James Snyder, Kelli O'Hara, James Monroe Iglehart and More to Take Part in MAKE NF VISIBLE Benefit Event

On May 17, World NF Awareness Day, Broadway performers, plus other actors, musicians, chefs, athletes, and comedians. will come together to Make NF Visible, a World NF Day Live event to benefit the Children's Tumor Foundation. NF, short for neurofibromatosis, is a rare genetic disorder that causes tumors to grow on nerves throughout the body and affects all ethnicities, races, and genders equally. In addition to tumors growing anywhere in the body, NF may lead to blindness, deafness, bone abnormalities, disfigurement, learning disabilities, disabling pain, and cancer. NF affects 1 in 3,000 people and, while the FDA recently approved the first-ever treatment, Koselugo (selumetinib), for inoperable plexiform neurofibromas, there is no cure at this time for NF, which is why it is crucial to Make NF Visible.

Hosted by actor/producer Jonathan Sadowski (ABC Family's Young & Hungry, Celebrity Top Chef) and stage/film/television actor and singer James Snyder (Broadway's Harry Potter and the Cursed Child), this virtual benefit will be filled with appearances and performances by Kelli O'Hara (The King and I; Kiss Me Kate), Lena Hall (Kinky Boots; Hedwig and the Angry Itch), Denée Benton (Hamilton; Natasha, Pierre, & The Great Comet of 1812), Miguel Cervantes (Hamilton), James Iglehart (Aladdin), and Jessica Vosk (Wicked). NF patients will also share their stories about why making NF visible is more important now than ever before.

In some patients, NF is visible; patients are often covered with café au lait skin spots, or disfiguring tumors. Many have bone problems causing them to wear a brace, or even have an amputation. In some patients, NF is invisible; healthy-looking patients on the outside live with excruciating pain on the inside. Many have challenging learning disabilities. Others have hearing or vision loss, or have brain tumors and are bound to years of chemotherapy. There is no one way to define NF, and as a result, there is no one way to define a person living with NF. This livestream event is about Making NF Visible: seeing NF, and seeing the person living with it.

World NF Awareness Day takes place during NF Awareness Month, a dedicated time every year to bring attention to the inspirational and remarkable stories of those living with NF, and the critical need for research to better their lives.

For more information about Make NF Visible: A World NF Day Live Event, visit ctf.org/live.

For more information about the Children's Tumor Foundation, visit ctf.org.