-to-the-theatre-and-its-artists/): I wish that I could write a play, but I haven’t the talent. I wish that I could compose a musical score, but I haven’t the gift. I wish that I could dance, but I have neither the freedom in my body nor the discipline to train. I can sing, a bit, but only well enough to entertain myself on long car rides. So because of my deep admiration for the people who can do these things, because of how they uplift me, move me, teach me, I go to the theatre. On this post-election morning of November 9, I [&hellip;]
- [Jeanine Tesori: “Press Against The Thing That Divides Us”](https://hesherman.com/2016/11/07/jeanine-tesori-press-against-the-thing-that-divides-us/): On November 4, composer Jeanine Tesori was the keynote speaker at the fourth annual &#8220;Stage The Change: Theatre as a Social Voice&#8221; event, co-sponsored by the Tilles Center at Long Island University and the Happauge Public Schools. Below are some selections from Tesori’s talk and demonstration, inevitably with the musical sections removed, and with sections condensed and edited for clarity. This represents only a portion her presentation to well over 500 area high school students. What was most striking was how much she spoke not about what she has done and achieved, but how the students in attendance can approach their lives, [&hellip;]
- [Overwhelming Disruptors To Make A Joyful Noise at Juilliard](https://hesherman.com/2016/11/03/overwhelming-disruptors-to-make-a-joyful-noise-at-juilliard/): New York, NY, November 3, 2016 – Music students at The Juilliard School gave a well-received sunrise performance – “God Loves Jazz” – this morning on West 65th Street, on the eastern side of the entrance to the storied performing arts academy on the Lincoln Center campus. Their instrumentation included brass, wind and string performers. The Juilliard contingent was joined by students from the nearby La Guardia High School for Performing Arts, who added vocals to certain musical selections, which included “The Star Spangled Banner,” “Amazing Grace,” “When The Saints Go Marching In” and “Take The A Train.” Almost as [&hellip;]
- [Questioning Fugard About “Master Harold,” 28 Years Later](https://hesherman.com/2016/10/31/questioning-fugard-about-master-harold-28-years-later/): After its US debut at Yale Repertory Theatre in March 1982, and before it opened on Broadway in early May of that year, Athol Fugard’s MASTER HAROLD…and the boys played a one-week engagement at the Annenberg Center in Philadelphia. During that brief run, one critic wrote of the play, in part: Fugard, who also directed the Yale Repertory Theater production, has fashioned a play of compactness and clarity. Running without intermission for a rapid one-and-three-quarter hours, the play manages to develop and destroy this idyllic refuge for Hally while still taking time to comment on the human condition. To Fugard, [&hellip;]
- [In Oregon, Theatre and Bookstore Clash Over Free Speech & Racial Awareness](https://hesherman.com/2016/10/27/in-oregon-theatre-and-bookstore-clash-over-free-speech-racial-awareness/): To be clear from the very start, two points. Judi Honoré, the owner of Shakespeare Books &amp; Antiques in Ashland, Oregon, has every right to display anything she chooses in the window of, or for that matter anywhere in, her store. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, also located in Ashland, Oregon, has every right as an organization to express its institutional opinion about events locally or nationally as it sees fit, and to align its business practices accordingly. These rights, however, came into conflict this summer, when a window display of banned books at Shakespeare Books &amp; Antiques, which has been in place [&hellip;]
- [I Really Was a Teenage Singing Zombie](https://hesherman.com/2016/10/27/i-really-was-a-teenage-singing-zombie/): Long after I stopped acting in school productions (which was November 1981 at the University of Pennsylvania, to be precise), my mother would periodically say how much she wished that my shows had been preserved on video, so she could see them again. It’s important to understand that my performances were in the pre-home video era, before every parent had a video camera to capture every precious moment, let alone a pocket-sized phone with a digital video camera within it. The idea of YouTube was unimaginable. I always said to my mom that I was grateful that there’s no video of [&hellip;]
