Frank 'Fraver' Verlizzo Launches Interactive Memoir Fraver.com

Theatrical advertising giant Frank "Fraver" Verlizzo is offering theater fans a never-before-seen glimpse into his world with the launch of a new website, Fraver.com. Designed as a visual, interactive memoir, Fraver allows visitors to view more than one hundred of his favorite poster designs and provides fascinating, at times titillating, background stories for each one. The website is free to use, easy to navigate, and provides insight into a rarely-viewed, but all-too-vital, aspect of the theater industry.

"I feel privileged to work with Frank Verlizzo whose body of work always amazes me," said Valerie Harper, the star of the upcoming Broadway play Looped (one of Fraver's current projects). "I am honored that his design for Looped will be in the company of some the most famous images in theatre history."

"I've amassed quite a collection of my own artwork throughout the years, and each piece conjures such fabulous memories," Fraver said. "I wanted to create a unique way to share these images and their stories. I hope it will become a useful-and ever-growing-resource for theater lovers and students alike."

Having created poster art for over 300 Broadway and Off Broadway productions, including some of the most memorable designs in theatre history, Fraver's indelible mark on the landscape of the American theater is widely recognized throughout the industry. In 1987, Fraver received a Special Drama Desk Award "for inspired artwork for theatrical productions," an honor never before bestowed in the area of theatrical advertising. Peter Marks, in The New York Times, said of his work, "The images Mr. Verlizzo creates become a part of the production's permanent record. The rest could very well be theatrical history." Fraver's unforgettable designs include the original Broadway productions of Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, The Lion King and Ira Levin's Deathtrap.

www.fraver.com

FRANK "FRAVER" VERLIZZO - Posters designed by Fraver (the moniker he uses to sign his work - taken from the first three letters of his first name and last name) hang on the office walls of virtually every major theatrical producer and institution over the last quarter century. The press has long recognized his impact in the theatrical community. Associated Press proclaimed him "one of Broadway's top design artists." Broadway.com hailed him as a "legendary theatre artist." Playbill.com called him "the theatre poster legend." And in a 1996 profile, Peter Marks in The New York Times wrote of his work, "The images Mr. Verlizzo creates become a part of a production's permanent record. The rest could very well be theatrical history." Some of Fraver's many unforgettable theatre poster designs include the original Broadway productions of Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, The Lion King, Ira Levin's Deathtrap, Whose Life is it Anyway?, My One and Only, Horton Foote's The Young Man From Atlanta, Baby, Lanford Wilson's Burn This, Edward Albee's Seascape and David Mamet's American Buffalo. His gargoyle poster design for Stephen Sondheim's Getting Away with Murder proved to be one of those rare instances when a piece of poster art was recognized by the press with better reviews than the play itself. The prolific nature of his work shows no signs of abating. Fraver logo designs have recently greeted theatregoers on marquees and Playbills for a wide variety of shows on and off Broadway, on tour, and in London's West End, including Our Town, The Story of My Life, Journey's End, Twelve Angry Men, Primo, The Glass Menagerie, Little Women, Candide (New York City Opera), The Frogs (Lincoln Center Theater), Adding Machine, The Marvelous Wonderettes, and the long-running The Lion King. Fraver's association with many of the works of Stephen Sondheim led the Kennedy Center to commission him to design all eight pieces of logo art for their Sondheim Celebration during the summer of 2002. In the summer of 2004 he again designed the poster art for all three "Tennessee Williams Revisited" productions at the Kennedy Center. In 1987, Fraver's poster art garnered him a Special Drama Desk Award "for inspired artwork for theatrical productions," an honor never before bestowed in the area of theatrical advertising. Before joining the advertising agency Eliran Murphy Group in 2003, he was Creative Art Director/VP at J. Walter Thompson's Entertainment Group, at Grey Entertainment, and Managing Partner/Co-Creative Director at Rave! Advertising. Fraver holds a BFA in Illustration and Advertising from Pratt Institute, where he studied under renowned poster artist David Edward Byrd. He lives in Manhattan.

Photo: Frank Verlizzo and Jon Bierman