Book Signing with Alan Shayne & Norman Sunshine

The Hickory Stick Bookshop welcomes back perennial favorites Alan Shayne & Norman Sunshine who will be signing copies of their latest books “The Star Dressing Room : Portrait of an Actor” (Shayne) and “The Book of Norman” (Sunshine) on Saturday, September 2nd at 3 pm.

This event is free and open to the public. If you are unable to attend this event, you may reserve signed copies of the books by calling The Hickory Stick Bookshop at (860) 868 0525 or online at hickorystickbookshop.com.

ABOUT THE BOOKS
“The Star Dressing Room : Portrait of an Actor” is Alan Shayne’s affectionate, often uproarious new memoir that takes us back to Broadway’s golden age. Fans of beloved theatre memoirs in the vein of Moss Hart’s Act One and Helene Hanff’s Underfoot in Show Business are sure to relate to Alan, the perennially broke young actor as he’s repeatedly upstaged in acting class by an incredibly arrogant aspiring young performer named Marlon Brando. With great wit, he relives the terror of being an understudy who’s never sung or danced on Broadway – but needs to go on for Ricardo Montalban at the last minute opposite the legendary Lena Horne. “The Star Dressing Room” is filled with his delightful anecdotes about show business legends of the 1940s and 1950s. Greta Garbo, Mary Martin, Lotte Lenya, Elaine Stritch, and Anne Bancroft and many others make cameo appearances.

A lovely Valentine to Broadway and a moving tale of Shayne’s search for self-acceptance during the not-so-accepting 1940s and 1950s. – Library Journal

“The Book of Norman: Norman Sunshine / A Life in Art”, brings together more than seven decades of Sunshine’s painting, sculpture, pencil, charcoal, and digital work, all deftly interwoven into his remarkable life story. “The Book of Norman” is both a memoir of the social and artistic worlds of post-war America and a deep reflection on a life devoted to making art. The art critic Donald Kuspit said of Sunshine’s work that it is, “a classic example of dynamic equilibrium.” That statement is also true of the artist himself.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Alan Shayne was President of Warner Brothers Television for ten years, where he shepherded such hit shows as Alice, The Dukes of Hazard, Night Court, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Head of the Class and Growing Pains. In addition to holding other positions at the Warner Brothers Studio, he has been an independent film and television producer with such projects as The Bourne Identity starring Richard Chamberlain (nominated for an Emmy), and he won a Christopher Award for The House Without a Christmas Tree. He began his career in television with David Susskind’s production company, after working in the Broadway casting office for David Merrick. Prior to that, he was an actor on Broadway and on television.

Published in 2020, “The Rain Must Pass” recounts his experiences as a teenager in New England. Alan connects on Cape Cod with a man twice his age in the summer of 1941 and learns more about himself than he ever imagined possible. Shayne’s mystery/romance novel, “Finding Sylvia” set in Hollywood, Connecticut and around the world, was published in October 2017.

Norman Sunshine was born in Los Angeles, attended the University of Southern California, and received a BFA from New York University (where he had a class with Philip Guston). Post Graduate work continued at Art Center School in Los Angeles, majoring in illustration and painting. At Art Center he studied with the pioneer minimalist, Lorser Feitelson, and independently with William Brice. Immediately after graduating, Sunshine launched a very successful career as an illustrator, both in Los Angeles and New York, where he finally settled. He won numerous awards for his commercial work both for magazines and television, but “serious” painting became more and more his passion. His first body of work was shown at the Adam Gallery in New York, received excellent reviews and sold out. His paintings and sculpture are now in major private and public collections as well as: The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Museum of Arts and Sciences, Columbia, NC, and the Palm Springs Museum of Art, CA.

Their dual autobiography, “Double Life: A Love Story” was published to great acclaim in 2011.