- [Conflict and Conflict of Interest Over “The Great Comet”](https://hesherman.com/2016/10/25/conflict-and-conflict-of-interest-over-the-great-comet/): In reporting on the dispute between Ars Nova and Howard Kagan, a lead producer of Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, both The New York Times and the New York Post have seemingly reduced the dispute, at times, to three words or two words, respectively. They’re not wrong about this being triggered by “a mere three words” in the language of the Times report. But there’s really something deeper going on that such diminishment does not fully convey. For those who have not read about this situation previously, here’s a precis. Ars Nova, a small company well known for staging inventive new works, including not [&hellip;]
- [Before Broadway’s "Falsettos," Hartford Stage's Changed Lives](https://hesherman.com/2016/10/21/before-broadways-falsettos-hartford-stages-changed-lives/): When I speak about it with people who saw it, the phrase that comes up most often is, “It was life-changing.” When I speak about it with people who have read about it, but didn’t see it, the question that inevitably arises is, “What was the ‘coup de theatre’?” When I speak about it with people who knew nothing of it, they profess surprise that it existed. I’m speaking of the Hartford Stage production of March of the Falsettos &amp; Falsettoland, the first time the two shows were produced as a single evening. Directed and choreographed by the marvelous Graciela [&hellip;]
- [In New Musical About Amputee, Faking Disability](https://hesherman.com/2016/10/13/in-new-musical-about-amputee-faking-disability/): If you look at photos or video from Marathon of Hope, a new musical that just premiered in Waterloo, Canada, about an hour outside Toronto, something seems off. The musical is based on the life story of Terry Fox, a young Canadian man who in 1980, after losing a leg to cancer, undertook a country-wide run to raise money for and bring attention to cancer research. He did not complete his effort, because his cancer metastasized to his lungs and he died in 1981. His life is the stuff of legend in Canada, with schools, athletic centers and sculptures standing as [&hellip;]
- [When A Tree Falls in Athens and Rises in Camelot, Whose Design Is It Anyway?](https://hesherman.com/2016/09/22/when-a-tree-falls-in-athens-and-rises-in-camelot-whose-design-is-it-anyway/): There’s a very large tree that has been traveling around the Dallas-Fort Worth region in Texas. There’s no need to worry, as the tree hasn’t acquired independent mobility and become sentient, but rather, it has made major appearances in two theatrical productions in the area in a short span of time. Designed originally by Bob Lavallee for the Trinity Shakespeare Festival production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Texas Christian University, it just finished a run center stage in Camelot at Lyric Stage. As Mark Lowry reported on his TheaterJones site, the tree would have been headed for the dumpster [&hellip;]
- [In Brief: Race, Casting and "The Wild Party" at Yale](https://hesherman.com/2016/09/22/in-brief-race-casting-and-the-wild-party-at-yale/): As theatre buffs know, there are two major musicals drawn from Joseph Moncure March’s The Wild Party, which debuted in New York within months of one another: the Michael John LaChiusa-George C. Wolfe version which played on Broadway in the spring of 2000, and Andrew Lippa’s version, which played Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club from February to April of that year. Drawn from the same source material, they inevitably have many roles in common. One of the many roles shared by both shows is “Black,” first played by Taye Diggs in Lippa’s retelling of the story (and by Yancey Arias [&hellip;]
- [How “N*W*C” Became Drama Non Grata On A California State Campus](https://hesherman.com/2016/09/09/how-nwc-became-drama-non-grata-on-a-california-state-campus/): To start at the end, or at least where we are today: Michele Roberge, executive director of the Carpenter Performing Arts Center on the campus of California State University, has resigned, effective yesterday. Why? Because the school’s president, Jane Close Conoley, insisted upon the cancelation of Roberge’s booking of the comedy N*gger Wetb*ck Ch*nk, a show that has toured extensively for more than a decade to performing arts centers on and off college campuses. In fact, it played to a sold out house of more than 1,000 seats last year at the Carpenter Center. When Conoley raised a red flag [&hellip;]
