Heather Stern

Biography

Heather Fields Stern has a distinguished career in professional arts management and teaching. Her professional credits include stage management on Broadway, in theatres across the United States, on first national tours, and in regional theatre. Notable highlights of her career include stage managing concert versions of A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd at Lincoln Center with the New York Philharmonic, The Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony, and the Emmy Award-winning PBS broadcast with the San Francisco Symphony.

Heather is currently the Executive Director of The Mama Project, based in Cape Town, which is dedicated to building community for women in South Africa through art. Previously, she served as General Manager for the Actors’ Shakespeare Project, an award-winning professional theatre and education company in Boston, and as Company Manager at Paper Mill Playhouse, the historic Tony Award-winning regional theatre in Millburn, New Jersey.

Since 2015, Heather has been teaching and mentoring students at Suffolk University. She has also taught at Emerson College, the Boston Conservatory at Berklee College of Music, and Salem State University. Heather is deeply committed to preparing Suffolk students for success in professional arts management.

In addition to her professional theatre achievements, Heather earned her Ed.D. in Educational Leadership of Higher Education at Johnson & Wales University. Her research is focused on the ways community-based arts can motivate academic aspirations. Dr. Stern’s dissertation is entitled Exploring the Transformational Power of Community Arts: Opening the Doors to Black and Coloured Women in South Africa. Note: Coloured is a cultural appropriate term in South Africa and is held with pride by that community.

Heather is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association, America’s national union representing actors and stage managers.