Howard Fishman began his theater career at the age of 12, performing in local productions in Hartford, CT. He served literary internships as Hartford Stage Company, Williamstown Theater Festival, and The Long Wharf Theater, and received his BA in Dramatic Literature from Vassar College, where he helped form a guerilla theater group called The American Theater Company that would eventually take up residence in Poughkeepsie, NY, before moving to NYC.

As an actor and director, Fishman studied with Jose Quintero and Estelle Parsons, and is an alum of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. In 1997, Fishman produced and directed the American premiere of Krasnogorov’s The Dog at Todo Con Nada; the world premiere of Elmer Rice’s final play Court of Last Resort at The Culture Project, and a staged reading of Rice's Street Scene at The Signature Theater. In 2025, he returned to directing on the NYC stage, helming the debut production of Joan Mathieu’s Diet Coke For The Dead at The Paradise Factory Theater.

As a theater scholar, Fishman has lectured on playwrights Eugene O'Neill and Susan Glaspell, was the primary research assistant for O'Neill biographers Arthur and Barbara Gelb from 1997-2013, and has been a guest theater lecturer at The Hotchkiss School, Skidmore College, and at Connecticut College.

Fishman's play On The L was produced by Peculiar Works in NYC at Expanded Arts, his theatrical oratorio “we are destroyed" has had workshop showings at the Public Theater, at The Abrons Arts Center, and at the Pasadena Playhouse; and his play "A Star Has Burnt My Eye" had its world premiere at The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), as part of the 2016 Next Wave Festival. As a theater composer, he composed an original score for Barry Rowell's Manna-Hatta is collaborated with playwright Christopher Wall on two project, The Calamity and The G-d Of In-Between.