Sherman is an openly gay Jew, and many of his works dramatize "outsiders," dealing with the discrimination and marginalisation of minorities whether "gay, female, foreign, disabled, different in religion, class or color."
Bent was first performed in a workshop at the O’Neill Theatre Centre in Waterford, Connecticut, in 1978, before premiering in London (with Ian MCKELLEN and Tom Bell in the lead roles) and on Broadway (with Richard Gere, who won the Tony Award, and David Dukes) in 1979. The play was the first to deal with the internment of homosexuals by the Nazis during World War II. Set primarily in a concentration camp, it garnered controversy for a scene in which the gay inmates, unable to touch each other, achieve climax through words.
The 1997 film version, directed by Sean MATHIAS, starred Clive Owen, Lothaire Bluteau, McKellen, and Mick JAGGER, and featured early performances by Rachel Weisz, Jude Law, and Paul Bettany.
Sherman has had a number of stage successes in London (where he permanently settled in 1980). A Madhouse in Goa focused on the deceptive relationship between a young man and the woman he encounters on a Greek island. Vanessa Redgave played Isadora DUNCAN in Sherman’s When She Danced, and Rupert EVERETT won praise for his turn as the object of the affection of a British Army officer in North Africa in Some Sunny Day.
Sherman wrote the book for the Broadway smash Boy from Oz, starring Hugh Jackman and based on the life of Peter ALLEN.
Stern, Keith. Queers in History: The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Historical Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals. Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.
Further Readings:
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; Revised edition (June 17, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0312223846
ISBN-13: 978-0312223847
Amazon: Still Acting Gay: Male Homosexuality in Modern Drama
Still Acting Gay is a revision and expansion of Clum's celebrated book, Acting Gay. The book focuses on the relationship between American and British dramas written by and about gay men and the changing gay culture those plays reflect, from the carefully enforced closet to liberation politics to AIDS to the qualified security of the present. Still Acting Gay chronicles the transition of the gay man as subject for sensational melodrama to creator of many of the most powerful and celebrated plays of the late 20th century.
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