Staff Bios

Isaiah Sheffer

Isaiah Sheffer is co-founder and artistic director of Symphony Space and director and host of Selected Shorts live and on radio. His radio, television, theatre, and film credits are extensive and include work as a commentator on the arts for WNYC's weekly radio column Around New York; producer/writer for The Road to the White House, a 20-minute public affairs series for NBC-TV (Emmy Nomination); and writer/director, The Last Chapter, award-winning historical documentary film on 1,000 years of Polish-Jewish history. Mr. Sheffer wrote the book and lyrics for the musicals Yiddle with a Fiddle and The Rise of David Levinsky. His latest play is Dreamers and Demons: The Three Worlds of Isaac Bashevis Singer. He is currently creating the libretto for a modern-baroque opera-ballet about the making of the American Constitution, A More Perfect Union.

Sarah Montague, in her twelfth year as producer for the SELECTED SHORTS program on the radio, is an award-winning producer/director with over twenty years' experience in creating cultural programming for public radio, including the drama series "The Radio Stage" and the documentaries "Titanic: Unsinkable Myth"; "They Made America" (with Sir Harold Evans); and "The Fall of the City: Prophetic Classic." Most recently, she directed the revival of Archibald MacLeish's "The Fall of the City" for the opening of WNYC's Jerome L. Greene Performance Space. Montague is a former board member of the Association of Independents in Radio and the National Audio Theatre Festivals, and is on the faculty of Eugene Lang College, where she teaches a range of radio and audio courses. She has been the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts. Awards she has earned include recognition from the International Radio Festival and a Gold Award from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. Montague was also a 1994 Harvestworks Artist-in-Residence.

Stu Kennedy began his radio career in high school, hosting a jazz show at WIUP in his hometown of Indiana, Pennsylvania. After finishing degrees in jazz and recording technology, he worked at WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania as a concert engineer, and engineer for the station's music and talk programs. Stu joined team Selected Shorts in 2007. When he's not putting together the show at WNYC, he produces daily classical music programs and other program material for WSHU in Connecticut. There, he also introduces SELECTED SHORTS each week as the station's Saturday afternoon host. Oustide of public radio, his edits have brought podcast listeners in contact with many musicians, including Yo-Yo Ma, Pat Metheny, and Billy Joel. Stu lives with his wife Julia in Connecticut.

Miles Smith is a freelance audio engineer based in the Boston area, and is currently on staff at WGBH Radio in Boston. He has recorded every SELECTED SHORTS live performance at Symphony Space since its second season in 1986. He is also Chief Engineer for the Spanish Beisbol Network, and works with "This American Life" as a consultant, and as location engineer for the program's live shows. Smith's other production credits include three Grammy-nominated albums, and such award-winning live music broadcasts as the Newport Jazz Festival, the Newport Folk Festival, New Music America, and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival). He has also worked on many radio drama series and events, including The Midwest Radio Theatre Workshop, WBAI's live Shakespeare productions, WNYC's "The Radio Stage" series, the serialized radio drama "Our Lives Amongst The Works of Art", L.A. Classical Radio Theatre Productions, and the SciFi channel's "Seeing Ear Theatre."