Jeanie Linders is best known as the writer and producer of Menopause The Musical® and is a passionate voice for a generation of women facing more than just hot flashes. Her work in entertainment spans three decades, but finding ways to help women connect and support one another is what she focuses on now.
Jeanie has been involved in the arts for the last 30 years. For 10 years, she was president and CEO of an advertising agency that specialized in entertainment and hospitality accounts. Concurrently she launched an events marketing and management firm, producing a full gamut of shows from A Conversation with Cary Grant to multistage music festivals featuring hundreds of performers from Ella and Mel to B.B., James and Miles. Her festival mania was initiated through her work for George Wein, the daddy of the Newport, New Orleans and all great jazz festivals.
She served as an arts development consultant in Florida, California, North Carolina and Arkansas. Orlando’s first arts complex and incubator housing 125 visual artists and 30 performing arts groups was developed and established by Jeanie. Other activities include: advance PR roadie for Michael Jackson’s film crew for the Victory Tour, developing the Belize Performing and Visual Arts Consortium and working for Francis Ford Coppola’s Blancaneaux Lodge in Central America. While in Montego Bay, Jamaica, she taught high school. She also served as a columnist/correspondent for outlets as diverse as the Chicago Tribune, the Sun-Times, Boston Globe, and Variety.
In 2007, she was officially honored by Dixon, IL, President Ronald Reagan’s hometown, as an individual who has gone on to fulfill her life in meaningful ways and has made her hometown proud. She has written a book of poetry for and about women called Woman-Kind and was featured in Fearless Women: Midlife Portraits in 2005.
It’s been said that Jeanie wrote the world-famous Menopause The Musical® “after a bottle of wine and a hot flash.” While somewhat true, parodying songs has always come naturally to her. She recalls standing in front of her freezer on her way out the door to an event in a formal gown singing “Hot Flash,” to Rod Stewart’s “Hot Legs”.
Menopause The Musical®, The Hilarious Celebration of Women and The Change!®, opened in Orlando, FL, in March of 2001 in a perfume shop which was converted into a 76-seat theatre. To date, the show has been seen by nearly 11 million women (and men) in more than 250 cities, 15 countries and continues to grow. The musical has been credited with bringing the topics of aging and menopause to the forefront; however, it is just the beginning for Jeanie. A passionate voice for her generation, she has used the popularity of the show to reach and connect women all over the world.
Due to the huge success of Menopause The Musical®, her empire has grown beyond her dreams. She founded the Jeanie C. Linders Fund® (JCLF) to empower women all over the world. JCLF has produced and presented the Menopause The Musical Out Loud™ Tour twice – each tour visiting over 50 cities. A portion of the proceeds from each Menopause The Musical Out Loud™ tour was designated for local and regional ovarian cancer chapters.
The Jeanie C. Linders Fund®, supports women worldwide in the areas of business development, arts and culture, personal growth, health issues and education. The Foundation has encouraged and assisted women to start small businesses using the skills they know best to raise their families out of poverty. Through the JCLF program, There’s No Place Like Home National™, Jeanie is working diligently to build homes for women and their families who have lost their homes due to natural disasters. For more information on programs of JCLF, please visit www.JCLFund.org.
