NAMEDROPPING to Return as Benefit Performance with David Rothenberg at Castle Gardens

Listen up …David Rothenberg is “Namedropping” again. The legendary Broadway producer/publicist returns with his autobiographical one-person show for one matinee only, Sunday, June 28 at 3PM at Castle Gardens (625 West 140th Street, NYC). Proceeds from the performance benefit The Fortune Society. For tickets email dprfortune@hotmail.com.

In “Namedropping,” first presented at the off-Broadway in 2003, 92-year young Rothenberg recounts his decades in the theatre starting with his first Broadway show in 1961. Among the stars with whom he worked and on whom he will dish dirt in “Namedropping” are Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis, Sir John Gielgud, Richard Burton, Alvin Ailey, Tennessee Williams, Julie Harris, Charles Laughton, Edward Albee, Peggy Lee, Eartha Kitt, Charles Boyer, and the list goes on. (David denies having represented Aristophanes first play, noting, "…only his later works.")

David Rothenberg's multilayered life has thrust him into Broadway's brightest lights, prison riots, political campaigns, civil rights sit-ins, and a Central American Civil War. After reading the script for Fortune and Men's Eyes by former prisoner and playwright John Herbert, he was instrumental in producing the play in New York. He started The Fortune Society on the stage after a performance. Moved by the performance, 16 audience members contributed $2 each, Rothenberg opened a bank account for $32, and The Fortune Society was born. 58 years later, The Fortune Society has a staff of 600 people and six residences for formerly incarcerated men and women. Unique in the history of the American Theatre, this was a social change movement with national implications that penetrated through the proscenium arch. Later, he was a civilian observer during the Attica Prison riot, which left a deep impression on him and spurred his lifelong activism for prisoner's rights. This inspired him to found The Fortune Society in 1967, now one of the nation's leading advocacy and service organizations in criminal justice.

As a theatre publicity agent, he represented some of the most heralded and successful productions in the second half of the 20th century including Richard Burton's Hamlet; the original production of Hair; Beyond The Fringe; Sir John Gielgud's production of The School for Scandal; Tennessee Williams' Night Of The Iguana and Slapstick Tragedy; Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party; and several plays by Edward Albee including Everything In The Garden, Box Mao Box, Sandbox, Death of Bessie Smith and The American Dream; Blue Man Group; Tony and Tina's Wedding; An Evening with Maurice Chevalier; and nearly 200 other productions.

Rothenberg conceived and directed The Castle which played off-Broadway for over a year with a unique cast of formerly incarcerated men and women. Productions continue to be performed in colleges, churches, civic groups and prisons around the country. Rothenberg's one-man show Namedropping was first presented off-Broadway in 2003 and is still performed in the New York City area. As a social activist, he was appointed to the NYC Commission of Human Rights. He also served on several special state and city commissions in New York City, including a Governor's Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice, a Mayor's Task Force on Child Abuse, and the American Bar Association Commission on Correction. He has testified before numerous government committees, including several in Washington DC, before Senate and House Committees, and before State Legislative Committees around the nation. In 1985, Rothenberg ran for city councilman in Manhattan to raise AIDS awareness. An openly gay candidate, Rothenberg was widely endorsed, including by the Daily News, the Village Voice, and the Amsterdam News, among others, earning the moniker “The Gay White Hope.” He garnered 46% of the vote, collecting the third largest number of votes of any candidate in the city's 38 council race. (Unfortunately, his opponent had the second greatest number of votes, thus winning the race.)David Rothenberg has been a guest columnist for several newspapers and continues to host a weekly radio program on WBAI in New York, an assignment he has held for over 50 years.

Founded in 1967, The Fortune Society has advocated on criminal justice issues for more than five decades and is nationally recognized for developing model programs that help people with criminal justice histories become assets to their communities. Fortune offers a holistic and integrated “one‑stop‑shopping” model of service provision, including discharge planning, licensed outpatient substance use and mental health treatment, alternatives to incarceration, HIV/AIDS services, career development and job retention, education, family services, drop‑in services, and supportive housing, as well as lifetime access to aftercare. For more information, visit www.fortunesociety.org.