Local Celebrity Night At BPW May 2 Meeting

The Business and Professional Women of Newtown present Local Celebrity night at their May 2 meeting. Ray Sipherd will be the speaker. During the evening a scholarship will be awarded to a woman in Newtown who is advancing or changing her career.

Ray Sipherd is a writer who is active in a variety of forms. As a playwright and lyricist he wrote the book and was co-author of the lyrics for a musical adaptation of He Who Gets Slapped, based on a well-known Russian play. It was produced by the Hubbard Hall Theater in Cambridge, N.Y., and will have its West Coast premier in Los Angeles next year.

Soon after graduating from Yale, he joined CBS Television and was the assistant to the producer for a number of dramatic specials. In the 1960s, he became a writer-producer for WNET/Thirteen. In 1969, he was one of the original writers and creators of the children’s television series, Sesame Street. During his 17 years with the show he wrote seven children’s books and contributed to Sesame Street music albums and videos.

As a published author, he wrote the novel, The Courtship of Peggy McCoy, as  well as a collection of holiday Christmas stories, The Christmas Store. He is also the creator of a mystery series that includes Dance of the Scarecrows, The Audubon Quartet, and The Devil’s Hawk.

The winner of three national Emmy awards for his television writing, he continues to be a free-lance television and film writer. Currently, he is a contributing writer to the recently launched Bedford magazine.

He is a former member of the advisory panel for film and television of the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington, D.C. He and his wife, the artist and designer Anne Marie Foran, live in Newtown.

The meeting will be held at The Fireside Inn, 123 South Main Street. Registration begins at 6 pm. Dinner will be at 6:30 pm. Dinner will be a buffet.  Reservations are required by Friday, April 29, to Kelly Urso, 364-1667. The cost for dinner is $25.