Edwin Sherin

Sherin was born in Danville, Pennsylvania, the son of Ruth (née Berger), a homemaker, and Joseph Sherin, a textile worker.[1] He grew up in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and Inwood, Manhattan.[1] He had a sister, Edith Sherin Markson, who was among the founders of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater.[1][2]

When he was 16 years old, Sherin dropped out of DeWitt Clinton High School and traveled to West Texas, where he worked on a cattle ranch. He eventually resumed his education at the Fountain Valley School in Colorado Springs, graduating in 1948.[1] In 1952, he graduated from Brown University, where he received a degree in international relations.[1] After graduation, Sherin enlisted in the Navy and fought in the Korean War.[1]

Sherin started out as an actor, training at the Paul Mann's Actors Workshop and studying with John Houseman at the American Shakespeare Theatre.[1]

He met Jane Alexander while serving as the resident director at Washington, DC's Arena Stage, where he cast her and James Earl Jones in The Great White Hope. In 1968, he directed the play and its two stars on Broadway,[3] and the production marked the start not only of his Broadway directorial career, but a long professional and personal relationship with Alexander as well. In August 1973, he cast Jones as King Lear for his production on King Lear at The Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park.[4]

He directed Alexander in First Monday in October on Broadway in 1978,[5] Hedda Gabler at the Hartman Theatre (Connecticut) in 1981[6] in the American Playhouse television movie A Marriage: Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, in 1991.[7] and in the Broadway revival of The Visit.[8]

While working at the Arena Stage, Sherin directed many plays, including The Wall (1963–1964), Galileo (1964–1965), St. Joan (1965–1966), Macbeth (1966–1967), The Iceman Cometh (1967–1968), and King Lear (1968–1969).[9]

Sherin won the 1969 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director for The Great White Hope[10] and was nominated for a 1974 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play (Find Your Way Home).

The Time of Your Life was revived on March 17, 1972, at the Huntington Hartford Theater in Los Angeles where Henry Fonda, Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Thompson, Strother Martin. Jane Alexander, Richard X. Slattery, Lewis J. Stadlen and Pepper Martin were among the cast with Sherin directing.[11][12]

In 1974, Sherin directed a revival of A Streetcar Named Desire at London's Theatre with Claire Bloom, Martin Shaw, Joss Ackland, and Morag Hood.[13]

In 2009, Sherin directed Alexander again in Thom Thomas's A Moon to Dance By at The Pittsburgh Playhouse and at The George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Sherin's first wife was actress Pamela Vevers, with whom he had three sons. The marriage ended in divorce.[1][19] In 1975, he married actress Jane Alexander.[14]

He and Alexander became Canadian citizens, having maintained a home in Lockeport, Nova Scotia since 1998.[20]

Sherin died on May 4, 2017, in Nova Scotia, aged 87.[21][22]

Sources: Internet Broadway Database;[23] Internet Off-Broadway Database[24]

Broadway

• Prymate (2004)[25]
• The Visit (1992 revival)[8]
• Goodbye Fidel (1980)[26]
• First Monday in October (1978)
• Do You Turn Somersaults? (1978) (also at the Kennedy Center)[27]
• The Eccentricities of a Nightingale (1976)[28]
• Rex (1976)[29]
• Sweet Bird of Youth (1975 revival)[30]
• Of Mice and Men (1974 revival)[31]
• 6 Rms Riv Vu (1972)[32]
• An Evening With Richard Nixon and... by Gore Vidal (1972)[33]

Off-Broadway

• The White Rose and the Red (1964)[34]

London

• A Streetcar Named Desire (1974)[35]

• Edwin Sherin at the Internet Broadway Database
• Edwin Sherin at IMDb
• Edwin Sherin at the Internet Off-Broadway Database