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  • All Blogs/ Entertainment Industry Insights: Jan. 10 2023

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New Projects - Awards Season Firing Up - TV Trends - Regional Theatre Needs Support

By Abigail Hardin, January 10, 2023

Eye479
Happy Tuesday, UTD!

If there is one theme that popped up the most this week it is the still dire need for butts in seats. Cinemas and Theatres alike are still not seeing the necessary return to in-person. In many ways, I think we have gotten spoiled by having top-notch quality programming delivered to the comfort of our homes. But, if we really love and appreciate Film and Theatre like we say we do, then we need to show up and show our support by buying a ticket and going to a show.

Having a 19-month-old toddler has certainly made going out an incredibly rare event. But I am committed to turning a bi-weekly date night into a movie or theatre going experience. It takes a whole lot more effort to get out of the house, but doesn't it feel good when you do?! Call it a New Years resolution, but my goal is to support cinema and live theatre at least once or twice a month. It might not be much, but for this spread-thin-mama, it's a start.

Tax Time

Once a year in January we offer our very popular workshop on Taxes. I hope you can join us this Thursday, January 12th, at 3 p.m. ET / 12 p.m. PT for our free Tax Time workshop. Learn how you can take more deductions on your taxes by setting up your career as a business. Start the New Year with better record keeping to make tax time even easier next year. Don't wait until April to sort through receipts get organized and prepared while 2022 is fresh in your mind.

We hope you can make it to one of our upcoming free workshops.

Lastly, Annie will be hosting a free zoom event with The League of Professional Theater Women and Actors Connection on HOW TO BE THE CEO OF YOUR ARTISTRY on February 6th. See below for more info and how to register.

Create a great week!

How to be The CEO of Your Artistry
February 6 at 7 PM ET

Join us on Zoom on Monday, February 6 at 7 PM ET / 4 PM PT for the League of Professional Theater Women's (LPTW) Professional Seminar on HOW TO BE THE CEO OF YOUR ARTISTRY. Hear from theater professionals from different artistic disciplines, including UTD Theatricals owner/career coach Annie Chadwick, on how they have successfully mastered being proactive through smart marketing decisions, branding, and knowing how to ask the right questions. Take away practical resources to learn to be your own boss and level up by taking charge of your career with a more calculated approach to the business savvy side of theater! A complete panelist list is coming soon. This event is in collaboration with the Actors Connection.

Please RSVP to: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSckYQvKRsdMiALMJ38sFP7nEBtMVck6w9q9tWacn7snj3JaUw/viewform

The League of Professional Theatre Women (LPTW) is a membership organization championing women in theatre and advocating for increased equity and access for all theatre women. Our programs and initiatives create community, cultivate leadership, and increase opportunities and recognition for women working in theatre. Visit us at https://www.theatrewomen.org/.

We invite you to be a part of the LPTW and join us in our activism.

  • Provide support, networking, and collaboration mechanisms for members.
  • Offer professional development and educational opportunities for all theatre women and the general public.
  • Advocate for parity in employment, compensation, and recognition for women theatre practitioners through industry-wide initiatives and public policy proposals.

Awards Season Firing Up
This Week: Golden Globes & SAG Nominations

Awards season, which has been bubbling over the last few weeks, kicked off with the the Palm Springs International Film Festival's annual Film Awards Gala last Thursday. "The annual event has long been considered as a friendly space for Oscar nomination frontrunners to work out their skills giving an acceptance speech in front of a large audience at the Palm Springs Convention Center — an audience that just so happens to include a sizable amount of Academy members." It's no surprise then that the majority of this year's Oscar hopefuls were all in attendance.

Adding to the Awards season momentum, the National Society of Film Critics released their list of winners over the weekend. TÁR and THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN came out with the most wins and look to be two favorites for the rest of the season.

The controversial return of the Golden Globes is tonight at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT. The ceremony will be broadcast live on NBC and on Peacock. The Award show has undergone many changes since the perceived lack of diversity of the HFPA was brought to light in 2020. In addition to changing from a non-profit to a for-profit entity, the association has also added more journalists of color to its ranks in an attempt to increase diversity among winners and nominees.

On the heels of the Golden Globes award ceremony, the SAG Nominations will be announced tomorrow morning. Folks are looking to the SAG nominations as a bellwether for where the 1,350 Academy actors may be leaning as Oscar nomination voting takes place from January 12-17.

Look for Golden Globes and SAG Nominations takeaways next week! In the meantime, here are a few more articles on Golden Globes chatter to tie you over until the event tonight:

Movie Theatres 🍿
Attendance is down almost 50%

It's no secret that cinema box offices have struggled to recover from the pandemic. Based on pure dollar amounts alone, 2022 box office numbers fell between 20% and 25% from 2021. But when you adjust the numbers based on current ticket price and inflation, it seems since pre-pandemic 2018, attendance over all has fallen by almost 50%. And it seems this downward trend started before the pandemic. "As for calculating that attendance drop: The last full pre-Covid year of 2019 generated a domestic box-office total of $11.3 billion, down from $11.9 billion in 2018."

Time for a 70s Revolution

One op-ed has an answer for making films more profitable, bring back the indie cult classic. "The potential for truly original filmmaking to succeed in America is broken, shattered into a million pieces by the ever-complicating economics of streaming, the downward trend of moviegoing attendance, and the cannibalizing effect of television." The author posits that a Hollywood revolution, like the one that happened in the 1970s could be the very thing to save the industry as a whole.

TV Trends 📺
Netflix Ad-Tier & Binge-Worthy Soaps

Nine weeks after launching their new ad-supported tier, Netflix is "pleased with the growth that we're seeing" says president of worldwide advertising Jeremi Gorman. The public will see how much weight there is to that statement on January 19th when the streamer will release their fourth quarter earnings.

As I bemoaned the cancellation of 1899 last week, it seems like Netflix is leaning in on their commitment to drama-filled "soapy" content. 🧼 And why, you ask? The viewership for shows such as GINNY & GEORGIA, EMILY IN PARIS, and FIREFLY LANE has been incredibly strong with all three shows shooting to the top of The U.S. top 10 list in the first weeks after release. Read more as to why this bubbling niche won't be washed away anytime soon.

Warner Bros. Discovery: Relaunching & Building

After Warner Bros. Discovery's 2022 "restructuring", which saw countless layoffs and content write-offs, CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels says 2023 will be a new era of "relaunching and building" at Warner Bros. "We took a little bit of time to make sure that we do it properly. For some of the titles, we've found new homes elsewhere. That's why this took six or seven months. But I think we've come to great solutions and, most importantly, we're done with that chapter," Wiedenfels said. "That was very important to all of us, to really use 2022 to leave the purchase accounting behind us, leave those initial strategy changes behind us, get it all out there in terms of our restructuring estimates and then be able to turn the page forward. I think the team has laid a great foundation and I'm really excited about the growth from here."

At the same event last Thursday, Wiedenfels also admitted the HBO Max user experience is currently "subpar." A new app is slated for release this spring which will combine HBO Max and Discovery+ which will hopefully offer users a better experience.

Ratings Measurement Debate Escalates

One of the biggest media-industry battles in recent months has been the one for control of how TV audiences are counted. Some TV networks are escalating the fight. Fox, NBCUniversal, Paramount, TelevisaUnivision, and Warner Bros. Discovery have launched a joint industry committee they intend to use to vet and certify a dizzying array of audience-measurement technologies that have come to market in recent months. The media companies are working with Open AP, the industry consortium that has in the past been used to create standard definitions of audience segments that can be used by advertisers, no matter the media company with which they transact.

Theatre Trends 🎭
Regional Theatres Need Your Support

While the holiday box office is notoriously good for Broadway and regional theatre alike (and this holiday was no exception), it remains a fact that theatre as a whole was one of the pandemic's hardest hit sectors of the entertainment industry. We often talk about Broadway but across the country regional theatres are fighting to keep the lights on.

