Join us on May 21st for a conversation with Howard directly following the matinee performance of Our Town! Howard will discuss the history and impact of Our Town, and its popularity and pervasiveness in American culture. Through extensive interviews with more than 100 artists and thorough research of the play’s genesis in the American theatre scene, he “makes a case for the healing powers of Wilder's text to a world confronting multiple crises.”

Artistic Director Ben Hart will join the conversation, as will the audience. Come join us for a lively and enlightening exploration of one of the most influential pieces of art in the last century!

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.

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.

From 2013 to 2017, he was Interim Director of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts in New York, dedicated to creating opportunities for artists of color and artists with disabilities in theatre, film and television. Since 2011, he has become an influential advocate for high school theatre, notably taking an active role in content challenges by school administrations in numerous communities nationally, and he writes extensively about intellectual and creative freedom in academic, community and professional theatre. He was named one of the “Top 40 Free Speech Defenders of 2014” by the National Coalition Against Censorship and he received the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund 2015 “Defender” Award for his work on artists rights and theatrical censorship.

Howard was executive director of the American Theatre Wing from 2003 to 2011. During that time, his varied responsibilities included serving as executive producer and occasional moderator of the television program “Working in the Theatre”; creating and hosting the audio program “Downstage Center”; incorporating SpringboardNYC, the Theatre Intern Group and The Jonathan Larson Grants into ATW’s programming; leading ATW’s utilization of the web and social media for distribution of and communication about its programs; conceiving the book “The Play That Changed My Life”; and serving on the Tony Awards Management and Administration Committees. In addition, he was instrumental in the development of ATW’s National Theatre Company Grants program, and secured the organization’s first-ever funding from The Shubert Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts.