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  • All Blogs/ Entertainment Industry Insights: Jan. 19 2021 | Up-To-Date Actor

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New Projects - Political Implications - Casting Advice - GLAAD's Annual TV Report - COVID Updates

By Sean Gregory, January 19, 2021

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Happy Inauguration Week, UTD!

We're so excited for the flurry of activity this week ahead of the installation of the Biden administration, and what the opening of this new era will (hopefully) bring. It's been a long past four years, and I'm certainly ready to turn the page and build something completely new.

It seems like the industry popped back up and into full gear this past week after taking a breather for the holidays, so there's lots to cover today!

Upcoming Workshops

Another reminder that we still have two more workshops coming up this month! Join Abi and Annie at one (or both 😉) of their sessions this week and next to discuss the latest updates from productions across the country and Actor Tax Time:

The Changing of the Guard

With the new administration comes a new wave of folks lobbying for increased visibility and funding for the arts as a group of over 200 theatre makers have signed a letter asking the Biden cabinet to prioritize its commitment to supporting and developing the arts in the face of COVID-19. Among its provisions, the letter lays the framework for a Department and Secretary of Arts & Culture, a position that has been advocated for in past administrations that would oversee the $877 billion dollar industry in the US.

Organizers from the grassroots coalition Be An #ArtsHero have partnered with the Dramatists Guild of America to use this as a springboard for the "Arts Workers Unite: 100 Days of Art and Activism" event, aimed at promoting arts around the country during Biden's first 100 days. The prospect of an administration that may actually make our industry a priority would come as a welcomed sigh of relief after the last four years saw a harrowing proposal to cut the National Endowment of the Arts, a reality that never came to pass as the organization received strong bipartisan support in the halls of Congress and actually enjoyed to a slight budgetary increase in the last few years. May the days of politicians widely embracing the arts be here to stay 🙏

COVID Updates
Film

Many arts organizations across the world continue to grapple with vanishing budgets and difficult decisions about the future of their businesses, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is no exception. The film governing body has been forced to pause grants for its FilmWatch and FilmCraft programs through the end of the 2021 fiscal year after its net assets fell from $67.8 million to $33.8 million from the previous year.

The film world experienced some good news last week too, as exhibition analyst Eric Wold upgraded movie theatre chain Cinemark's shares from "neutral" to "buy" for the first time since mid-2020, expressing his confidence in the theater group's prospects to return to viewings in 2021. "We are comfortable looking ahead to our newly introduced 2023 estimates as a return to levels we previously projected for 2020/2021 before the pandemic," Wold wrote in his analysis.

TV

In the unstable COVID-fueled climate of TV programming, many studios have been opting to go the safe route and run with a healthy mix of scripted series and more established cash cows to keep their schedules filled and viewers from changing the channel. CW CEO and chairman Mark Pedowitz has been pleased with how the RIVERDALE and SUPERGIRL studio has been staying afloat over the last 10 months, and while they are content with launching what would have been their fall line-up now in January, Pedowitz believes a change may be on the horizon for studios looking to return to the former structure.

More specifically, the former ABC exec believes the key to moving forward will be in the strength of the network's diversity offerings, which recently secured top marks for LGBTQ+ representation from GLAAD's annual Media Report for the fourth year in a row. "We need to create a legacy for the CW so the next generation that we hire is reflective of society," Pedowitz recently told Deadline. One big pivot the network has already embraced has been the recasting of Javicia Leslie as BATWOMAN, after Ruby Rose's departure from the role last year. Rather than slotting Leslie's character into Rose's established portrayal, the network refocused on Leslie's Ryan Wilder being a resident of the city's homeless population, and how that would inform her superhero journey as a result. "It gives you a first-hand story," Leslie said of the new character's narrative as a queer hero of color.

THE AFFAIR co-creator Sarah Treem and actor Adam Shapiro have begun working with Partnership for Los Angeles Schools' Families First Campaign to raise money for families during the ongoing pandemic. The initiative will help purchase school supplies, computers, tech support, and more for public school students in LA, in an effort to support many of those in the district who do not have access to the training and resources that they would otherwise use at school.

Theatre

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo outlined his plan to bring the state back to leading the cultural charge in the US with his New York Arts Revival proposal last week in NYC. The initiative has lined up more than 150 artists like Hugh Jackman, Amy Schumer, Wynton Marsalis, Renée Fleming, and more to speak and perform at various events over the next few months, coinciding with the COVID-conscious reopening of various indoor and outdoor venues around the city. Cuomo recognized that much work still needs to be done in order to achieve the lofty goals the plan has laid out, but still promised that New Yorkers "will go to performances and we will applaud like never before."

