New Projects - Return to In-Person Awards & Up-Fronts - Theatre Updates - Performing Arts Tax Relief
By Abigail Hardin, February 01, 2022
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I hope you had a good week and for those in the northeast, I hope you had the chance to get a good ol' fashioned snowball fight during last week's snowstorm. ☃ï¸
Today marks the beginning of Black History Month. It's impossible to speak on the history of American theatre without highlighting the incredible work that Black playwrights, composers, actors, and other artists have made to the story of theatre in the US. There are so many wonderful productions happening around the country showcasing Black voices and stories from playwrights like Alice Childress, Lynn Nottage, and John Ridley - see if any are happening in your area! On the TV side, Deadline has compiled a list of television "programming highlights that touch on some of the myriad ways outlets are commemorating Black History Month, from live coverage of the NAACP Image Awards on BET to the documentary series Lincoln's Dilemma on Apple TV+ and everything in between."
And to those celebrating the Lunar New Year, Happy Year of the Tiger! ðŸ…
Create a great week!
Awards, Festivals & Up-Fronts
Live event planners the world over are hedging their bets on an eventual dip in COVID cases heading into the spring, with festival and award show organizers keeping their eyes on state and local restrictions as they continue prepping for their ceremonies in the coming months. Berlin Film Festival, the next major live event on this year's circuit, has bulked up their COVID protocols with mandatory press testing, along with vaccine and negative test requirements, noting that press representatives "have a wider range of movement and therefore more contacts."
Network heads are finding themselves in similar boats as they enter the planning stages of spring up-fronts, the yearly tradition of courting advertising exes to land air time on the networks in the coming year. Once again eyeing the hallowed halls of Radio City Music Hall for a return to in-person up-fronts, top studios like NBCUniversal and Fox are lining up their April and May showings as a hopeful boost to their sagging up-front numbers the last few years. "All this is meant to give you more opportunities to connect with audiences, and the freedom to fully optimize your business on every screen," NBCU's Linda Yaccarino told this year's prospective buyers.
Some other notable award shows and festival movements this past week ðŸ†:
Glasgow Film Festival will play an exclusive screening of the first episode of OUTLANDER season six, the popular Starz series set to release it's newest chapter on March 6th.
Both the Directors Guild and Producers Guild released the nominations for their 2022 award shows last week, giving lots of love to Paul Thomas Anderson's LICORICE PIZZA, Jane Champion's THE POWER OF THE DOG, and more. The DGA's March 12th ceremony will be held in-person in Beverly Hills, and is often seen as a bellwether of what the Oscars may hold later in the spring. The PGA Awards, set for the following week after being rescheduled from late February due to COVID concerns, similarly crowned future Best Picture nominees with its Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures Award in recent years.
15 performers were selected as part of Variety's 2022 Showcase event, which has served as the launch point for Nicole Byer, Kate McKinnon, Tiffany Hadish, and a host of other comedy community mainstays. Congrats to this year's invitees!
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Members of the Cherokee Nation have extended a $1 million dollar tax credit for any productions interested in filming within the boundaries of the nation's lands, hoping to make the most of the recent influx of projects heading to Oklahoma for the state's own robust incentive program. The Cherokee Nation Film Office will offer projects a base 20% cash rebate on costs for mounting the productions and can be applied on top of the state's separate film incentive.
Lena Waithe's Hillman Grad Productions is entering its second year of operations, opening up mentorship opportunities to creatives from underrepresented communities in film and TV. The program spans eight months and provides no-cost networking and development opportunities for participants to work on their projects and expand their career opportunities. "Many up and coming filmmakers were reaching out for advice and insights, and as that demand grew, we knew that there was a gap in the industry for a program like this – one that offered mentorship in an organized way while keeping the essence of an intimate, one-on-one connection at its core," program organizers said.
Several actors are continuing to take the industry to task on the continued representation issues in Hollywood, as John Leguizamo recently took aim at the bias casting of lighter-skinned actors in the Latine community. "All the Latinos who've made it so far, a lot of them were light-skinned," Leguizamo said during a segment of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences new series SEEN. "What happened to all the Afro Latinos and the majority of the indigenous Latinos? They don't get a shot."
