Speaker Bio

Scott Fried is an award-winning international public speaker, HIV/AIDS educator and author. He has devoted the past 21 years of his life to lecturing in nearly every state in this country, as well as Israel, England, Canada, Holland and Honduras, reaching more than a million people. He has spoken at over 1000 institutions, including colleges and universities, high schools and middle schools, summer camps, synagogues and churches. His lectures recently earned him the “Collaborative Program of the Year” Award at the University of Pittsburgh and the “Outstanding Education Event” Award at Florida Tech. In addition, he has lectured widely at youth retreats, juvenile detention centers and prisons, alternative schools, learning disabled populations, Gay/Straight Alliances, PTO meetings and teacher training workshops. Topics include sexual responsibility, abstinence, dating, transmission of HIV, alternative sexuality, eating disorders, body image, self-mutilation, suicide, alcohol & drug misuse, dealing with divorce and broken-heartedness and intimacy in the age of social media, among others.

In the words of one participant, “His lectures are a lyrical cascade of words and emotions that paint a picture until the colors bleed to the edges and seep into your soul. He’s a storyteller in a full-body sense, like a slam poet who moves and conducts words to connect with an audience.”

Scott uses himself as Exhibit A. He begins each lecture with his story of how he got infected with HIV in 1987 at the age of 24, during his first and only unsafe sexual encounter. His unstoppable approach to educating others can be encapsulated into one thought: one must understand the value of one's own life, and hold it sacred, in order to refrain from dangerous behaviors that could lead to HIV infection and other crises. He is the author of three books. If I Grow Up: Talking with Teens about AIDS, Love and Staying Alive is a moving chronicle of his experiences and lectures. The book is part journal, part guide and part love-letter, researched and compiled from hundreds of lectures to 1000s of students across the country. My Invisible Kingdom: Letters From the Secret Lives of Teens, presents a cross-section of the thousands of letters from students who have written to Scott in an attempt to share their pain and doubt on such diverse topics as rape, eating disorders, suicide, self-mutilation, coming out, addiction and broken hearts. The book is also intended for parents and other adults who are concerned about the physical and psychological well-being of today's youth. His newest book is dedicated to the ten questions he wishes he had been asked as a teenager. In A Private Midnight: A Teenager’s Scrapbook of Secrets, Fried reveals through the anonymous submission of answers and drawings from teenagers around the world that their unspoken fears, questions and restrained hope need to find a voice. A Private Midnight is an encouraging guide for parents and teachers who are struggling to understand what lies beneath a teenager’s silence. Scott has been published in numerous periodicals and newspapers and is featured in the books The Five Gifts of Illness: A Reconsideration, Living Proof: Courage in the Face of AIDS, The Faces of AIDS: Lives at the Epicenter and The World is a Narrow Bridge: Stories that Celebrate Hope and Healing. He is an annual guest speaker at the Office of President Clinton in New York City.

Scott focuses his volunteer efforts annually towards helping the residents of Roatan, Honduras. Along with a team of intrepid volunteers and the Non-Governmental Organization, Familias Saludables, he helps to build houses for indigent families as well as conducting HIV/AIDS educational workshops, feeding prisoners and handing out 1000s of free condoms.

Scott lives in New York City.

Theatrical Bio

Scott Fried has worked in all arenas of theater.  He appeared in the national tour of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat as Benjamin, and off-Broadway in the new musical, How I Survived High School, receiving favorable reviews from the New York Times. He most recently appeared in the New York revival of Bill Russell's Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens.

Other New York credits include an original musical by Carol Hall entitled Tapestry of Dreams, which he also choreographed, The Adventures of Tom Swift, and numerous workshops of new productions at Musical Theatreworks, by veteran composers such as Will Holt, Louis St. Louis, Georgia Holof and choreographer Pat Birch.  As a member of the Manhattan Opera workshop, he was seen in La Boheme and The Tales of Hoffman.  In upstate New York, he played in Tea & Sympathy and performed the lead role in The Velveteen Rabbit at the Kennedy Center, in DC.  He has been directed by Elizabeth Swados in her original musical Summer Solstice and by John Rubinstein in MacBeth.  On daytime TV's Guiding Light, he portrayed the role of Bart Mesa, a young man living with AIDS, and has done voice-overs and industrials all around the country.  As a concert jazz dancer, he has performed in dance festivals both in New York City and at Jacob's Pillow.

In addition to performing, Scott has worked as stage manager for many productions including Martin Charnin's No Frill's Revue off-Broadway, musicals at the Papermill Playhouse and has assisted Stuart Ross in his long-running hit Forever Plaid.  For two years, he was stage manager and production coordinator to Betty Buckley in concert.

He studied acting at the Actors and Directors Lab in NYC and with Betty Buckley and studied voice under Joseph Scott, Gerald Stone and Paul Gavert. Scott has danced under the direction of Lee Theodore of The American Dance Machine, the Limon Institute and Jackie Villamil, as well as capoeira with Jelon Vierra. In addition, he studied the Simonson Technique at DanceSpace, Inc. for twelve years.

As a teacher, he has led song interpretation and performance classes for beginner and experienced singers and yoga classes for professional dancers.

He performed a one-man show entitled, Seasons Change, A Musical Journey on the mainstage of the Lamb's Theater off-Broadway and has been attracting generous audiences for various other one-man shows in and around New York City.