Direct Marketing Hits the Footlights

A play written by direct marketer Albert Fried-Cassorla about a DMer’s travails promoting sunglasses that cure depression will have its debut performance next week.

“Info-Boy!”, which will get its first full performance August 17 at the Cheltenham Art Center in Cheltenham PA, follows the inventor and marketer of BluesBusters sunglasses in the days that lead up to the filming of an infomercial for the product. In the course of the play, the hero has to deal with a jilted daughter, an ambitious producer girlfriend, and nervous financial backers.

Fried-Cassorla is president of Melrose Park PA-based Fried-Cassorla Communications Inc. In 2002, when the play was still in development, Fried-Cassorla admitted to Direct editor Beth Negus Viveiros that the protagonist bore some similarities to direct-response TV giant Ron Popeil.

The four Cheltenham performances will include a giveaway of BluesBusters sunglasses to the audience and a sing-along with the theme song from the infomercial.