Martin Sherman was born in Philadelphia, educated at Boston University and now lives in London. His early plays include Passing By, Cracks and Rio Grande, all originally presented by Playwrights Horizons in New York. Bent premiered at the Royal Court in 1979, transferred to the Criterion Theatre and was then presented on Broadway, where it received a Tony nomination for Best Play and won the Dramatist Guild's Hull-Warriner Award. Bent has been produced in over forty-five countries, and has been turned into a ballet in Brazil, and, in 1989, was revived at the National Theatre. It has been voted one of the NT2000 One Hundred Plays of the Century. His next plays were Messiah (Hampstead and Aldwych Theatres, 1983), When She Danced (King's Head, 1988; Gielgud, 1991), A Madhouse in Goa (Lyric Hammersmith and Apollo, 1989), Some Sunny Day (Hampstead, 1996) and Rose (National Theatre, 1999). Rose received an Olivier nomination for Best Play and transferred to Broadway the following season. Sherman has written an adaptation of E. M. Forster's A Passage to India for Shared Experience (Riverside Studios, 2002; Lyric Hammersmith, 2004) and a new version of a Luigi Pirandello play, Absolutely! (Perhaps) (Wyndhams, 2003) He has also written the book for the musical The Boy From Oz which opened on Broadway in 2003. His screenplays include The Clothes in the Wardrobe (US title: The Summer House), Alive and Kicking, Bent, Callas Forever and The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone. Martin Sherman Plays: One was published by Methuen Drama in 2004.

Aristo is the new play by Martin Sherman that has its world premiere at the Chichester Festival Theatre from 11 September - 11 October prior to a West End transfer. It will star Robert Lindsay and Diana Quick.

Based on the last years of the life of the wealthy shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis who after a notorious affair with Maria Calas married Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of US President John F. Kennedy, in 1968. The play explores his complex interwoven relationships with Calla, Kennedy and his son by Callas, Alexandros, who died in a plane crash in 1973.

Based in part on Peter Evans' book Nemesis, Aristo is an explosive account of how those in positions of enormous power and wealth often live lives detached from the realities and moral codes of everyday existence.