586 stories by "Howard Sherman"
I anticipate that this October will be the month of "freak," and not because of Halloween. Though that won't help. Because the media can't resist trend stories, and any three or more items w…
I am angry and I am sad. But I am not entirely surprised. Earlier this morning, Dawn Burch, drama director at South Williamsport Area Junior/Senior High School in Pennsylvania, was fired fro…
Even if I were to attend the Board of Education meeting of the South Williamsport Area School District in Pennsylvania this coming Monday, September 22, I couldn't speak. That's because the …
Among the many responses I've received to my accounts of the censorship of the musical Spamalot at South Williamsport Junior/Senior High in Pennsylvania was a tweet from Dane Rooney, an Engl…
Once each year, the world turns its eyes to Williamsport and South Williamsport PA, as young athletes from around the globe compete in the Little League World Series. This year has garnered …
There was a time, children, not so very long ago, when hit plays ran much longer than than 131 performances. Why 131? Because in the last ten complete Broadway seasons, that's the average of…
While it seems that the English-speaking world is consumed with fringe festivals everywhere you look this month, Broadway is grabbing its share of attention with a rapid-fire series of annou…
10 days ago, I was completely unaware that an Icelandic musical had established a beachhead in one of Off-Broadway's larger theatres. To be honest, I'd never given much thought to Icelandic …
Years from now, when the musical Wicked is eventually made available for school and amateur productions, will some high school administrator declare it inappropriate? After all, among its ma…
The arrival of a new movie trailer online is received with a level of excitement and scrutiny that once waited for the film itself; even photos get analyzed in depth, as the recent hubbub ov…
One of the many achievements of Ira Glass's This American Life is that it is a longform approach to storytelling, whether personal or reportorial. By not dumbing down, by not sound-biting, i…
Perhaps you knew it as a place to cool off, use the bathroom or grab some free wi-fi. You may have passed through it on your way to an office in the building known variously as 156…
On July 2, I wrote about a situation at South Williamsport, Pennsylvania's Jr/Sr High School, where a production of Monty Python's Spamalot, slated for 2015, was canceled, reportedly due to …
"I chop down trees, I wear high heels, suspenders and a bra. I wish I'd been a girlie, just like my dear papa." My friends and I happily sang those Monty Python lyrics, at the drop of a h…
When Randy Newman's Faust receives a one-night concert presentation this week as part of City Center's Encores! Off Center series, its NYC debut could be the end of the road or a new begi…
"Off record tip: Wondering if you've noticed that there's someone missing from the Women's Project masthead on their website." That's the direct messaged tweet I received yesterday morning. …
The announcement that ArtsGreensboro, the service organization serving that North Carolina community, will be funding arts coverage in the Greensboro News & Record, is being portrayed as…
"First, let's define what we mean by 'changes'." This statement came up not once but twice in my conversation with Bruce Lumpkin, artistic director of Houston's Theatre Under The Stars and d…
Based on the commentary I was seeing in online articles and social media comments yesterday, someone had just painted a mustache on the Mona Lisa. No one seemed to care that Da Vinci had dec…
As the cab pulled into the driveway, I got a glimpse of a sign propped against a telephone pole, starkly gray, black and white. On it were the typical details of any theatre production: the …
A marvel of gleefully saucy yet wholly innocent farce that leaves you spent from laughter and humming a catchy tuneNineteen sixty-two was too late for vaudeville, and surely the Roman comedi…
When I left Hartford Stage in 1993, one of our graphic designers presented me with a very funny framed piece of art called "The Ellipsis Award," for the most creative manipulation of critics…
I realize I'm writing this blog post for a very specific subset of readers, but after nine months of writing my "American Stages" column for London's The Stage newspaper, I have a request of…
"I got into a brawl one night in a saloon in Greenwich Village. Elia Kazan, a great director, saw me put out a couple of hecklers and figures there was some Big Daddy in me, just lyin' do…
For some people, the words "interactive theatre" strike fear into their hearts, and they'll do anything to avoid it. The prospect of being accosted by an actor, of having the spotlight tu…
