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New Projects - Vaccine Mandates - Production Updates - Award Chatter

By Sean Gregory, August 10, 2021

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I'm gonna keep the intro short and sweet today folks, we have a LOT of ground to cover. COVID concerns are rising around the country, and many are doing what they can to keep employees and audiences safe because lets be honest, no one wants to go back into lockdown. I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy during the dog days of August. And you know what, I'll be the first to say it... I'm kinda ready for fall 🍂

Grab some fresh coffee and let's get to it!

Peace & Love ✌️

Hollywood Foreign Press Association Restructuring Continues

The beleaguered HFPA took its latest steps to completely revamp the organization by adopting a new set of by-laws meant to make the group more accessible and transparent moving forward. Among the newly agreed-to provisions:

  • Members will no longer be required to live in Southern California to be considered, nor will they need to be members of the Motion Picture Association, or work only in print media
  • A new system of addressing complaints and concerns will go into effect immediately, relying on outside organizations to investigate claims and focusing on transparency and accountability
  • Gifts and promotional materials will no longer be accepted by members from outside entities
  • Members will take part in monthly diversity, equity, and inclusion workshops, as well as mandatory sexual harassment training

In the midst of this restructuring, the HFPA also decided to nix its upcoming trip to the Venice Film Festival among growing COVID concerns, a trip that would have cost the already financially-strapped group tens of thousands of dollars. The decision comes on the heels of widespread praise from NBC, Golden Globes, and Dick Clark Production producers over the updated by-laws and newfound trajectory of the organization, with one spokesperson saying, "We look forward to seeing continued urgency, dedication and positive change in order to create a more diverse, equitable, inclusive and transparent future."

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

It's no doubt that women are making strides in Hollywood at a scale never seen in the industry before, but the explicit and implicit gatekeeping of so many areas of filmmaking remains to be a frustrating roadblock for those who do not currently hold A-lister status. With the recent sale of her production company for $900 million, Reese Witherspoon is hoping to continue pushing forward with onscreen female narratives and a promise to "hire more female creatives from all walks of life and showcase their talents," which she feels will be more accessible with the backing of the company's new independent production company owners that are not limited by the red tape of massive, traditional-mindset-driven companies like Disney. With any luck, the acquisition will prove to be just one of a growing trend of empowering female creatives to tell their stories the way they want them to be told.

HBO's fifth annual Asian Pacific American Visionaries has announced its three finalists: Jesse Gi (NEH), Urvashi Pathania (UNMOTHERED), and Jess X. Snow (LITTLE SKY). Celebrating this year's theme - "Taking the Lead" - the short film competition will premiere the three films at the 2021 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival in late September, along with making the titles available to stream on HBO Max.

With the wave of long-awaited authentic representation sweeping Hollywood, queer storytellers are determined to emerge from the COVID creative drought into a new era of onscreen and behind-the-camera workmanship. The piece-meal LGBTQ+ characters that we've seen in blockbuster movies the last few years that were then pushed as ground-breaking - looking at you, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and THE RISE OF SKYWALKER - can no longer be considered the ceiling for queer representation in major studio films and television moving forward. "Where's the gay Don Draper? Walter White? Tony Soprano? "Queer people rarely get to be those," QUEER AS FOLK director Stephen Dunn remarked, underscoring what he believes to be sanitization of queer characters that could do no wrong, rather than allowing room for fully fleshed out heroes and villains that audiences see day after day in straight narratives.

IATSE has signed off on its first-ever diversity census, opening the door for examining the make-up of the 15,000 member union that comprises 361 local organizations across the US and Canada. As the onus to pull together these numbers has fallen on the smaller organizations in the past, many have never taken stock of the numbers among their ranks, believing it to be a violation of member privacy to ask about race and ethnicity. Union spokesman Jonas Loeb believes the new measure, going into effect in the spring of next year and each year after that, will represent a turning point for below-the-line representation in the industry: "We're going to do this and we're going to get it right."

