Audience Video Testimonials

ROBERT GALINSKY (Writer/Performer) is a multifaceted director, actor, poet, playwright and founder of GalinskyCoaching.com. He was recently honored with the 2025 Muhammad Ali Face of Compassion in America Award and he serves as a guest lecturer at the Juilliard School of Art. Galinsky has lectured at Yale School of Medicine, Oxford University and he has directed and co-authored more than 50 TEDx Talks. He teaches literacy and theatre at Sing Sing Maximum Security Prison, Rikers Island Jail, and over a dozen youth detention facilities in New York City, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. Galinsky made his Off-Broadway debut as both playwright and actor at the Cherry Lane Theater with his acclaimed solo show The Bench, A Homeless Love Story, directed by Jay O. Sanders and executive produced by Terry Schnuck. The play has since been adapted into a feature film, directed by Ron Carlson, scheduled for release in Spring 2026. He also directed and produced the award-winning Off-Broadway solo show Tripping on Life by Lin Shaye (both productions are available on BroadwayOnDemand.com.) Widely recognized for his unique ability to engage incarcerated individuals through literacy, poetry, and performance, Galinsky also applies these same methods to artists, lawyers, and C-suite executives. Notable clients include 50 Cent, NFL Hall of Famer Edgerrin James, Chelsea Clinton, and fashion icon Winnie Harlow.

MARK SCHOENFELD (Executive Producer)  is a songwriter, librettist, and producer. His mother’s struggle with polio brings deep personal resonance to his role as Executive Producer of "Could You Patent the Sun?" aligning his career-long advocacy for creativity and compassion with the play’s message of science in service of humanity. Mark is best known as the co-creator of the Broadway musical Brooklyn (BKLYN), which opened at the Plymouth Theatre in 2004 under Jeff Calhoun’s direction and featured Eden Espinosa. The show’s journey, from Schoenfeld writing songs on the streets of Brooklyn to a full Broadway run, reflected his signature mix of unconventional artistry and relentless drive. Over a five-decade career, Schoenfeld has secured five major record-label deals (Capitol, EMI, Manhattan, Razor & Tie, Motown), sold projects to Hollywood studios including Disney, Warner Bros., and DreamWorks, and earned the nickname “the pitchman” for his legendary long-form pitches that led Disney to sign him to a development deal. He continues to develop stage and screen projects, including the animated musical Music Boy with Hugh Jackman. A passionate discoverer of talent, Schoenfeld has mentored artists such as Jodi Katz, Jasmen Hunter, and Nina Dicker. 

Jonas Edward Salk (1914–1995) was an American physician–researcher best known for developing the first widely used, safe, and effective inactivated polio vaccine and for insisting it belong to everyone. Born in New York City, he studied at Townsend Harris High School, City College of New York, and NYU School of Medicine. During World War II he worked with Thomas Francis Jr. on an early influenza vaccine, then in 1947 began leading a poliomyelitis program at the University of Pittsburgh, choosing a killed-virus approach for safety and mass production.

In 1954–55, with health departments, physicians, teachers, and 1.8 million “Polio Pioneers,” Salk oversaw the largest vaccine field trial in history. The results, announced April 12, 1955, showed the vaccine was safe and effective; polio rates in the United States fell rapidly thereafter and the disease was driven toward global eradication. When asked who held the patent, Salk replied, “There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?” a statement of principle about the obligations of discovery. In the 1960s he founded the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla to give scientists the freedom and setting to pursue bold ideas. His later work ranged across immunology, autoimmunity, and AIDS, and he wrote for a broad public in books such as Man Unfolding and Survival of the Wisest. Salk’s legacy is scientific and ethical: he showed that research can be guided not only by curiosity, but by compassion and measured by the lives it allows to flourish.