Jerry Herman Documentary to Screen at Sarasota Film Fest
By: BWW News Desk Mar. 21, 2007
The new NJN documentary to air on PBS next season, "Words and Music by Jerry Herman," by award-winning filmmaker Amber Edwards, has been selected to screen at the 9th Annual Sarasota Film Festival on Saturday, April 14 at 2:45pm and Sunday, April 15 at 1pm. The 10-day event, which has grown into one of the leading film festivals in North America, will take place in the Gulf Coast resort city of Sarasota, Florida, April 13-22, 2007. This will be the US festival premiere of the film.
"Words and Music by Jerry Herman," chronicles the life and career of one of the American Musical Theater's legendary figures: Jerry Herman, the composer and lyricist of the smash hit shows Hello, Dolly!, Mame and La Cage Aux Folles.
This 90 minute film, created for NJN Public Television, follows Herman's rise from witty, topical off-Broadway revues in the 1950s, to his first Broadway triumphs in the 1960s -- Milk and Honey, followed by the record-breaking Dolly and then Mame -- through the 1970s (Dear World, Mack & Mabel, The Grand Tour) to his 1983 smash hit, La Cage Aux Folles, which made social and political history.
The star-studded supporting cast includes Carol Channing, Angela Lansbury, Charles Nelson Reilly, Marge Champion, Arthur Laurents, Michael Feinstein, Charles Strouse, Fred Ebb, George Hearn, Phyllis Newman, Musical Director Donald Pippin, Francine Pascal, Leslie Uggams, Jason Graae, and theater historians Miles Kreuger and Ken Bloom.
Nearly five years in the making, the film incorporates a remarkable collection of photographs and archival footage (much of it never seen in public) including Carol Channing doing the original Hello, Dolly! title song; Super-8 films of Angela Lansbury in Mame and Dear World; numbers from Mack & Mabel (a cult favorite among aficionados;) scenes from La Cage; and most astonishingly, film of the college musical Jerry wrote at University of Miami.
"I'm thrilled that Sarasota audiences are going to be able to see this in a festival setting, on a big screen with a live audience. It's a totally different experience than most people will have when they see it on TV," says Edwards. "At the private preview screenings we've had in Los Angeles, Palm Springs, and New York, it's been like attending a live theater performance–people laugh and cry and cheer, just as they would at a Jerry Herman musical." The screenings will be followed by a Q&A period with Amber Edwards, the filmmaker, and special guests.
Amber Edwards' previous documentaries include The Dancing Man--Peg Leg Bates (PBS, 1992); Vladimir Feltsman in Moscow (PBS, 1993); Against the Odds: The Artists of the Harlem Renaissance (PBS, 1994); Into the Light (1996), a short documentary about the birth of the film industry in New Jersey; Quicksand & Banana Peels: A Year in the Life of Two Principals (NJN/PBS, 1998); and George Segal: American Still Life (PBS, 2001). Her numerous awards include eleven regional Emmy Awards, six CINE Golden Eagles, two "Chris" statuettes from the Columbus International Film Festival, and two CEN Programming awards. Since 1988, Edwards has been the host/producer of NJN's Emmy-winning weekly "State of the Arts" program, interviewing major figures in all of the fine and performing arts, and field-producing segments on cultural issues and events. Ms. Edwards also produces, writes, and narrates the Jersey Arts on the Radio series, heard on Public Radio stations throughout New Jersey, and has been a regular contributor to public radio's flagship jazz station, WBGO-FM (Newark, NJ.)
Upcoming private and public preview screenings of "Words and Music by Jerry Herman" are being presented by the 92 nd Street Y in NYC on May 23, The Museum of Television and Radio on June 18, the University of Miami's Jerry Herman Ring Theater on September 17, the Kennedy Center on September 19 and the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Rose Cinema on September 24.
Film festival ticket packages, event tickets and passes are on sale now for the 2007 Sarasota Film Festival by calling the Sarasota Film Festival Ticket and Information Line at 1-866-575-FILM or 1-941-366-6200, or by logging on to www.sarasotafilmfestival.com or by going to The Sarasota Film Festival Box Office in Sarasota Main Plaza, adjacent to Hollywood 20 at 1991 Main Street, Suite 108. Single film tickets go on sale March 24, 2007 (available on web and at box-office only).
Photo - Amber Edwards and Jerry Herman by Helen Montgomery-Drysdale
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