PLAYWRIGHTS SUBMISSION: Donja R. Love is sponsoring a new scholarship for playwrights living with HIV, aimed at increasing the visibility of storytellers living with HIV in the future. The winner of the Write It Out! Prize will receive $5,000, funded by the wonderful Billy Porter, along with access to a professional dramaturg for developing a new work, and a stipend from GLAAD. Deadline to apply is September 3rd!

COMPANY MANAGERS SUBMISSION: The Theatre Leadership Project has established a new program that will provide up to five BIPOC company managers or assistant company managers access to financial support, training, and mentorship opportunities. The program is part of a larger initiative from TLP to bolster the number of Black producers and managers in Broadway and beyond, addressing the startling lack of Black talent in those positions currently. Applications are being accepted on a rolling basis!

Awards Talk: Gender Neutral Categories, Expanded Fields & More

The Gotham Awards are officially moving to gender neutral categories moving forward, an effort by parent organization Gotham Film & Media Institute to make its fields more inclusive of today's on-screen performances. The Best Actor/Actress categories will be renamed to Outstanding Lead Performance/Outstanding Supporting Performance, and the Breakthrough Award will become the Gotham Breakthrough Performer Award. "We are proud to recognize outstanding acting achievements each year and look forward to a new model of honoring performances without binary divisions of gender," executive director for the Institute Jeffrey Sharp said. Industry advocates have been calling for gendered language to be done away with at the major award shows for years, along with an expansion of categories to allow for additional inclusivity. And with Gotham finally making the move to more-inclusive verbiage, this feels like the perfect time for the Emmys and Oscars to follow suit.

The nominees for the 36th annual Imogen Awards were announced last week, honoring the top Latinx performers in film and TV. This year's theme - "Our Community: Diverse, Talented, and United" - seeks to uplift the exciting increase in Latinx stories onscreen over the past year, with offerings from Netflix, HBO Max, NBC, and more among the frontrunners. Check out the full list here!

Interested in tuning into a more in-depth look at this year's Emmys race? Deadline is hosting a weekend of live-streamed presentations and panels this Saturday and Sunday, breaking down all the hottest races and feature some behind-the-scene takes from cast and creatives. featuring scores of big names like Billy Porter, Uzo Aduba, Kate Winslet, Barry Jenkins and more. Register today!

Check out Variety's full roundup of the awards scene from the past week 🏆

In the Heat of the Fest

We're deep into festival season here as many are gearing up for their late summer and early fall events, and others are already setting their sites on programming for the coming year:

The 24th Annual Reel Black Men Short Film Festival touched off last Saturday with films from over 20 Black filmmakers, virtually presented by the Black Hollywood Education Resource Center. Running through August 22nd, the 21 titles run the gamut of fiction/non-fiction, documentary, horror, sci-fi, and more, showcasing the incredible work of Black creatives over the last year.

The BlackStar Film Festival is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, and is shaping up to be the most exciting one yet. Originally tagged as the "Black Sundance," festival organizers are slowly moving away from that delineation and making their mark as a bastion of Black stories and narratives depicting the current state of social justice themes from storytellers across the globe.

Sarajevo Film Festival (Aug 13 - 20th) is celebrating its return to a physical event after being moved online last year. The festival has a long history of overcoming adversity: originating in the mid-90s at the height of the Bosnian War, founders of the festival had a plan to reunite the city and its citizens during a nearly four-year-long siege on the city. Organizers hope to create a similar renewed sense of hope and love of film for attendees at this year's event.

The Beijing International Film Festival, originally scheduled to run August 14 - 21st, has officially postponed the event due to COVID concerns, stating that they would reschedule the festival "if conditions permit."

The London Film Festival (Oct 6 - 17th) will kick off with the world premiere of Netflix's THE HARDER THEY FALL, featuring an all-star cast that includes Regina King, Jonathan Majors, LaKeith Stanfield, and Idris Elba. The film, a Tarantino-esq western thriller, was directed by London local Jeymes Samuel and will receive the opening night treatment, complete with several cast members on-hand for the premiere.