BroadwayWorld recently sat down with Broadway Women's Alliance co-founder Jennifer Isaacson to discuss the group's first year of initiatives while navigating COVID, and her hopes for shaping the future of women in the industry. "One of our goals as we move into 2021 is creating opportunities to partner with other women's organizations and BIPOC organizations. To achieve parity, we must not only connect on an individual level but also an organizational level." BWA will collaborate with Women of Color in Art to present 'Celebrating Women: Trailblazers & Emerging Leaders' this February, a seminar aimed at addressing women in leadership roles in the arts world.

Miranda Priestly will be kept waiting a bit longer, as Broadway in Chicago announced last week that the world premiere of THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA will now run July-August 2022. The Elton John-infused musical was originally slated to run July-August of this year, but with the ongoing COVID restrictions and overall uncertainty of production resume across much of the world, producers made the decision to push the Beth Leavel-led project back another year.

You Can (Finally) Sit with Us

The Casting Society of America has officially begun accepting commercial casting directors into its organization, after almost four years of membership being restricted to individuals casting in "film, television, live theater, reality, and short-form series." The newly established commercial committee has compiled a list of well-known commercial CDs across the country that they will reach out to regarding joining the organization in the weeks to come. "Commercial casting directors apply their craft to an impactful form of storytelling, and we know that their insight and experience will add additional depth to Casting Society of America's membership," CSA vice presidents Zora DeHorter and Caitlin Jones said in a statement.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Film

The 11th annual Youth Diversity Film Festival kicked off this past weekend with a presentation of several of the event's filmmakers by former president of the Beverly Hills/Hollywood chapter of the NAACP Sandra Evers-Manly. The festival, curated by the Black Hollywood Education and Resource Center, will feature over 60 films from 14 countries, including Kenya, Iran, Bangladesh, and South Korea, and is set to run through January 31st.

YouTube announced the winners for its first round of the YouTube Black Voices Class of 2021 last week, showcasing 132 artists from the U.S., U.K., Kenya, Brazil, Australia, South Africa, and Nigeria. The new initiative aims to invest in and amplify "the intellectual power, authenticity, dignity, and joy of Black voices" on the platform, with the first round of recipients ranging from musicians to comedians to beauty entrepreneurs. "This is about keeping the drumbeat of change alive," YouTube’s music chief Lyor Cohen said of the project, which plans to provide funding for winning musicians through YouTube's Black Voices Fund to help expand and develop their reach as artists.

A new discussion series aimed at shedding light on BIPOC stories in entertainment is set to be released on Juneteenth this year. INSIDE THE BLACK BOX, hosted by Emmy-winner Joe Morton and Tracey Moore, will sit down with industry giants like Shonda Rhimes, Debbie Allen, Phylicia Rashad, and more to dissect the important role that race and diverse stories play in shaping the narrative of the industry both past and present.

TV

The latest Where We Are On TV report from GLAAD found that one in five LGBTQ+ characters comes from a pack of four showrunners: Greg Berlanti, Shonda Rhimes, Ryan Murphy, or Lena Waithe. The 25th annual assessment of representation in television revealed that LGBTQ+ characters account for just 9.1% of series regular roles on scripted primetime shows, down slightly from the numbers a year before. For the first time, however, the study found that over half of all LGBTQ+ characters were played by people of color. While the numbers seem to point to a slowly diversifying world of on-screen characters, the fact that many of them can be traced back to the same group of writers underscores the work that still needs to be done. "I'm the only straight person on this list. That is not okay," Shonda Rhimes wrote in response to the report's findings. "It's like the same problem with ANY kind of diversity. White people don’t do their job when it comes to representing people of color. Straight people don’t do their job when it comes to representing queer people. WHY?"

CRAZY RICH ASIANS star Jeannie Mai is calling on Hollywood to continue to push itself with regards to Asian stereotypes being portrayed on screen, and take responsibility when it comes to greenlighting projects that cast her community with certain misplaced tropes. "Why is it that it always comes rolling out the gate with the stereotype? Because it feels like entertainment will take the lowest hanging fruit — take the stereotypes, run with it as the entertainment — then it fuels prejudices and stereotypes," Mai remarked in last week's episode of her talk show THE REAL. "And it makes us kind of live in that for the next 20 years until finally we hopefully see some different leading roles and some different narratives where Asians aren’t just the doctor, the martial arts experts or the 'hot car girl'."

