Biltmore Theatre to be Renamed for Publicist Samuel J. Friedman

Manhattan Theatre Club has announced that it will rename its Broadway house, the landmarked Biltmore Theatre, the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre effective before the start of the 2008-09 season. The name change is being made in recognition of a gift from the Dr. Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman Foundation in memory of their father, a pioneering Broadway publicist. At the family's request, MTC declined to reveal the amount of the donation.

Born and raised in New York City, Samuel J. Friedman 1912-1974 began his theatrical career in 1937 at the Shubert Organization on the Cole Porter musical You Never Know. In the early 1950s he opened National Press Agents with partner Bill Doll and at various times served as Vice President of Arthur P. Jacobs Co., Inc., VP of Publicity for United Artists Motion Pictures and PR Director of Hugh Hefner's Playboy Enterprises. He was a lifetime member and officer of the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers.

Friedman did the publicity for the original productions of such Broadway and off-Broadway classics as Finian's Rainbow 1947, Waiting for Godot with an all-black cast in 1957, A Moon for the Misbegotten 1957, Les Ballets Africains 1959, Genet's The Blacks 1961, Golden Boy 1964, The Subject Was Roses 1965, Oh! Calcutta! 1969, The Rothschilds 1970, and The Me Nobody Knows 1970.

In addition to the renaming of the theater, publicists Shirley Herz and Bob Ullman, two of Friedman's associates, will also be honored with a lobby named for them. Herz, still a press agent, has worked on and off-Broadway for more than 50 years. Ullman retired after a career that included stints with the Public Theater and Playwrights Horizons and many notable productions.

The Biltmore Theatre, located on West 47th Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue, reopened as the third and largest stage of the Manhattan Theatre Club in October 2003 after a two-year, $35 million renovation. Since its re-opening, the theater has received numerous awards, including induction into the National Register of Historic Places, the Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award, the Theatre Museum Award, and the New York Landmark Conservancy's highest honor for excellence.