The Santiago International Film Festival will have a second life this fall with Sanfic Industria presenting titles alongside Mexican genre festival Morbido. Scheduled to run Oct 27 - Nov 4th, Sanfic will hold its hybrid virtual and in-person event that includes both screenings and business workshops for the films' creators, continuing the festival's longstanding tradition of developing titles from Central and South America and giving filmmakers a chance to receive feedback on their work and participate in marketing workshops.

Sundance 2022 will officially require all participants attending the live event to be fully vaccinated, director Tabitha Jackson said in a letter last week. The latest iteration of the Park City festival, scheduled for January 20 - 30th, 2022, will continue with this year's hybrid model of both in-person and virtual screenings, hoping to bolster viewership and distribution of the event's top titles.

The Tribeca Festival will continue to roll with its June slot next year, ditching its traditional late-spring run for June 8 - 19th, 2022 in NYC. Tribeca Enterprises CEO Jane Rosenthal eluded to the decision being COVID-related, saying that the festival "may well be back in April in 2023" and that the current decision is "what is best for [their] participants and audiences."

Production Updates and Profits Rising

Encouraging signs of life continue to pour out of the LA film office with a new report that productions logged 9,791 shoot days from April to June of this year - the highest figure since Q4 of 2019. While COVID case numbers are on the rise again across the country, FilmLA president Paul Audley remains cautiously optimistic that productions will be able to continue filming under the current safety protocols and avoid any full shutdowns in the months ahead.

Not all locations have been so lucky. The UK is currently experiencing a spike in COVID-related shutdowns, including season 2 of BRIDGERTON and HBO's GAME OF THRONES prequel HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, after cast and/or crew members came in contact with positive cases. The uptick in stoppages is boosting calls for mandatory vaccinations on-set, though representatives of the UK's Equity union have already made it known that they are publicly against mandating the vaccine "for all sorts of reasons."

Alberta, Canada is the latest international hotspot looking to charm film and TV companies into setting up shop for their upcoming productions. The region's 22% Film and Television Tax Credit, along with the removal of the $10 million-per-project spending cap have combined to create an enticing offer for projects from Paramount+, Apple TV, HBO, and others, resulting in a whopping $400 million spent in the province so far. Oh, Canada 🍁

Studio Profit Reports

Studios and Theaters Weighing Vaccine Mandate Options

It's becoming increasingly clear that working onstage or onscreen in a COVID world and beyond will most likely require a vaccine. In the words of Drama League Board of Directors President Bonnie Comley, if actors or stage crew are still unvaccinated at this stage in the game, "they just won't work." Studios and theaters across the country are slowly falling in line behind the Broadway vaccine mandate, hoping to keep a pathway open for productions to continue uninterrupted as we head into an uncertain fall with the looming Delta variant. Here's a running list of some major studios' and theaters' current vaccine policies:

Disney, Netflix, Google, and Fox Corp received high praise from President Biden last week for their vaccine mandates for employees - "Look, I know this isn't easy, but I will have their backs, and the backs of other private public sector leaders if they take such steps." Netflix also announced that it would require proof of vaccination from its visitors as well.

Amazon Studios is currently holding talks to require vaccinations from all Zone A employees - all actors and those that work in close contact with them - and may only apply to future productions, excluding those that are currently shooting. Amazon would join the likes of individual shows like CHICAGO MED that have set forth deadlines for Zone A workers to receive their first and second doses of the vaccine in order to continue working on the show.

On the stage side of things, the Delacorte Theatre has already established its vaccination policies for the Public's run of MERRY WIVES, requiring all audience members seated in Full Capacity sections to show proof of vaccination, while those in the Physically Distanced sections do not. All audience members must still wear masks. The Public officially reinstated their in-person queue for snagging tickets on July 20th, lasting through the end of the show's run on September 18th.

While not issuing a full mandate, IATSE has voiced its strong support of all members receiving the vaccine before returning to work as well: "We have seen first-hand the devastation COVID-19 can inflict on our industries when it spreads uncontrolled. We can't afford to go back and allow new variants to force our theaters closed and our events canceled."

