BIOGRAPHY
Helene Davis Public Relations, founded in 2005, is committed to providing comprehensive, personalized service to a select number of cultural clients from both the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors. Helene’s areas of expertise include theater and dance promotion and publicity, institutional identity and branding, benefit and gala promotion, and strategic planning, as well as providing counsel on audience and market research and advertising. She has developed long-standing, established relationships with editors, writers and producers in print, web and broadcast media.
Helene co-founded Cohn Davis Associates in 2000. Clients included New York and national performing arts and cultural institutions, national and international theater and dance companies, arts festivals, performing artists, television and theater productions, orchestras, and international architects. Cohn Davis Associates also specialized in the launch of major new or expanded cultural facilities and architectural projects throughout the United States. The firm’s diverse client list ranged from the opening of the new Frank Gehry-designed performing arts center at Bard College to Petrossian Restaurant, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and many Off Broadway plays and musicals.
As president of Helene Davis Publicity from 1998 until 2000, Helene developed and implemented promotional campaigns for a variety of Broadway and off Broadway productions, including Swing!, Smokey Joe’s Café (the longest-running revue in Broadway history), The Weir, Forever Tango, The Mystery of Irma Vep and The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, among others. Helene arranged celebrity coverage, features and interviews for Gladys Knight, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Rick Springfield, Ben E. King, Anne Hampton Callaway, Gloria Gaynor, Lou Rawls, Tony Orlando, and Lea DeLaria, among others. From 1996 – 1998, Helene was Press Associate on the Broadway musical Chicago, arranging press coverage and marketing events on national television, in magazines, and personal appearances for Bebe Neuwirth, Joel Gray, Marilu Henner, Anne Reinking, and James Naughton. She returned to work on the celebration of the show’s 10th Anniversary extravaganza in 2006.
From 1986 until 1996, Helene served as Director of Press and Marketing of the Manhattan Theatre Club. During her tenure, MTC’s subscription base grew from under 5,000 to over 18,000 subscribers, the most in its history to date. At MTC, she created and supervised publicity and marketing campaigns for the Tony Award-winning Love! Valour! Compassion! starring Nathan Lane; Stephen Sondheim’s Putting It Together starring Julie Andrews, and Sylvia starring Sarah Jessica Parker.
Helene is on the Board of Directors of BalletCollective and a member of A.T.P.A.M., the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers.