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New Projects - IATSE Strike Looming - Festival Bests - The Lark Closes

By Abigail Hardin, October 12, 2021

Eye636

With the industry holding its breath for the looming IATSE strike (read more below), the news cycle was a bit quieter last week. Last Thursday, I hosted my first monthly Up-To-Date Actor Tutorial. I loved hearing your questions and showcasing how to make the most of your notifications and discover new projects. The next topic will be on Adding Auditions & Meetings and will also include a general Q&A where I will answer any of your UTDA questions.

Are you following UTD on Twitter? Starting last week we are tweeting weekly industry updates we receive when calling. This will include new agencies & managers, agents & managers who are seeking new talent, new projects casting, and major changes to casting staff. This will be shared on Twitter only so if you haven't followed us already, find us @UTDtheatricals!

Lastly, Annie and I will be joining Actors Connection this Thursday for their FREE @ THREE. See more info below. Bring your questions and hope to see you there!

Have a great week!

IATSE Strong

Exactly one week has gone by since the members of IATSE voted to give the union authorization to strike. Talks and negotiations continued on Monday between IATSE and the AMPTP. On Friday, Matt Loeb, the union’s president, said that either way, "It's a matter of days, not weeks." The two sides have been bargaining, on and off, since mid-May.

A threatened IATSE strike against the Kennedy Center has been averted. Following late night bargaining Friday and a unanimous vote to strike earlier in the week, stagehands represented by IATSE Stagehands Local 22 have reached an agreement for a new three-year contract with the management of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The agreement was ratified by the union’s membership at a meeting on Saturday.

The core contract disagreement stems from the COVID safety protocols that were agreed upon by multiple unions last Fall. Studios have feared that these strict protocols would set a new (expensive) normal, and to some extent they have. But there have also been unintended ramifications for the individual crew member such as working full days without any meal breaks (keep in mind no food is allowed on set). I highly encourage you to read more about this very important impasse and the root of the disagreement. When a resolution is finally reached expect to feel the ripple effect across all aspects of production.

UPDATE: As of Monday night, while talks are continuing, and there is hope for a deal, the reality is the union is preparing for a strike - picket signs and all.

Industry Intel

After a weird 2020, the fall film festivals came roaring back to life this season, with each of the most influential lineups — Venice, Telluride, TIFF, and NYFF — looking more or less like their former selves. 137 critics voted in IndieWire's survey of their favorites from the fall festival circuit. It should come as no surprise that the one movie dominating the survey played at all four festivals: Jane Campion’s revisionist Western THE POWER OF THE DOG, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, topped the overall category for Best Film at the Fall Festivals; it also received the most votes for Best Film out of Venice and TIFF, while Campion topped the category for Best Director. Check out the full results and set your Fall viewing plan.

Deadline released another virtual awards event: Contenders London. Check out this lengthy compilation of articles, interviews, and videos from the latest awards circuit from across the pond.

Russia has always prided itself on being first for a number of space exploration milestones, and it can now count itself as the first country to launch a film crew into space.  Last Tuesday, actor Yulia Peresild, director Klim Shipenko, and veteran Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov blasted off to the International Space Station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft where Shipenko and Pereslid will be filming segments for THE CHALLENGE. Russia's Channel One broadcasted the launch and offered livestreams in multiple languages across its platforms. The project will be the first feature film shot in outer space, beating Tom Cruise and Elon Musk's upcoming $200M action adventure with NASA and Space X, which has director Doug Liman at the helm.

The Black List has chosen six screenwriters out of 1,400 submissions for its ninth annual Features Lab. Lab participants will workshop their scripts through peer groups, and one-on-one mentorship over the course of six weeks. Participating mentors include Minhal Baig (Hala), Jessica Bendinger (Bring It On), Scott Myers (Go Into the Story, the official blog of the Black List), David Rabinowitz (BlackKklansman), Kiwi Smith (Legally Blonde), and Chris Weitz (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story). The Black List is a platform for film and TV writers to showcase their screenplays for industry members and get their work evaluated by professional readers.

