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This is the twenty-second in a series
highlighting the best gay and lesbian authors from the 20th century
(with a few before and after that period) who have recorded in fiction,
and nonfiction, the history of gay people telling what life is, and was,
during an important time of history.
| Sarah Schulman | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | July 28, 1958 New York City, United States |
| Occupation | novelist, historian, playwright |
| Nationality | American |
Sarah Miriam Schulman (born 1958 in New York City) is an AmericanAIDS
crisis, she wrote on AIDS and social issues, publishing in The Village
Voice in the early 1980s, and
writing the first piece on AIDS and the homeless, which appeared in The Nation.[citation needed] She is openly a lesbian. novelist, historian and playwright. An
early chronicler of the
Writer
Sarah Schulman is the author of fifteen published or soon to be published
works: nine novels, four nonfiction books, and a play.
Schulman's early novels were set in the artistic, bohemian, lesbianLower East Side of Manhattan. Books such
as The Sophie
Horowitz Story, Girls,
Visions and Everything were published by small presses. After
Delores was published by E. P. Dutton in 1988, and received a favorable
review in The New
York Times,, was
translated into eight languages, and was awarded an American Library AssociationStonewall Book
Award in 1989. subculture of the
Schulman's subsequent novel, 1990's People
in Trouble described the lives of AIDS activists.In 1992,
Empathy was released, an experimental novellesbian existence. The 1995 novel Rat
Bohemia was listed as one of the 100 best lesbian and gay novels by The
Publishing Triangle Her 1998
historical novel, Shimmer was
set in New York City during the McCarthy era features a black male protagonist and
a white lesbian protagonist. about
Her two early nonfiction books are: My
American History: Lesbian and Gay Life During The Reagan/Bush Years (Routledge, 1995) - a collection of journalism that begins before Reagan's
election in 1980 and provides on-going coverage as the AIDS crisis began,
includes some information about the early days of the AIDS crisis, which
Schulman covered for a range of newspapers and magazines.
In her 1998 book Stagestruck:
Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America, which also won the
Stonewall Book Award, Schulman shows that significant plot elements of the
successful 1996 musical Rent were lifted from her novel People In
Trouble. The heterosexual plot of Rent is based on the opera La
Bohème, while the gay plot is similar to the plot of Schulman's
novel
However, both parties agree that Larson used her "settings, themes, characters,
plot, and ideas" but that these are not copywritable. Though a separate
plagiarism charge brought by Rent's dramaturge was settled out of court,
Schulman never sued, but critiqued the way the musical depicted AIDS and gay
people in Stagestruck,.
In 1999 she completed her 8th novel, The Child which was published by
Carroll & Graf in 2007. One week after the novel appeared, Carroll &
Graf was purchased by Perseus Books, and the imprint was folded. The paperback
edition of The Child was published by Arsenal Pulp Press in fall 2008 and
nominated for both the Lambda Literary Award and the Publishing Triangle Fiction
Prize.[citation needed]
An anniversary critical edition of Empathy, with articles by Kevin
Killian and John Weir was published by Arsenal Pulp in 2007, followed by a new
edition of Rat Bohemia in Spring, 2008 with a cover by Nan Goldin.
In Fall 2009, Arsenal Pulp published her 9th novel THE MERE FUTURE in
hardcover, a futuristic dystopia about a New York City in which the only
remaining career is marketing. That sme month, The New Press published TIES THAT
BIND: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences, which received widespread praise
and appreciation, and was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. Her 15th book,
THE GENTRIFICATION OF THE MIND: Witness to a Lost Imagination was signed by The
University of California Press for a 2010 publication, but has been held up
because of an internal reviewer's critique about her chapter on Israel.
Activism
From 1979-1982, Schulman was a member of CARASA (Committee
for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse),
and participated in a notorious act of early direct action, where she and five others (called
The Women's Liberation Zap Action Brigade) disrupted an anti-abortionCongress that was being broadcast on live TV.[citation needed] hearing in
In 1987, Schulman and filmmaker Jim Hubbard founded "The New York Lesbian and
Gay Experimental Film Festival", now called MIXand in its twenty-fourth year.
