ROBERT WILLIAM SHERWOOD

While Robert William Sherwood was born in Canada and lives in London, most of his plays revolve around American characters and situations (Absolution, set in Vancouver, being the sole exception), and he has difficulty getting his work professionally staged in London. "There's a palpable anti-American bias in theatre there. If you're not David Mamet or Arthur Miller or Sam Shepard, you're not going to get produced," he says, "and for better or worse I'm classified as an American playwright."

Sherwood, however, has never been one to quail in the face of adversity. After he wrote his first play, a drama in verse called Nero, he helped found a theatre festival in Toronto just to get it produced. Now in its twelfth year, SummerWorks continues as a festival devoted to the work of Toronto-based playwrights and theatre groups. In 1999, 10,000 spectators enjoyed the work of more than thirty-five companies.

Arriving in London and finding the producing community lukewarm toward his "American" plays, Sherwood again took the reins. He self-produced five of his plays in a small theatre at the back of the White Bear pub. The productions were well-received, but he finds the small size of the venue limiting. "The work I'm doing now is for bigger stages," he says, "so I can't see myself doing any more plays at the White Bear. I suppose I'm going to have to be produced in the United States."

That doesn't seem to be a problem. His last three plays have all received American premieres at major theatres: Absolution at the Steppenwolf in Chicago, Spin at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, and, most recently, a post-Cold War tale of a British spy haunted by his last act of treachery, The Last True Believer at the Seattle Repertory Theatre. "The irony of opening my only explicitly British play in Seattle after five consecutive world premieres of "American' plays in London," says Sherwood, "is not lost on me."

- Kyle Brennan

Read Boston Phoenix, and A.R.T. News interviews with Robert William Sherwood coinciding with the A.R.T. New Stages production of Absolution.