Freddie Gershon

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Freddie’s latest Huffington Post blog, entitled I Have a Dream, recounts the extraordinary Junior Theater Festival that took place over the Martin Luther King, Jr. Weekend in Atlanta this year. More than 2,000 white, Latin, black, Asian and Middle Eastern children, from 54 US schools, gathered to celebrate and perform together in the most collegial, joyful, loving atmosphere.

“I hope [Rev. King] was watching from the beyond,” Freddie wrote, “this was the dream.”

If you feel like it, leave a comment … there … or here … or both!

Click here to see the blog at the Huffington Post site.

Click here to see Music Theatre International’s photo gallery and coverage of event.

Click here to see Playbill’s photo gallery of the event and here to see their pre-event article.

Click here to see how Grammy award winner Bryan-Michael Cox covered the event at his site. (Cox was one of the featured speakers at the event.)

Click here to read an inspirational article about Sebastian Palmer, 16, who won one of seven Freddie G Outstanding Individual Male Performance awards at the festival.

“Miss Cellophane died this week,” Freddie writes in his latest Huffington Post blog. “Almost no one knew because she performed a rare but indispensable role… she was the Queen of Damage Control… her greatest successes were when no one was ever aware that she had ‘pulled it off’… again.”

Freddie says he was introduced to Linda “to promote a novel I wrote in the 80’s called Sweetie Baby Cookie Honey…. I followed Linda’s instructions… I sold half-a-million books. Linda and Freddie became close friends.

“…now that she’s died, I can tell you something about Miss Cellophane that you won’t read in her short obits, or from any of the extraordinarily famous names whose asses she saved, whose millions she secured, whose careers were preserved….

“The reason Linda was so remarkably suited to deal with all of these people with so many defects is because she was born with so many physical defects….

“…(about six million women)… took a medication (until 1971) called DES so that they could avoid miscarriage and carry to term…. But babies were born with abnormalities — some visible, some invisible… some born with secret time bombs.

“Linda was… born with time bombs spread out over the minefield of her life. She tread her path carefully and artfully and she tried to avoid getting them to explode….

“She managed to outmaneuver and out-do DES for 62 years.

“A few months ago, when she revealed to me that she had seven tumors — all stage 4 — in her chest, that she was failing, that her heart was infected and was untreatable, that in all likelihood she would be dead before Christmas 2010, she continued to demonstrate grace, courage, laughs, fun, style, organization and putting her business affairs in meticulous order.

“She did not tell her clients.

“Good bye, Linda. You made my life richer, you taught me how to live it and then how to die in style and on your own personal terms. You remained in character.

“Good night, Miss Cellophane, you’ll always be my invisible superhero.”

Click here to read the whole HuffPost blog, entitled: When Publicity Requires Invisibility.

For his 11th Huffington Post blog, Freddie notes the 50th anniversary of “The Flintstones” and pays tribute to his wife, Myrna’s, contribution to the merchandising that has become as iconic as the animated TV show.

It was Myrna Gershon (née Masour), starting as a $65/wk secretary, along with a whiz merchandiser named Hone$t Ed Justin, who came up with the concepts for Pebbles Cereal and, says Freddie, “unquestionably the most successful product in the field of non-prescription medicine ever created: “Flintstones (Children’s Chewable) Vitamins.” (B&W above is of Ed & Myrna at the moment of merchandising launch.)

The rest, as they say, is history — not to mention current events. The cereal and the vitamins are still going strong, some 50 years later.

Click here to see the HuffPost blog, entitled: Myrna’s Prehistoric Journey to “Yabba Dabba Do.”.

The Kennedy Center announced September 28th that it would begin awarding $10,000 grants annually to “inspirational teachers” in the arts and a variety of the other fields.

The New York Times reported that the grants would be financed from a donation by Freddie Gershon and his wife, Myrna. The Center said it was enough to make a handful of grants each year.

The grants, to be called the Kennedy Center/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Awards, will be presented each year on Mr. Sondheim’s birthday, March 22, (he turned 80 this year) to teachers from kindergarten through college levels who are nominated through the Kennedy Center Web site.

Mr. Sondheim, the Tony Award-winning composer and lyricist of musicals including “Company,” “Follies” and “Sweeney Todd,” said in a statement that teachers could have a defining impact that ought to be recognized and rewarded more fully. “Good teachers are touchstones to paths of achieving more than we might have otherwise accomplished, in directions we might not have gone.”

Freddie said he wanted to show who Sondheim is beyond his lyrics and music. “We realized that we know a part of Steve that other people don’t, which is that he is much more than a great composer and lyricist and theater writer,” he said. “There’s another legacy, which is his love of teaching.”

By the way, the best address for the award program is:
The Kennedy Center Education Department
ATTN: Sondheim Teacher Awards
For FedEx/DHL/UPS/Courier: 2700 F St., NW, Washington, DC 20566
For Regular U.S. or International Mail: P.O. Box 101510, Arlington, VA 22210
Or via email:
DL at the Kennedy Center

See also the second Click here link below to see The Kennedy Center page about the grants.

Click here to see the online New York Times article.

Click here to see The Kennedy Center page about the grants and how to nominate a teacher.

Click here to see why the world’s all aTwitter about this new grant.

Click here to see the tribute to Freddie & Myrna for funding this award that appeared in The Marquee, newsletter of MTI International. (The following two links were recommended by The Marquee.)

Click here to see Playbill’s excellent in-depth piece by Adam Hetrick.

Click here to see Theatermania’s online article.

It’s entitled: Happy National Arts and Education Week, America and uses this House of Representatives designation (of September 12-18) to point out the importance of the arts in our schools.
If you feel like it, leave a comment … there … or here … or both!

Click here to see the blog at the Huffington Post site.

It’s entitled: Sports, Christian Values and the Arts? After blogging about the arts, grade schools and the importance of teachers (see 8th & 7th Huffingtons below), Freddie got some pro and con comments he couldn’t resist commenting on — or is it: “re-blogette-ing” on?

If you feel like it, leave a comment … there … or here … or both!

Click here to see the blog at the Huffington Post site.

It’s entitled: Sports and Arts: Unlikely Pairing Until Glee and High School Musical Make It Cool
and is about the character-building qualities of both sports and the arts — and how the arts we export also help the US balance of trade.

If you feel like it, leave a comment … there … or here … or both!

Click here to see the blog at the Huffington Post site.

It’s entitled: You, Too, Can Play and Fight and is about the Venezuelan youth orchestra concept being brought to American cities.

If you feel like it, leave a comment … there … or here … or both!

Click here to see the blog at the Huffington Post site.

It’s entitled: So, I’d Like to Thank and is about eight educators who won a 3-day weekend of workshops on Broadway for their outstanding achievements teaching music and theater to their young students.

If you feel like it, leave a comment … there … or here … or both!

Click here to see the blog at the Huffington Post site.

It’s entitled: It’s Always the Old to Lead Us to the War/It’s Always the Young to Fall and is about the 1960s-’70s singer-songwriter Phil Ochs and why Freddie was thinking of his late friend and client on the 4th of July.

If you feel like it, leave a comment … there … or here … or both!

Click here to see the blog at the Huffington Post site.