On the Boardwalk

by Martin Sherman

A memoir from the writer of BENT with a foreword by Ian McKellen

Sherman takes us on a journey through America in the mid twentieth century, starting in New Jersey – where he was born in the 1930s to a Jewish immigrant family – ending on Broadway with the premier of his seminal play Bent starring Richard Gere. On route, we encounter other famous performers including Meryl Streep, Bee Gees, Joan Baez, but the scene-stealing character is always his father – a charismatic narcissist who might have given Trump a run for his money. We stop off in Woodstock, Los Angeles and London – a city Martin would eventually make home; he relays his story with self-depreciating humour as he struggles to make it in theatre, with his sexuality, and under the shadow of the inheritable disease that killed his mother tragically early – a disease from which he finds himself finally free, as he turns forty in the book's closing pages.

278 pages, Paperback

First published September 25, 2025

Reviews

[Llyrio · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning memoir that is an inadvertent—indeed, empirical—retrospect of contemporary life’s most defining moments: Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Woodstock, Stonewall, and charming anecdotes of the author’s many brushes with emerging genius, such as Martin Scorsese and Meryl Streep.
Martin Sherman has seen and lived through it all, and retells it with the skill, sensitivity, and style of a veteran. A must-read.

[Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting perspective from the spectator or many huge civil right and empowerment events between 1955-1979. Got to read how much the world actually changed after each moment. And learned how an important piece of history was put into a media like the play “Bent” to actually show how many other groups of people where in the Holocaust.