Also in 1987, Schulman joined ACT UP, and was an active member for five years. She
participated in many small and key actions including "Seize Control of the FDA",
"Stop The Church", "Storm The NIH" and participated in the founding of Housing
Works. She was arrested during "The Day of Desperation" when ACT UP occupied
Grand Central Station protesting the First Gulf War "Money for AIDS, Not for
War."
In 1992, Schulman and five others co-founded the Lesbian Avengers, a direct action
organization. On
her 1992 book tour for Empathy, Schulman visited gay bookstores in the
South to start chapters. The organization's high points included sending groups
of young organizers to Maine and Idaho to assist local fights against anti-gay
ballot initiatives that were being funded by national right wing
organizations.[10] They also organized the first "Dyke March" which is now an international
tradition.
From the late 1980s through the early 1990s, Schulman was a principle
organizer for the Irish
Lesbian and Gay Organization's efforts to march in the New York Saint Patrick's Day Parade. She was arrested five times, but never convicted. The organization
collapsed, and to this day, Irish Gays and Lesbians are not allowed to march in
the parade under their own banner.
Since 2001, Sarah and Jim Hubbard have been creating the ACT UP Oral History
Project and are now producing a feature documentary, "United In
Anger: The History of ACT UP"
In recognition of her contributions to her communities, Schulman was made a
Revson Fellow for the Future of New York City at Columbia University and
received a Stonewall Award, for Contributions Improving the Lives of Lesbians
and Gays in the United States.In 2009
Schulman was awarded the Kessler Prize for sustained contribution to LGBT
Studies, given by CLAGS: The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the City
University Graduate Center. Previous awardees include Judith Butler, Adrienne
Rich and Monique Wittig. In 2009 she was also appointed to the Advisory Council
of the Harvard Kennedy School's Carr Center for Human Rights and Social
Movements.
In 2010, Schulman declined an invitation to Tel Aviv University in
recognition of the requests of Israeli and Palestinian academics to support
"boycott/divestment/sanctions" and instead went on a solidarity visit. She spoke
in alternative venues in Tel Aviv, Ramallah and Haifa, and was able to talk to
Israeli and Palestinian LGBT audiences who oppose the occupation.
Theater
Off-Off-Broadway and the Downtown Arts Movement
1979-1994
Schulman also pursued an active career in the theater. From 1979-1994 she had
15 plays produced in the context of the avant garde "Downtown Arts Movement"
based in New York City's East Village. Collaborators included :
Robin
Epstein and Dorothy Cantwell of More Fire!
Productions, Jennifer
Monson, Zeena
Parkins, Scott
Heron, Jennifer Miller, John Bernd, Susan Seizer, Mark Owen, Maggie Moore,
Holiday Reinhorn, Melinda Wade, Bina Sharif, Mark Ameen. Venues included: The
University of the Streets, PS 122, La Mama, King Tut Wah-Wah Hut, The Pyramid
Club, 8BC, Franklin Furnace, The Kitchen, Ela Troyano and Uzi Parness' Club
Chandelier, Here, the Performing Garage, and others
For two years Craig Lucas and Schulman developed a play version of The Child. It had many readings
and workshops but artistic directors objected to the content and the point of
view, and the play was never produced.
She was admitted into The
Sundance Theater Lab in 2001 with the play Carson McCullers. The workshop starred Angelina
Phillips and Bill CampPlaywrights
Horizons in 2002, directed
by Marion
McClinton, starring Jenny Bacon with Rick Stear, Michi Barall, Leland Gantt,
Barbara Eda-Young, Tim Hopper, Rosalyn Coleman. Carson McCullers has been
published by Playscripts Inc. and was directed by Craig Lucas. The play has its world premiere at
This was followed by a commission from South Coast Repertory for which she wrote
two plays: Made in Korea, based on the memoirs of Mi Ok
Bruining and Mercy. Mercy has three readings with the actress
Jessica Hecht at Rattlestick (directed by Michael Mayer), The Vineyard (directed
by Jo Bonney) and at Women's Expressive Theater, and one reading at Michael
Imperioli's Studio Dante with Elisabeth Marvel. It had a workshop in March, 2009
with Jessica Hecht and Patrick Breen, directed by Rebecca Taichman and produced
by Sasha Eden and Victoria Pettibone. Made In Korea had a workshop at The
Cleveland Playhouse, directed by Seth Gordon, and a reading at New York Theater
Workshop, directed by Leigh Silverman.
