The Abridged version:
- The Mort Friedman Civic Leadership Award honors someone in the Sacramento region whose service has made a lasting impact on the community.
- Dennis Mangers is a longtime advocate of the arts and LGBTQ communities in the Sacramento region.
- Mangers has dedicated the $25,000 award to various arts organizations in the region.
Dennis Mangers has dedicated his life to a more vibrant and inclusive Sacramento. Through his support of the arts and LGBTQ community, his impact has been felt from the state Capitol to the region’s theaters.
In honor of his contributions, Mangers, 85, is the 2026 recipient of the Mort Friedman Civic Leadership Award, an honor that recognizes a leader in the Sacramento region whose public service has made a lasting impact on the community.
The award is named in honor of Mort Friedman, a prominent Sacramento businessman, attorney and philanthropist who died in 2012. With the honor, recipients will be granted $25,000 from a fund established by the Friedman family at the Sacramento Region Community Foundation that will be directed to the nonprofits or charities of their choice.
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Mangers has chosen to direct the funding to various arts groups in the region: the Sacramento Ballet ($5,000); Broadway Sacramento Youth Conservatory ($5,000); the Dennis Mangers Fund for Young Performing Artists ($5,000); Mandarins Drum and Bugle Corps ($1,500); Sacramento Symphony ($2,500); Crocker Arts Museum Education programs ($1,000); the CLARA ($1,000); Capital Stage ($1,000); B Street Theater ($1,000); Sacramento Master Singers ($1,000); and the Sacramento Gay Men’s Chorus ($1,000).
“I am deeply honored by this unexpected recognition in honor of my longtime friend, the late Mort Friedman,” Mangers said. “To join those who have received this award since its inception is humbling to say the least.”
A career dedicated to public service
Mangers has spent more than five decades in public life, moving between classrooms, the state Capitol and the arts. He is a Navy veteran, began his career as an elementary school teacher in Long Beach and became one of the state’s youngest school principals in 1968.
Mangers represented Orange County in the state Assembly from 1976 to 1980, then spent nearly three decades with the California Cable & Telecommunications Association, eventually becoming its president. He later served as a senior advisor to then-Senate President Darrell Steinberg, became the first non-lawyer to chair the State Bar’s Regulation and Discipline Committee and retired in 2020 as Mayor Steinberg’s strategic advisor for arts, culture and the creative economy. He’s led the boards of the Sacramento Ballet and Broadway Sacramento, and was a longtime advocate in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
He married Michael Sestak, his partner of 35 years, on June 17, 2008, soon after same-sex marriage became legal in California.
“My dad would be proud to give this award to Denny,” said Mark Friedman, Mort Friedman’s son. “He saw Denny not only as a friend, but as a civil rights pioneer whose grace and equanimity opened doors that were once closed.”
A lasting impact on Sacramento’s arts scene
Mangers’ impact on the region has been profound.
When the Covid-19 pandemic struck, Mangers was “volunteering as the oldest unpaid intern on planet earth” for Steinberg, then the mayor of Sacramento, said his close longtime friend David Felderstein. Mangers advocated for the region’s arts and culture community, helping to ensure that it received significant funding from Covid relief funds.
“Denny was very instrumental in guiding the mayor to support the arts and cultural organizations in Sacramento,” Felderstein said.
When the public debate began over what to do with the aging Community Center Theater in Downtown Sacramento, Mangers helped lead the drive to remodel and preserve the facility. Some in the community wanted the theater replaced, but with Mangers’ help, the theater underwent a $100 million renovation that transformed it into the modern SAFE Credit Union Performing Arts Center.
“Denny knew that having a large theater of that quality is essential to the performing arts,” Felderstein said. “You have to have it.”
Mangers’ impact has extended beyond the arts. He has been “a great leader in the gay rights movement” for more than 40 years, Felderstein said. He was deeply involved in the state’s response to the AIDS crisis and helped start the Sacramento Gay Men’s Chorus.
“He’s been a mentor to so many,” Felderstein said. “And he’s an incredibly loyal and supportive friend.”
Editor’s note: Mark Friedman is a Founding Supporter of Abridged by PBS KVIE.