- [When Deaf Voices Are Left Out Of “Tribes”](https://hesherman.com/2016/09/08/when-deaf-voices-are-left-out-of-tribes/): “Unfortunately, no deaf actors showed up to the auditions.” The statement above was made yesterday in a public statement to the Deaf and hard of hearing community by Leslie Charipar, artistic director of Theatre Cedar Rapids in Iowa. It was issued in response to complaints that Charipar has received from the Deaf community at large about the theatre’s upcoming production of Nina Raine’s Tribes, which TCR has cast with hearing actors in the roles of Billy, who is deaf, and Sylvia, a young woman raised by Deaf parents who is now going deaf. The statement is in response to what [&hellip;]
- [“Offend and Apologize” Doesn’t Benefit The Arts](https://hesherman.com/2016/09/06/offend-and-apologize-doesnt-benefit-the-arts/): In recent years, it’s been suggested that some companies and organizations have intentionally caused upset through a statement or product, only to quickly recant, for the express purpose of getting two press “hits” out of one incident, in the process demonstrating their responsiveness to their customers or the population at large. As a one-time publicist, admittedly in the lower-stakes world of not-for-profit theatre, I’ve never been entirely convinced that this is a valid or even calculated strategy, or that it benefits the “offender” in any way. Of course, in the current presidential election we’ve watched one candidate make incendiary and offensive [&hellip;]
- [Wells Fargo to Arts Kids: Abandon Your Dreams](https://hesherman.com/2016/09/03/wells-fargo-to-arts-kids-abandon-your-dreams/): O-ho the Wells Fargo Wagon is-a comin’ down the street, and apparently it’s not interested in doing business with kids who aspire to the arts, their parents, their teachers, or arts organizations. In promotional materials for their Teen Day on September 17 (because after all what kid doesn’t wasn’t to take time on a weekend to spend time at the bank), Wells Fargo has mounted a campaign that seems overtly dismissive of careers in the arts. While both they and I acknowledge that young people’s career interests may evolve over time, it seems strange that “yesterday’s” careers are ballerina and actor, [&hellip;]
- [The Stage: How many audiences have memorized a script?](https://hesherman.com/2016/09/02/the-stage-how-many-audiences-have-memorized-a-script/): I am not a betting man, but if you are reading this column, I would wager that you’ve already listened to the Hamilton original cast recording. Yet given this publication’s UK reader base, and the relatively small number of people who have actually seen Hamilton in comparison to the number of albums sold, I’m also willing to bet that a great number of you haven’t yet seen the show. I raise this issue not to once again lionize or even analyze Hamilton, but rather to raise the fact that the success of the Hamilton recording, a virtually complete version of [&hellip;]
- [Are Subsidiary Rights Right for FringeNYC Authors?](https://hesherman.com/2016/08/18/are-subsidiary-rights-right-for-fringenyc-authors/): Now in its 20th year, the New York International Fringe Festival, better known as FringeNYC, has presented nearly 4,000 productions for five-performance runs each summer, sustaining a beehive of theatrical activity in spaces on the Lower East Side. In contrast to many fringe festivals, all of which seem to owe a debt to the progenitor, the Edinburgh Fringe, FringeNYC is a curated festival, with its 200 annual productions chosen from an array of applications. Unlike reports from Edinburgh, which have some 8,000 productions scrambling for space and audiences each summer, FringeNYC engages all of the necessary spaces and doles them [&hellip;]
- [Quiara Alegría Hudes (and Lin-Manuel Miranda) on Casting “In The Heights"](https://hesherman.com/2016/08/15/quiara-alegria-hudes-and-lin-manuel-miranda-on-casting-in-the-heights/): The casting of the upcoming production of In The Heights at Porchlight Music Theatre in Chicago, in particular a non-Latinx actor in the leading role of Usnavi, has provoked a great deal of comment and controversy. On August 9, Victory Gardens Theatre hosted a public forum, “The Color Game: whitewashing Latinx stories,” which drew a full house and an even larger online audience to explore the issues of race, ethnicity, authenticity and representation provoked by the Porchlight casting and an earlier production of Evita in Chicago; reporting from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Reader on the forum expanded its reach [&hellip;]
