East Liverpool native produces PBS performance

Staff report

NEW YORK

Lance Shultz, an East Liverpool native, is the executive producer of the PBS Arts Fall Festival Performance, which will air at 9 p.m. Friday. Shultz oversees the performance at the newly renovated Rainbow Room, a designated U.S. national landmark, in New York.

Since 1934, the Rainbow Room, located on the 65th floor of Rockefeller Plaza, has been a top destination for talent, celebrities and royalty. After being closed for five years, the Rainbow Room reopened Oct. 2, after a $25 million renovation by Tishman Speyer, the company that owns and manages Rockefeller Center.

Michael Feinstein, a Columbus native, performs in and hosts the hourlong show on PBS.

Over the course of its 80-year history the Rainbow Room featured such American luminaries as Tommy Dorsey, Louis Armstrong, Rosemary Clooney and Tony Bennett.

It’s a club in which Feinstein belongs. The singer is considered one of the finest interpreters of American standards, and also has received national recognition for his commitment to preservation of America’s popular songs through his Great American Songbook Initiative.

Shultz has a long-standing relationship with PBS.

“To reopen the Rainbow Room was an honor,” he said. “It was great to be a part of American music history.”

Shultz and Feinstein will team up again at the Rainbow Room for “Michael Feinstein Presents: New Year’s Eve at the Rainbow Room,” and also have worked together on “Michael Feinstein Music Spectacular with Liza Minnelli” and “The Gershwins & Me,” for PBS National. Shultz served as executive producer and writer for both performances.

An Emmy Award-winning writer, producer and director, Shultz has created and produced a variety of award-winning programming. Shultz’s “Submarines: Sharks of Steel,” produced for the Discovery Network, received an Emmy Award, as well as first place at the New York Film Festival and a CINE Golden Eagle Award.

With his unprecedented access to the Russian government and its military, Shultz followed with the PBS “NOVA” special titled “Top Gun over Moscow,” which took an intimate look inside the Russian Air Force after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Shultz also produced a multi- part television special titled “Broadway or Bust — The National High School Music Theater Awards,” featuring students across the United States.