The Autodidact Project Presents . . . The Emanuel Fried Center

Emanuel Fried's Boilermakers & Martinis, which premiered during Road Less Traveled Productions' 2007/08 season, is now available on DVD for $20 plus $5 shipping and handling. (Performance: 100 min.; Interview: 20 min.)

Boilermakers & Martinis is Emanuel Fried's first new play in nearly a decade. In this one-man show Emanuel Fried presents the true story of his notorious career as a union organizer and champion of American civil liberties, set against the backdrop of the greatest romance of his life.

Boilermakers & Martinis depicts Fried's struggle to keep his life as a union leader separate from his married life to a local blue-blood socialite. Fried worked as a labor organizer with United Electrical Radio from 1941-1956, representing 30,000 union members. The FBI labeled him as a symbol of the Left that must be broken. When they couldn't get at him, they went after his wife and kids, and he began to realize that he could not keep his two worlds apart.

Emanuel Fried has received several awards for his work with unions including: the Joe Hill Award from national AFL-CIO sponsored Labor Heritage Foundation for lifetime contribution to the cause of labor through the arts, the Peace Award from Western New York Peace Center for lifetime dedication "to cause of peace and to the struggle for social justice," and the Coalition for Economic Justice Award for lifetime contribution to the cause of social justice. He was named one of One Hundred Most Influential Western New Yorkers In The Twentieth Century by Buffalo's NBC affiliate WGRZ-TV Ch. 2. He even received a congratulatory letter from Albert Einstein for having challenged the House Un-American Activities Committee as to its constitutionality.

Colin Dabkowski at the Buffalo News gave it 3 1/2 Stars saying, "When Fried, Buffalo's uncontested elder statesman of the theater, bares his soul onstage in his new one-man retrospective Boilermakers and Martinis, it is a theatrical experience that manages to be intimate, epic, heart-wrenching and deeply funny all in the same shot." He continues, "Boilermakers and Martinis is a play for anyone who has ever felt trapped. It is a fascinating and sobering way to put one's own problems in perspective and—even if it's not Fried's swan song—an absolute must see."

Boilermakers & Martinis is the second installment of Road Less Traveled Productions' Emanuel Fried Retrospective. For more information click here.

See the Boilermakers & Martinis YouTube Video Trailer.

Listen to the WBFO Theatre Talk discussion of Boilermakers & Martinis.

You may order this DVD from Road Less Traveled Productions. Call (716) 629-3069, email, or send a check or money order for $20 to:

Road Less Traveled Productions
P.O. Box 542
Buffalo, NY 14205