- [Quiara Alegría Hudes (and Lin-Manuel Miranda) on Casting “In The Heights"](https://hesherman.com/2016/08/15/quiara-alegria-hudes-and-lin-manuel-miranda-on-casting-in-the-heights-2/): The casting of the upcoming production of In The Heights at Porchlight Music Theatre in Chicago, in particular the hiring of a non-Latinx actor for the leading role of Usnavi, has provoked a great deal of comment and controversy in that community and beyond. In response, on August 9, Victory Gardens Theatre hosted a public forum, organized by ALTA, the Association of Latinx Theatre Artists of Chicago, “The Color Game: whitewashing Latinx stories.” It drew a full house and an even larger online audience to explore the issues of race, ethnicity, authenticity and representation, provoked by the Porchlight casting and an earlier production of Evita in [&hellip;]
- [The Stage: Ragtime on Ellis Island’s emotive power shows value of theatre beyond walls](https://hesherman.com/2016/08/12/the-stage-ragtime-on-ellis-islands-emotive-power-shows-value-of-theatre-beyond-walls/): Walking through Covent Garden, I always imagine a site-specific production of My Fair Lady (or Pygmalion), with the opening scene played out on the very ground where it was first conceived to occur. This same flight of fancy has always held for me as well when I visit Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and dream of John Adams and Benjamin Franklin singing in the building where the musical 1776 is set and key moments in American history took place. So when I received a press release about a concert of the musical Ragtime to be held on Ellis Island, the first [&hellip;]
- [The Rolling Canvases of New York City](https://hesherman.com/2016/08/07/the-rolling-canvases-of-new-york-city/): Thanks to smartphone technology, we all walk around with cameras in our pockets or bags, but tend to pull them out to take pictures of events, of friends, of ourselves. As someone trained on 35 millimeter film cameras at the age of 11 or 12, and trained to use a darkroom at perhaps 14, I still can’t adjust to the idea of pointing a phone to take a picture. Indeed, when I’m not otherwise laden down by a bag of some kind, I usually have a DSLR with me, to confirm to the kind of picture taking I learned some [&hellip;]
- [For Stan Freberg, Whose Parodies and Satires Live On](https://hesherman.com/2016/08/07/for-stan-freberg-whose-parodies-and-satires-live-on/): To a particular subset of junior comedy nerds, of which I was an unapologetic member, 1976 was a watershed year, for a reason only tangentially connected to the official Bicentennial celebration that faced Americans down at every turn. At a time when the vinyl record remained the primary means of owning recorded music (cassettes were coming into vogue, as were, briefly eight-tracks), the comedy sections of record stores were relatively low on product. Without access to a really good used record store, it was particularly hard to find vintage comedy recordings, and by vintage at age 14, that meant anything older [&hellip;]

## Pages

- [Another Day's Begun](https://hesherman.com/another-days-begun/): Another Day’s Begun:Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in the 21st Centuryby Howard Sherman (Methuen Drama 2021) It is said that Thornton Wilder’s&nbsp;Our Town&nbsp;is one of the most produced plays in America and it has been that way since the play debuted in 1938. Why is Wilder’s play such a perennial, when so many plays from that era are rarely revived – or forgotten? Another Day’s Begun: Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in the 21st Century doesn’t offer a singular answer to that question, but rather the thoughts and recollections of actors, directors, musical directors and designers who have engaged with the play in both [&hellip;]
- [Speaking and Guest Teaching](https://hesherman.com/speaking-and-guest-teaching/): Howard Sherman has been invited to speak at a variety of festivals and conferences and welcomes the opportunity for in-person connections with both professional and aspiring theatre artists, administrators and educators. He delivered keynotes at the 2019 Texas Educational Theatre Association&#8217;s Arts Program Administrators Conference, the 2017 Florida Association of Theatre Educators Conference, the 2015 Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Region 2 Conference, and the 2014 Educational Theatre Association Teacher Conference. He is frequently invited to present his workshops for theatres and students, &#8220;Not On Our Stage You Don&#8217;t,&#8221; about censorship of academic theatre and measure to prevent or [&hellip;]
- [Newsletter Unsubscription](https://hesherman.com/nl-unsubscribe-page/): We&#8217;re sad to see you go.
