NEW YORK — Edwin Sherin, who directed James Earl Jones on Broadway in “The Great White Hope’’ and enjoyed a successful career in television, most notably as a director and executive producer of “Law & Order,’’ died May 5 at his home in Lockeport, Nova Scotia, Canada. He was 87.
The death was confirmed by his stepson, Jace Alexander.
Mr. Sherin started out as an actor in the mid-1950s, appearing in productions at the Phoenix Theater in New York City, where John Houseman was the producing director, and as a member of Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival. He also acted in dozens of television productions, including plays presented by “Omnibus,’’ “Playhouse 90,’’ and “Studio One.’’
He turned to directing in the 1960s. “I could not stand the way some directors treated actors,’’ he explained in an interview with the Directors Guild of America in 2005.
In 1964, after directing “The White Rose and the Red,’’ a compilation of scenes from five Shakespearean history plays, at the off-Broadway theater Stage 73 and an acclaimed production of “The Wall,’’ Millard Lampell’s play about the Warsaw ghetto uprising, at Arena Stage in Washington, he was hired as Arena’s associate producing director. He held that post until 1969.
At Arena, he developed Howard Sackler’s play “The Great White Hope,’’ casting Jones and his costar, Jane Alexander, in what would prove to be career-making roles. Jones played Jack Jefferson, a champion heavyweight boxer based on Jack Johnson, who reaps a whirlwind of white hatred by defeating white opponents and taking up with a white woman. Alexander played Eleanor Bachman, his lover. Both won Tony Awards for their performances after the play transferred to Broadway in 1968. Sackler was awarded a Tony for best play.
Mr. Sherin, although not nominated for a Tony for “The Great White Hope,’’ won the Drama Desk Award as best director.
In 1974, he was nominated for a Tony as best director for “Find Your Way Home,’’ John Hopkins’s play about a woman dealing with her husband’s infidelity.
He reunited with Sackler in 1980, directing his play “Goodbye Fidel’’ on Broadway, this time with unfortunate results — it closed after six performances.
After serving four years as artistic director of the Hartman Theater in the Stamford Center for the Arts in Connecticut, he shifted his focus in the mid-1980s to television, earning a reputation as a highly efficient director with a velvet touch when handling temperamental actors.
After directing several episodes of “Tour of Duty,’’ “L.A. Law,’’ and “Homicide: Life on the Street,’’ Mr. Sherin became a kind of director in residence for “Law & Order.’’ He directed 36 episodes of the original series and served as executive producer for 151.
“He figured out how to move the actors around, rather than the cameras, which saves time and money,’’ his stepson, who himself directed more than 30 “Law & Order’’ episodes, said in an interview. “This became the signature style of the series, a vérité, hand-held look that was picked up by other shows as well.’’
Edwin Sherin was born on Jan. 15, 1930, in Danville, Pa., and grew up in Hattiesburg, Miss., and, from age 10, in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan. His father, Joseph, was a textile worker. His mother, the former Ruth Berger, was a homemaker.
His sister, Edith, who died in 1994, also made a career in the theater. Under her married name, Edith Markson, she helped found the Milwaukee Repertory Theater and the American Conservatory Theater in Pittsburgh.
At 16, Mr. Sherin dropped out of DeWitt Clinton High School, where he was the star quarterback, and made his way to West Texas, where he worked on a cattle ranch before resuming his education at the Fountain Valley School in Colorado Springs, Colo. He graduated in 1948.
After earning a degree in international relations from Brown University in 1952, he enlisted in the Navy and saw combat during the Korean War as a gunner aboard a destroyer.
At loose ends after leaving the Navy in 1955, Mr. Sherin stopped by Paul Mann’s Actors Workshop in Manhattan one evening to meet a girlfriend and became entranced by a rehearsal of “The Cherry Orchard.’’
He took classes at the workshop and later studied with Houseman at the American Shakespeare Festival Theater and Academy. His date that night, English actress Pamela Vevers, became his wife. The marriage ended in divorce.
At the Arena Stage, he cast Alexander in the Shaw play “Saint Joan.’’ It was the beginning of a long personal and professional relationship. She appeared under his direction on Broadway in “6 Rms Riv Vu’’ (1972), “Find Your Way Home’’ (1974), “First Monday in October’’ (1978), “Goodbye Fidel’’ (1980), and “The Visit’’ (1992).
In 1975, he married Alexander. In addition to her and his stepson, Mr. Sherin leaves two sons from his first marriage, Anthony and Jonathan, and six grandchildren.
Mr. Sherin made something of a specialty of Tennessee Williams.
He directed a revival of “A Streetcar Named Desire’’ in London in 1974, with Martin Shaw, Joss Ackland, and Claire Bloom, and, a year later, a Broadway revival of “Sweet Bird of Youth,’’ with Christopher Walken and Irene Worth. He directed the original production of Williams’s “The Eccentricities of a Nightingale’’ on Broadway in 1976.
He also directed two theatrical films: “Valdez Is Coming’’ (1971), starring Burt Lancaster and based on a novel by Elmore Leonard, and “Glory Boy’’ (1971), with Arthur Kennedy and William Devane, also known as “My Old Man’s Place.’’
In his most recent outing as a theater director, in 2009, Mr. Sherin directed Alexander in the Thom Thomas play “A Moon to Dance By’’ at the Pittsburgh Playhouse and at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, N.J.
