‘Words And Music By Jerry Herman’

Honored With CINE Golden Eagle Award

 Words and Music by Jerry Herman, produced and directed by Newtown resident Amber Edwards, has won a 2008 CINE Golden Eagle Award.

The 90-minute special documentary from NJN Public Television profiles Jerry Herman, the composer/lyricist of Hello, Dolly!, Mame, and La Cage Aux Folles. It was broadcast nationwide on PBS in January 2008. In April, Words and Music by Jerry Herman received a Gold Remi Award from the international Houston WorldFest competition.

The CINE Golden Eagle Awards, distinguishing excellence in professional, independent, and student works, are recognized internationally as symbols of the highest production standards in filmmaking and videography. Since its founding in 1957, CINE has been dedicated to discovering, rewarding, educating, and supporting established and emerging talent in film and video. Past CINE recipients include Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard, as well as such great documentarians as Ken Burns, Charles Guggenheim, Stanley Nelson, Albert Maysles, and Frederick Wiseman.

Words and Music by Jerry Herman chronicles Herman’s rapid rise from witty, topical off-Broadway revues during the 1950s, to his first Broadway hits in the 1960s (Milk and Honey, followed quickly by the record-breaking Dolly and Mame) through the less successful shows from the 1970s (Dear World, Mack & Mabel, and The Grand Tour) to his triumphant return in 1983 with La Cage aux Folles, which made social and political history.

The documentary uses insightful interviews, behind-the-scenes rehearsal sessions, rare photographs, and never-before-seen archival footage of original Broadway performances to create a warm, humorous, and moving portrait of a living theater legend.

Amber Edwards has been with NJN since 1987 and is senior producer for its State of the Arts series. In addition to the hundreds of interviews and stories she has done for State of the Arts, she is an award-winning filmmaker of nationally broadcast PBS documentaries, including The Dancing Man — Peg Leg Bates (1992); Vladimir Feltsman in Moscow (1993); Against the Odds: The Artists of the Harlem Renaissance (1994); Quicksand & Banana Peels: A Year in the Life of Two Principals (1999), and George Segal: American Still Life (2001).

Ms Edwards’s numerous awards also include 12 regional Emmy Awards, including a 2007 New York Emmy for Magazine Program, seven CINE Golden Eagles, two Chris statuettes from the Columbus International Film Festival, two CEN Programming awards, two Gold Remi Awards from WorldFest Houston, a NETA award, a Silver Plaque from the Chicago International Film Festival, the Silver Screen Award from the US International Film & Video Festival, and two Silver Apples from the National Educational Media Network.

Ms Edwards grew up in Kansas City and graduated from Yale University, where she is a Fellow at Branford College. She is married to the novelist Justin Scott.

Words and Music by Jerry Herman is a production of NJN Public Television; Nila Aronow was executive producer.