Theatre News

In a stunning blow to playwrights and play development in the U.S. and worldwide, the prestigious NYC new-play lab the Lark has announced that it will close its doors, though not before it works with "peer institutions to re-home existing Lark programs and fellowships." According to a press release, the decision to shutter the 27-year-old play development mainstay was a "unanimous yet painful conclusion" of the organization’s board after "many long months of responding to pandemic-related crises and seeking paths to sustainability."

For its 10th anniversary, TEDxBroadway will return to in-person programming with a virtual component to celebrate all things theatre. The pandemic forced the event to be presented digitally in 2020, but TEDxBroadway will be offered at New World Stages March 8, 2022, at 1 PM ET with a live stream option on Stellar. Speakers for TEDxBroadway will be announced at a later date. Applications to speak are now being accepted through November 10. While the event aims to discuss ways in which the Broadway industry can improve, organizers are seeking speakers who can contribute to the overall mission of the day with topics not strictly limited to theatre.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

In honor of Indigenous Peoples' Day, Variety released an op-ed on the lack of Indigenous representation in Hollywood. "From its embarrassingly low levels of diverse representation across the board, to inaccurate and harmful portrayals of people of color, particularly Native peoples, Hollywood has been an accomplice in the institutionalized erasure of Native peoples, impacting how our non-Native children see, think, and feel about Native Americans."

Yesterday was also National Coming Out Day. The Casting Society of America (CSA) hosted a virtual event titled We’re Coming Out! CSA Celebrates National Coming Out Day. The 90-minute panel consisted of planned questions that were sourced from CSA members who identify as members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Dave Chapelle is in hot water yet again. The often controversial comedian released his latest stand-up special, THE CLOSER, on Netflix and is getting push back from the Trans & LGBTQ+ community for insensitive jokes. Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos defended Chapelle's "artistic freedom" and stated that the special did not violate the company's policy to ban content "designed to incite hate or violence." Sarandos furthermore issued a memo to managers on how to handle angry & upset staff members in response to three staffers crashing a closed door meeting. All three staffers, including a trans person, have since been fired and an investigation is pending. GLAAD has since weighed in, condemning Netflix and urging the company to live up "to their own standards"

Sarah Silverman is calling out what she calls Hollywood's "jewface" problem in response to the news that Kathryn Hahn will be playing Joan Rivers in an upcoming Showtime limited series. "There's this long tradition of non-Jews playing Jews, and not just playing people who happen to be Jewish but people whose Jewishness is their whole being," Silverman said. "One could argue, for instance, that a Gentile [a non-Jew] playing Joan Rivers correctly would be doing what is actually called 'Jewface.'" Silverman continued, "It's defined as when a non-Jew portrays a Jew with the Jewishness front and center, often with makeup or changing of features, big fake nose, all the New York-y or Yiddish-y inflection. And in a time when the importance of representation is seen as so essential and so front and center, why does ours constantly get breached even today in the thick of it?"

Kevin Hart’s Laugh Out Loud and the Sundance Institute have set three scribes for their inaugural Women Write Now screenwriting fellowship, designed to bolster the next generation of Black women in comedy. This year’s Fellows, whose short film scripts were selected from a pool of 672 submissions, are Wilandrea Blair, Danielle Nicolet, and Moni Oyedepo. Each will have their project developed and produced by LOL Studios, as part of a new partnership between Laugh Out Loud and NBCUniversal. In the end, all three will be given the opportunity to pitch additional projects to execs at NBCUni, with just one securing a development deal.

MoreArticles:

Actors on Acting

Often we come across interviews with actors that have to do with their audition for an iconic role, developing an accent, working on physicality, or sometimes just a funny inside joke. Either way, these articles can provide insight into the process and help inform our own choices and work.

Also, check out this NY Times article on How to Play Drunk

What to Read & Watch