Saint Jude Parish Speaker Series "Sharing the Light” presents an original musical Shanty Town written (and composed)  by Ray Werner (see Bio below), based on the life of Fr James Renshaw Cox (pastor of the old St Patrick’s Church in the Strip District)  the Pro-Labor Priest known as the Pastor of the Poor (or Depression Priest)  in the 1930s.

Thursday Evening, 7:00 PM, in person and open to the public at no charge
Sacred Heart Church Auditorium, please park on Emerson St, across from Hunt Armory

The presentation will be available on Facebook live: https://saintjudepgh.org/streaming

Ray Werner graduated from Duquesne University in 1964 and studied playwriting at the Yale School of Drama.  But advertising grabbed him, and he worked as a copywriter/producer and then Creative Director at a major Pittsburgh ad agency. Later, he started his own company, and after a good run, sold it to pursue other writing.  In 2004 he was elected to the Pittsburgh Ad Federation Hall of Fame.    His business card reads, “Writer, Baker, Music Maker.”  

His campaign, You’ve Got a Friend in Pennsylvania, was named the best ad campaign in Pittsburgh’s history, by ad executives polled by The Pittsburgh Business Times Journal.
Ray’s focus lately has been playwriting, with 14 produced plays, most with Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater, Mark Clayton Southers, Founding Artistic Managing Director.  After a successful staged reading at the Heinz History Center, Shantytown will be the premiere production at Pittsburgh Playwrights new theater and permanent home at the transformed and renovated Madison School in the Upper Hill in March.
Ray credits all he has to being one of six children of Chuck and Pauline Werner and growing up in the St. Felix Capuchin Franciscan parish in Freedom PA.