Meanwhile, GAME OF THRONES star Peter Dinklage called out the upcoming remake of SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS as perpetuating a harmful representation of little people onscreen. While praising the production team's decision to cast a Latina actress (WEST SIDE STORY's Rachel Zegler) in the title role, Dinklage still questioned the necessity of revisiting the film at all. "[Y]ou're still making that f*cking backwards story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together. What the f*ck are you doing man?"
Tyler Perry Studios has entered into a partnership with Vets2Set, an organization committed to placing veterans into entry-level production positions around the country. "[T]he opportunities in the South are tremendous now thanks to Tyler Perry," Vets2Set president and co-founder David Cohen said of the new agreement. "Cooperation with this powerful studio at the center of Atlanta's burgeoning place in motion picture, television, and commercial production is huge for Vets2Set."
Updates at the Theater: Broadway Totals, Up-and-Coming Playwrights
Even with capacities for all Broadway theaters increasing to 75% last week, ticket counters saw their second-lowest attendance numbers this season over the 21 open productions, a recurring trend for live event venues across the country that are leaving owners and producers scrambling to keep productions running.
"You start having a domino effect with the rest of your season," executive director of Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe Julie Leach said, a sentiment echoed by many organizers trying to round out their 2021-2022 seasons and prepping summer programming. Still, the world of regional theatre remains resilient, as directors go back to their 2020 and 2021 playbooks of hybrid virtual and in-person rehearsals and events, hoping to keep their shows running as COVID numbers remain high in many parts of the country.
This year's 2022 USA Fellows were announced last week by organizer United States Artists, which seeks to highlight outstanding work in a variety of artistic fields, including dance, film/TV, architecture, visual arts, and more. Five Fellows came from the theatre and performance fields, making them eligible to receive the initiative's $50,000 grant to create a new work of their choice. Check out the stories of some of the Fellows here!!
A group of industry insiders peeled back the layers of The Kilroys theatre initiative and dissected the importance of continuing to develop and uplift voices from underrepresented communities in the American theatre in an event last week with Syracuse Stage. Representatives from the theater, along with playwrights Hilary Bettis, Dipika Guha, and dramaturg Joy Meads chatted about the importance of theaters like Syracuse Stage utilizing the list to continue to promote works by non-binary, transgender, and female playwrights, and how they can serve as an example for groups looking to fill out future seasons with more diverse content. The event ran in the same week as organizers of Hollywood's Black List announced that they will begin to focus on works of theater as well, bringing an even greater emphasis on overlooked, unproduced scripts for the stage and screen.
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Industry Intel
A new piece of legislation currently making its way through Congress may provide some long-term tax relief to performing arts workers come tax time. The Performing Artist Tax Parity Act would revisit the current Qualified Performing Artist (QPA) deduction and update the terms to allow artists to take significantly more deductions on their tax return, putting more money back into the pockets of middle-class performing arts workers for use on other expenses. The bill has the full support of all of the major performing arts leagues and organizations and is currently being discussed in both the House and Senate. The inclusion of the PATPA in the fiscal year 2022 budget would definitely be a game-changer folks - be sure to call your representatives and let them know how important it is!
More Q4 earnings reports hit the newswires last week as NBCUniversal parent Comcast shared that its end of year numbers as a company exceeded investor expectations, even though numbers of streaming service Peacock continued to falter. Tallying up 9 million subscribers as 2021 came to a close, NBCU's virtual content platform still came in at a $1.7 billion loss, forcing Comcast execs to double down on their confidence in Peacock's growth. The studio plans to double spending on the streamer to $3 billion in 2022, pulling from previously budgeted funds as well as some linear allocations.
SAG-AFTRA is putting film and TV producers on notice as reports emerge of actors not receiving pay for the time it takes to remove make-up and wardrobe at the end of a shoot. Citing the union's 15-minute rule, SAG-AFTRA made it known to all members that "this rule does not limit the producer's obligation to compensate performers from the time the performer is required to and does report, as directed, until the time such performer is finally dismissed for the day."
The union also came to an agreement with Super Bowl Halftime Show producers last week to compensate the dancers involved in this year's event, after a handful of performers noted that they had been asked to work without pay. The disparity came between dancers who were performing onstage vs on the field, with the latter group originally being considered "volunteers" and not covered under a previous payment arrangement. SAG-AFTRA thanked the cooperation of producer Roc Nation and company head Jay-Z for working together to create the updated pay agreement.
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