In 2001 Schulman won a Guggenheim Fellowship in
Playwrighting. Through
the efforts of actress Roberta Maxwell, Schulman won a commission from
the La Jolla Playhouse to do the play The Burning Deck. By the time the
Playhouse was ready to develop a workshop of the play, Maxwell was no longer
available and Diane Venora performed 28 public workshop performances in the summer of 2003. In 2009, the
play had a reading at Primary Stages with Jennifer Van Dyke, Keith Randolph
Smith, Miriam Schor,Jesse Pennington It has not yet received a world
premiere.
In 2003, her play Conjugation had readings at Playwrights Horizons and
Rattlestick theater, both directed by Michael Greif, the director of Rent. The
play has not yet been produced.
In 2005, Tim
Sanford, artistic director of Playwrights Horizons, produced Manic Flight
Reaction. Director Trip
Cullman developed the work at New York Stage and Film and it opened at
Playwrights that winter, starring Deirdre O'Connell with Molly Price, Jessica
Collins, Austin Lysy, Michael Esper and Angel Desai.
In collaboration with lyricist Michael Korie, and composer Anthony Davis,
Schulman has been developing her novel Shimmer for the musical stage.
This project has been on-going for eight years. With significant support from The MacDowell Colony, the trio have been
able to prepare full book/lyrics and score, and recorded a demo of six
songs.
Schulman received the rights, wrote an adaptation, and received a world
premiere for her version of Isaac Bashevis Singer's Enemies, A
Love Story, which premiered at The Wilma Theater in Philadelphia in February 2007, directed by Jiri
Ziska, starring Elisabeth Rich, Morgan Spector, with Laura Flanagan, Katie
Brazda, Barbara Spiegel, Bob Ari, Tom Teti. It most recently had a New York
reading at New York Theater Workshop, directed by Jo Bonney, with Michael
Stuhlbarg, Jessica Hecht, Miriam Schor, Lisa Joyce, Lynn Cohen.
She is currently working on two new plays: "Choice" about the plaintiff and
the attorney in the Roe V Wade case, and The Lady Hamlet- a 1920's
backstage comedy about two great female stage divas competing to play the role
of Hamlet on Broadway.
In Fall 2009, Sarah and Cheryl Dunye wrote the screenplay for Cheryl's film
THE OWLS, starring Guenivere Turner, Lisa Gornick, Cheryl Dunye, VS Brodie. The
film had its world premiere at The Berlin Film Festival in the Panorama in
January 2010. She and Cheryl are currently developing two films: MOMMY IS
COMING, produced by Jurgen Bruning, and ADVENTURES IN THE 419, which was
developed at the Tribeca Film Festival Lab.
Her film LONELY HUNTER about Southern author Carson McCullers, is being
directed by Deborah Kampmeier (Houndog)and is in pre-production. Her first
novel, THE SOPHIE HOROWITZ STORY has been optioned for film and is being
developed by a Swiss company.
] Teaching
Schulman is a Professor of English at The City University of New
York, College of Staten Island and a Fellow
at The New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU.
Published works
Novels
- The Mere Future (2009)
- The Child (2007)
- Shimmer (1998)
- Rat Bohemia (1995) - traduzido para o português (Boêmia
dos Ratos) - Empathy (1992)
- People in Trouble (1990)
- After Delores (1988)
- Girls, Visions and Everything (1986)
- The Sophie Horowitz Story (1984)
- Collected Early Novels of Sarah Schulman (1998)
Nonfiction
- Ties that Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences (2009)
- Stagetruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America (1998)
- My American History: Lesbian and Gay Life
During the Reagan/Bush Years (1994)
Plays
- Enemies, A Love Story (adapted from Isaac Bashevis Singer) (2007)
- Manic Flight Reaction (2005)
- Carson McCullers (2002) (publicado por Playscritpts Inc., 2006)
THANKS TO WIKIPEDIA.COM FOR THE ABOVE INFORMATION.
Thanks.Thanks to Martin and Wikipedia.