Dixie Sheridan is a photojournalist, based in New York City, specializing in the documentation of the performing arts, primarily theater, off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway. The New York Public Library has acquired Sheridan's photographic archive for its New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, where it will eventually be made available to the public.
Prior to establishing her photography business in New York City, Sheridan was a journalist, a public relations professional, and a theater producer.
Biography
Originally from Oklahoma, she earned a bachelor's degree in drama from Vassar College and a master's degree in theater history and criticism from the University of Oklahoma.
Career
After completing her education, Sheridan worked as a newspaper reporter, editor, and photographer at the Southern Dutchess News, in Wappingers Falls, New York, 1975–1977. While at the Southern Dutchess News, she was elected as the first woman to be president of the Mid-Hudson News Association and she won several Heritage Media Awards for excellence in reporting and feature writing.
Sheridan returned to Vassar College when she was hired as editor for the Vassar Quarterly, the alumnae/i magazine. She continued at Vassar College for 27 years, becoming assistant to the president and finally vice president for college relations. At Vassar, she and her staff in college relations received 20 awards from the international Council for Advancement and Support of Education for excellence in publications design and for strategic special events planning. At Vassar, she also was a founder, executive producer (1990–1996), and photographer (1984–2004) for the Powerhouse Summer Theater Program.
In 1997, Sheridan was given the honorary title of vice president emerita as she left Vassar to embark on a new career as free-lance photographer, and she quickly established herself in theatrical circles in New York.
Theater work
Sheridan has been company photographer for Axis Theatre Company, Classic Stage Company, Collision Theory, Hotel Savant, New York International Fringe Festival, Powerhouse Summer Theater Program / New York Stage and Film. She has also worked with the Jean Cocteau Repertory, the Foundry Theatre, Joe's Pub, MCC, the New York Public Theater, the Ontological-Hysteric Theater, Rude Mechanicals, Split Britches, Theatreworks USA, and 3-Legged Dog, among others. Her theater work includes many American and world premieres, and the work of playwrights Jon Robin Baitz, Kia Corthron, Martin Crimp, Beth Henley, Warren Leight, Steve Martin, Eric Overmeyer, John Patrick Shanley, Elizabeth Swados, and Erin Cressida Wilson; and the work of directors Andrei Belgrader, Barry Edelstein, Leonard Foglia, Richard Foreman, Joe Mantello, Michael Mayer, Annie-B Parson/Paul Lazar, and Randy Sharp. Among the actors she has photographed are Mark Linn-Baker, Kathleen Chalfant, Amy Irving, Bill Irwin, Dana Ivey, Carol Kane, Kiki and Herb, Lady Bunny, Frances McDormand, Bebe Neuwirth, Estelle Parsons, Everett Quinton, Roger Rees, Reg Rogers, Deborah Rush, Tony Shalhoub, David Strathairn, Meryl Streep, Uma Thurman, and John Turturro.
Other photography
Her work as a photographer also includes portraits of writers and artists for book jackets, for newspapers and magazines, and has been included in many books. She has photographed writers Mary Beth Caschetta, Alison Leslie Gold, Carole Maso, Mary McCarthy, Muriel Rukeyser, Paul Russell, Elizabeth Spires, and Monique Wittig; composers Annea Lockwood and Richard Edward Wilson; art world figures Katharine Kuh, Robert Mnuchin, Lydia Malbin; artists Louise Fishman, Nancy Graves, Catherine Murphy, and Harry Roseman.
In print
Her photographs have been published in various newspapers and magazines, including the following: The American Poetry Review, Belles Lettres, BOMB, The Daily News, Dance Magazine, Der Spiegel, El Diario, Elle, L.A. Weekly, New York magazine, The New York Observer, New York Post, The New York Times, Time Out (New York and London), Variety, Village Voice, and The Washington Post.