Myrna Gershon News

Once the lowest performing school in the State of Connecticut, Roosevelt is one of eight schools around the country turning itself around through the arts. Roosevelt School was selected last April to be part of Turnaround Arts, an initiative of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities of which First Lady Michelle Obama is Honorary Chair. Thanks to the generosity of a very special donor, Roosevelt's accomplishments will be showcased this week in a musical theater production.

The New-York Historical Society will honor supporters of musical theater education Myrna and Freddie Gershon and Manhattan P94M principal Ronnie Shuster during the fifteenth annual American Musicals Project Benefit, on Monday, May 20, 2013 from 6-8 p.m. Guests will be treated to an evening of music from Broadway's golden era featuring the songs of Lorenz Hart and Rodgers & Hammerstein. Ticket proceeds benefit the American Musicals Project, a creative educational curriculum.

On Monday afternoon, 2012 Tony honoree and MTI Chairman and CEO Freddie Gershon; Rodgers & Hammerstein President and past American Theater Wing Chairman Ted Chapin, SMASH's Krysta Rodriguez and more joined forces in Times Square to celebrate Musicals in our Schools Week. During Musicals in our Schools Week, Monday, March 18 through Monday, March 25, students, educators, industry leaders and community members advocate for the importance of quality arts programs in schools through grassroots efforts like organizing a flash mob, giving a free public performance from a Spring musical or sending a thank you note to an educator via letter, internet, video or kind deed.

Oscar and Tony Award-winning composer Alan Menken, director Jeff Calhoun and producer Thomas Schumacher will join Kara Lindsay, Andrew Keenan-Bolger and Mike Faist, stars of the Tony award-winning Broadway musical, Newsies, for a special presentation to 4,000 students and teachers representing 82 groups from 23 states at the 2013 Junior Theater Festival, it was announced today by Theater of the Stars President Nick Manos and Timothy Allen McDonald, founding Chairman of iTheatrics. The Junior Theater Festival is being held January 18, 19 and 20 at the Cobb Galleria in Atlanta.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is seeking nominations for the 2013 Kennedy Center/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Awards - a series of annual grants that recognize inspiring teachers across the United States. Now in their third year, the awards were created in honor of Stephen Sondheim's 80th birthday. The Kennedy Center/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Awards are presented each year on Sondheim's birthday ----March 22----to a handful of teachers, kindergarten through college, who are nominated via the Kennedy Center website (kennedy-center.org/sondheimteacherawards).

The 2012 Tony Awards, presented by The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing and hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, was broadcast last night in a live three-hour ceremony from the Beacon Theatre, on the CBS television network. Here we take you inside the post-Tony Ball!

NBC's "Smash" actors Christian Borle, Brian d'Arcy James and Jaime Cepero; "Smash" executive producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron; A Chorus Line's Baayork Lee, Bonnie and Clyde's Jeff Calhoun and Annie creators Thomas Meehan, Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin were some of the celebrities who traveled to Atlanta to applaud the 3,000+ students and teachers representing 65 schools in 19 states staging musical theater productions in their communities at the 2012 Junior Theater Festival, January 13 - 15, 2012 at the Cobb Galleria in Atlanta. Presented by New York's iTheatrics and Atlanta's Theater of the Stars and sponsored by leading theatrical licensor Music Theatre International (MTI), Disney Musicals and NBC, the Junior Theater Festival is the world's largest musical theater festival dedicated to groups working with elementary, middle and high school students.

NBC's "Smash" actors Christian Borle, Brian d'Arcy James and Jaime Cepero; "Smash" executive producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron; A Chorus Line's Baayork Lee, Bonnie and Clyde's Jeff Calhoun and Annie creators Thomas Meehan, Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin were some of the celebrities who traveled to Atlanta to applaud the 3,000+ students and teachers representing 65 schools in 19 states staging musical theater productions in their communities at the 2012 Junior Theater Festival, January 13 - 15, 2012 at the Cobb Galleria in Atlanta. Presented by New York's iTheatrics and Atlanta's Theater of the Stars and sponsored by leading theatrical licensor Music Theatre International (MTI), Disney Musicals and NBC, the Junior Theater Festival is the world's largest musical theater festival dedicated to groups working with elementary, middle and high school students.

A thundering chorus of 3,000+ Broadway stars, students and teachers will lock step and raise their voices and hearts in song during the 2012 Junior Theater Festival, a monumental celebration of on-stage and backstage excellence happening January 13 - 15, 2012 in Atlanta, GA, it was announced today by Theater of the Stars president Nick Manos and Timothy Allen McDonald, founding chairman of iTheatrics. Presented by New York's iTheatrics and Atlanta's Theater of the Stars and sponsored by leading theatrical licensor Music Theatre International (MTI), Disney Musicals and NBC, the Junior Theater Festival is the world's largest musical theater festival dedicated to groups working with elementary school, middle school and high school aged students.

A thundering chorus of 3,000+ Broadway stars, students and teachers will lock step and raise their voices and hearts in song during the 2012 Junior Theater Festival, a monumental celebration of on-stage and backstage excellence happening January 13 - 15, 2012 in Atlanta, GA, it was announced today by Theater of the Stars president Nick Manos and Timothy Allen McDonald, founding chairman of iTheatrics. Presented by New York's iTheatrics and Atlanta's Theater of the Stars and sponsored by leading theatrical licensor Music Theatre International (MTI), Disney Musicals and NBC, the Junior Theater Festival is the world's largest musical theater festival dedicated to groups working with elementary school, middle school and high school aged students.

Eight exceptional educators from schools and performing arts centers around the country will work one-on-one with Broadway greats including Kimberly Grigsby, Warren Carlyle, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul at the 2nd Annual BROADWAY WELCOMES AMERICA'S TEACHERS AT THE FREDDIE G THEATRE EXPERIENCE July 15th-17th in New York. Again this year's event has been underwritten by Freddie ('G') Gershon, Chairman and CEO of leading theatrical licensor Music Theatre International (MTI) and his wife Myrna Gershon. The weekend honors instructors and teachers who are working to make a difference for their students and communities through the process of staging musical theatre productions in their schools and educational theatre groups.