Sheldon Cheney

Sheldon Warren Cheney (June 29, 1886 – October 10, 1980) was an American author and art critic, born at Berkeley, California, the son of Lemuel Warren Cheney (1858–1921), California lawyer and writer, and May L. Cheney (1862–1942), Appointment Secretary at University of California, Berkeley for over forty years. At first he worked in his father's real estate business, later moving to Detroit where he founded the Theatre Arts Magazine in 1916 and edited it until 1921. Cheney was one of the most significant pro-modernist theatre and art critics of the early twentieth century. He helped introduce European modernist practices in theatre to the United States. His Theatre Arts Magazine promoted American little theatre activity, advocated for New Stagecraft design, and nurtured new American playwrights.

Cheney grew up in Berkeley, California, in what he called "an atmosphere of literary ambition and activity". His father, Warren Cheney, was an author of poetry and fiction, and served as editor of the popular California magazine, Overland Monthly, and his mother, May L. Cheney, organized a teacher placement office at the University of California, Berkeley and was the founder of the National Association of Appointment Secretaries (NAAS) now known as the American College Personnel Association. The younger Cheney had a passion for the art of bookmaking and, while studying architecture at Berkeley, founded a quarterly journal for designers and collectors of bookplates—his first foray into the field of magazine publishing. He graduated in 1908 with a bachelor's degree in architecture. During his studies, Cheney also developed a love for theatre, inspired largely by performances of Greek drama he had attended at Berkeley’s outdoor Hearst Greek Theatre. In the years immediately following his graduation, Cheney married Maud Maurice Turner and found intermittent work as an art and theatre critic.

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