"We think it is going to take us five years to rebuild," said Angela Lee Gieras, Kansas City Repertory Theatre Executive Director and a LORT Board Member. "I don't know if it's that people got out of the habit of going to theater and now it takes more to get them out. But the confusing part about that kind of a statement is they are going to sporting events, they are going to live concerts."

For non-profits that rely on subscriptions to stay a float, subscriptions are down anywhere from 26% to 40%. For the first year-and-a-half regional theatres received government funding, but that is long gone and many theatres are trying to figure out how they can stay afloat. If you are a theatre lover, show your support by committing to see more live theatre, buy a subscription, or give directly when you can.

Takeaways from 2022

Here is an article that looks at three main Theatre takeaways from 2022. The major point brought up here - buying habits have changed. Fewer people are buying tickets far ahead, more are deciding a few days out (if that). This is causing shows to budget for higher reserves as it is taking longer for them to find their audience and making it more difficult for productions to project revenue.

Speaking of buying tickets and supporting live theatre, here is a list of the best ticket deals on Broadway this week. Get out there and see some theatre y'all!

Diversity / Inclusion
Florida High School Cancels/Censors Production of INDECENT

A student production in Jacksonville, Florida of Paula Vogel's acclaimed, Tony-nominated play INDECENT, was abruptly canceled by the administration of a public arts high school last week. This cancelation comes just 10 months after Florida's "Parental Rights in Education" Law (colloquially known as the "Don't Say Gay" bill) was passed. In an email sent to students, the school's principal, Tina Wilson, cited that "a closer review of the mature content" of INDECENT led them "to the conclusion that Seagull is better suited for a school production." The students have taken to social media to protest and raise awareness of this cencorship.

The play itself chronicles the real-life censorship that ensued in 1923 when the legendary Yiddish writer Sholem Asch's play GOD OF VENGEANCE was shuttered on Broadway for its depiction of two young women who fell in love. Author Paula Vogel has issued a statement in full-support of the students.

"As a playwright who wrote a play about how censorship is a first step toward genocide, I am puzzled about the school board's decision. There is nothing prurient about Indecent. I use parts of Sholem Asch's original text for the two girls. For the past 40 years, I receive requests from high schools to change language in my plays, and to restage the scenes, ignoring my stage directions. And I readily give my permission. There have been high school productions of INDECENT where the student actors hold hands. The Victorian translation is demure, and one can amend my updated translation with permission."

I highly encourage you to read this profound and poetic statement in its entirety. 🏳️‍🌈

Black Broadway Men's 2023 Playwriting Initiative

📣 OPEN SUBMISSION: Applications are now open for Black Broadway Men's 2023 Playwriting Initiative. This playwriting initiative is one of two new programs previously announced by the non-profit organization Black Broadway Men, Inc.

Black male-identifying playwrights between the ages of 18 and 35 are invited to apply for the initiative, which will give the winner the opportunity to have a full rehearsal process and final 29 hour reading of their work. In preparation for the reading, the playwright will develop their work with a Black male-identifying writer who will mentor the winner through the writing process. Black Broadway Men, who will sponsor the reading, will also provide a director, production stage manager, sound engineer, and cast. The presentation is set to be held in New York City in April. Applications are due by January 23, and a finalist will be announced February 1.

Sign Language Helping Diversify Theatre

As theatre itself is trying at all costs to diversify, it brings up the conversation of also diversifying the deaf and hearing people who translate the show for deaf audiences. While not every show requires a perfect racial match of actors and those making the show accessible, there are times in which it can be jarring if there is a disconnect between the actors onstage and those signing. As a deaf audience member is spending less time directly watching the stage, and more time watching the interpreter, the interpretor is a direct component and reflection of the production. When you then talk about different expressive styles of signing (such as Black American Sign Language, or BASL) the conversation only becomes more complex. And several sign language experts are working to broaden the field.

Actors on Acting