- [Newsletter Sign Up Confirmation](https://hesherman.com/nl-confirm-signup/): Thank you for signing up to our newsletter.
- [Contact](https://hesherman.com/contact/): You can also find me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Post and whatever they come up with next, in all cases as @hesherman.
- [Other Writing](https://hesherman.com/other-writing/): ANYTHING BUT THEATER (AT LEAST FOR A NIGHT OR TWO) This short essay appeared on The New York Times “Artsbeat” blog in June, 2011. You can view the original here. I stayed home and watched “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” last night and I don’t care who knows it. I understand that this is not the most dramatic statement one could make. It doesn’t hold a candle to “I am Jean Valjean” or “At last my arm is complete again.” But given my career, especially over eight years at the American Theater Wing, such a declaration seems to surprise many [&hellip;]
- [Working in the Theatre](https://hesherman.com/working-in-the-theatre/): An acclaimed fixture on CUNY TV in New York and in the theatre community for more than 30 years, the American Theatre Wing&#8216;s Working in the Theatre offers an unprecedented forum for the meeting of theatrical minds. Bringing together performers, directors, playwrights, designers, choreographers, producers and behind-the-scenes personnel from the American and international theatre, the program offers a rare opportunity for students and audiences to see the people who create theatre engaged in thoughtful conversation with one another. With more than 1,000 past guests, &#8220;Working in the Theatre&#8221; has become an unequalled archive of theatrical talk, a chance to hear from the [&hellip;]
- [Downstage Center](https://hesherman.com/downstage-center/): Downstage Center is the American Theatre Wing&#8216;s acclaimed theatrical interview program that spotlights the creative talents on Broadway, Off-Broadway, across the country and around the world. Produced in association with CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, Downstage Center has been featured by the Associated Press and Slate.com as the place to go for theatrical talk. The program was created and hosted by Howard Sherman and John von Soosten and it aired weekly on XM Satellite Radio from April 2004 to November 2008. After a hiatus, the program returned as podcast with Sherman as sole host from August 2009 to July 2011. [&hellip;]
- [Media & Commentary](https://hesherman.com/media-appearances/): A selection of media appearances, interviews and commentary: WASHINGTON POST, October 15, 2019, &#8220;Do you spell it ‘theater’ or ‘theatre’? Who cares? Just go and see a show.&#8221; FLIPPING THE SCRIPT PODCAST, June 11, 2019, &#8220;Integrity in the Arts with Howard Sherman.&#8221; WASHINGTON POST, December 7, 2017, &#8220;The school play is about WHAT? Controversy on stage and why it matters.&#8221; SO TO SPEAK PODCAST/THE FIRE.ORG, July 13, 2017, &#8220;Et tu, hecklers? Defending Artistic Expression with Howard Sherman.&#8221; LOS ANGELES TIMES, January 29, 2013, &#8220;TedX Conference seeks bright ideas for Broadway,&#8221; by Howard Sherman NEW YORK TIMES, December 17, 2011,&#8220;Nonprofit Companies Enjoying, [&hellip;]
- [About](https://hesherman.com/about/): HOWARD SHERMAN is an arts administrator, advocate and writer. Howard’s first book, Another Day’s Begun: Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in the 21st Century was published in January 2021 by Methuen Drama. Howard is presently the managing director of the Baruch Performing Arts Center at Baruch College in Manhattan, as position he has held since March 2022. In February 2015, he was named director of the new Arts Integrity Initiative at the New School for Drama, focused on creative and academic freedom in the arts. Since 2017, that work has continued on an independent basis. From 2013 to 2017, he was [&hellip;]


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