For Your Consideration

Though awards season will look slightly different this year between virtual events and shuffled premiere dates, the competition between submissions has certainly not taken a break. For Your Consideration ads have been littering every entertainment site (though I still prefer them to the relentless political ads of an election year), and award shows like the BAFTA's have already begun formulating their lists to eventually pare down to the final slate of nominees. BAFTA chairman Krishnendu Majumdar has implemented several changes to address its recent lack of diversity in nominees the past few years that will push for gender parity in categories like Best Director, alongside videos intending to educate voters without pushing them toward a specific choice.

The London Critics' Circle Film Festival released its full list of nominees last week, which showed encouraging signs of diversity with Rose Glass's horror film SAINT MAUD receiving eight nominations, headlining a strong female-led crop of films to start the year. The 41st London Critics‘ Circle Film Awards will be presented virtually on Sunday, February 7th.

ALL IN THE FAMILY, 50 Years Later

Longtime AITF producer Norman Lear recently shared his thoughts on the importance of the show's on-air tenure in his biography EVEN I GET TO EXPERIENCE THIS. Lear commented on the need to challenge the status quo of what was currently running on television: "Until ALL IN THE FAMILY came along, TV comedy was telling us there was no hunger in America, we had no racial discrimination, there was no unemployment or inflation, no war, no drugs, and the citizenry was happy with whomever happened to be in the White House." Variety chronicled the turbulent span of time that led up to AITF's premiere in 1971, and how the importance of mirroring true-to-life family moments and struggles have become paramount to shaping sitcoms since our first introduction to the Bunker family.

Quick Bites & Advice

Directors Guild of America national executive director Russell Hollander has come out in support of the Writer's Guild in their ongoing lawsuit against WME: "Absent prompt resolution, we intend to take all necessary and appropriate steps to protect our members."

Longtime casting directors Carmen Cuba, Francine Maisler, and more chatted with Variety about the challenges and exciting potential when casting historical figures like 'Ma' Rainey, Shirley Chisholm, and Betty Friedan, along with well-known characters like ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST's Nurse Mildred Ratched.

GLEE and AMERICAN HORROR STORY casting director Robert Ulrich shared his experiences casting over 100 TV shows in his career, and answers audiences' questions about how to break into the business, the importance of on-set experience, and more!

As always, Colleen at Actors Connection has brought us another round of her sage wisdom, this time discussing some best practices for actors to set themselves up for success in the new year! (and peep that UTD shoutout 👀)

SUBMISSION: Playwrights may now submit for The Playwrights Realm's annual Writing Fellowship Program and Scratchpad Series, which seeks to support the work of creators in bringing new and diverse stories to life. This year's submissions will be open to playwrights from outside the US for the first time! Submissions are being accepted through February 7th.

The future of longtime NYC performance space St. Luke's Theatre remains unclear, as producer Edmund Gayne announced that the 46th St space has begun renovations: "The Council that controls the building is unclear about the direction they will be taking with the premises, so we may no longer be operating a theatre at that location, which is still up in the air until further developments and decisions are reached." St. Luke's Lutheran Church has since confirmed that the space will reopen this summer, though the agreement with Gayne's West End Artists has ended.

Chairman of the Shubert Organization Philip J. Smith passed away over the weekend at the age of 89 due to complications from COVID-19. Mr. Smith spent over six decades in the Shubert family, serving out the last 10 years as the group's chief exec.

What to Watch & Read
So No One Told You Life Was Gonna Be This Way?

*clap clap clap clap*

Let's end on some good news, shall we? FRIENDS star Lisa Kudrow confirmed that the show will be receiving some sort of reunion special on HBO Max, and while details seem to still be scarce, Kudrow shared that she already pre-shot for the project, and that fans can expect "a coffee house room" and other settings "we have not been in." No date yet on the reunion special, but several cast members have signaled an early spring start date for shooting.

I'll be honest - I've never really watched FRIENDS besides an episode here and there.... I know there's a monkey and a plane and a smelly cat. People have told me I'm "mostly a Ross", so.. is that bad? Someone DM me and save me from all this.

That's all, folks! We hope to see you this Saturday at 4 PM for our Production Update workshop with Acting & Voice Studios!

Have a great week!