Cheney, Sheldon

(1886-1980)

   Born in Berkeley, California, Sheldon Cheney graduated from the University of California in 1908 and studied theatre with George Pierce Baker at Harvard University in 1913, after which he spent five years touring the theatres of Europe. Cheney was among the first American writers to promote the New Stagecraft. In his books The New Movement in Theatre (1914), The Art Theatre (1917), The Open-Air Theatre (1918), and Stage Decoration (1927), as well as through numerous essays in Theatre Arts magazine (which he founded in 1916, serving as its editor until 1921), Cheney stressed modernist resistance to realism, calling for more emphasis on simplified, symbolic approaches to stimulate the imagination. His subsequent books include The Theatre: 3000 Years of Drama, Acting and Stagecraft (1929), considered the first important comprehensive theatre history written by an American.