Herman Shumlin

Who was Herman Shumlin?

Herman Shumlin was a prolific Broadway theatrical director and theatrical producer beginning in 1927 with the play Celebrity and continuing through 1974 with a short run of As You Like It, notably with an all male cast. He was also the director of two movies, most famously Watch on the Rhine, which he first directed and produced on Broadway 1941/1943, and then directed for the screen and released in 1943.

During a Broadway career which lasted 47 years, he produced and/or directed 45 different productions, including three separate productions of The Corn Is Green. Other well-known productions include The Little Foxes, Watch on the Rhine, and Inherit the Wind. Inherit the Wind ran for 806 performances, and was famously made into a movie in 1960 starring Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, and Gene Kelly, and remade three more times since, in 1965, 1988, and 1999.