For the Love of the Theatre: Part 2

As I've spoken about the past few weeks, regional theatres across the country are continuing to undergo a sort of renaissance, revitalizing where they believe their missions lie both in their communities and in the theatre space at large, all while coming to terms with the We See You, White American Theater manifesto that called for far-reaching changes in leadership and representation the country over. One such theater that has found itself deep in the trenches of necessary change is the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, billed as America's Oldest Theatre and a stalwart in the Philly arts scene for well over 200 years. The storied institution has been at odds with many current and former employees who believe a theater that so proudly displays its heritage has lost sight of the diversity and freedom of expression that was fought for and signed into law just down the street from the theater only 32 years before its founding.

According to one op-ed in American Theatre Mag, allegations of misconduct have abounded at the Walnut for decades, many of which tie back to the theater's current artistic director, Bernard Havard. Chief among them is a pattern of excluding individuals of color and from the LGBTQ+ community at all levels in front of and behind the stage, a narrative that has become all too commonplace in the American theatre in recent years. ATM published a response from one former associate director who worked under Havard in years past, claiming that while all artistic directors are indeed not without their flaws, the accusations made against the Walnut AD "depict a culture entirely unrecognizable" to those that have worked with him.

The voices of those who speak out in times like these cannot be ignored. After what we've seen over the past year, the first step of changing a culture is starting a conversation, and I applaud the bravery of those who have stepped into the spotlight to share their experiences in theaters across the country in the hopes of saving an institution that is beloved by so many, even in the times when that love is seemingly not reciprocated. In the words of American Theatre Mag, "These and other details should allow readers to make their own determinations about the theatre's conduct and reputation." Time will tell how these stories shake out, but I continue to hold onto hope that we are moving toward a future where folks from all walks of life will once again feel welcomed in the American regional theatre.

More Articles:

Vying for Space Among the Streamers

In the mix and mash of today's streaming environment, it's becoming increasingly more difficult for smaller players to make waves among the giants of Netflix and HBO Max, let alone find a consistent home among viewers. Paula Madison, CEO of The African Channel, spoke with Variety recently about her commitment to her platform's content and the important work they are doing to bring work about Africa, produced in Africa, into the homes of audiences across the world. "We have plowed every cent we ever made back into the business," Madison said in her podcast interview. "That wasn't easy to do."

The newest numbers from UK regulator Ofcom confirmed just how much British households relied on their screens in the past year, and who can blame them? COVID turned us all into couch potatoes just a bit, and that's perfectly fine 🤷‍♂️ The average viewer spent 5 hours and 40 minutes per day watching content in 2020, up only 47 minutes from the year before. 3 in 5 UK households subscribe to at least one streaming service, chief among them being Netflix, who officially exceeds all pay-TV customers in the country for the first time ever. The Streaming Wars continue....

Industry Intel

SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris is standing with Scarlett Johansson's lawsuit against Disney for its handling of the BLACK WIDOW release, saying the company "should be ashamed of themselves for resorting to tired tactics of gender-shaming and bullying." Johansson sued Disney last month for breach of contract, arguing that the company's day-and-date strategy cost her millions in lost wages. "Women are not ‘callous' when they stand up and fight for fair pay – they are leaders and champions for economic justice," Carteris wrote in support of Johansson's ongoing battle with Disney.

The day-and-date strategy is continuing to find itself under the microscope: ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish shared the company's plans to evaluate future titles' release plans on a "case by case" basis, toeing the line of attempting to keep both theater owners and streaming services happy. The company remains confident in the 45-day theatrical window before moving any of its titles to Paramount+, saying that the situation remains "fluid" and that the pandemic will continue to influence any release decisions in the near future.

The HFPA isn't the only entity drawing ire for its leadership practices. While not nearly at the scale that the Press Association has received its bad press, SAG-AFTRA is under fire for perpetuating a "toxic, oppressive culture" that national board candidate Shaan Sharma says contributes to the "dictatorship" of the organization over the last two years. Sharma has received his fair share of criticism during the campaign as well - other board candidates pointed out a lack of transparency with his own messaging, pointing to what may very well shape up to be an embittered election season for the actors' union.

Office Updates for COVID Protocols

Up & Coming Writers Making Waves

If you've ever been to one of our workshops, you know how much we harp on the importance of meeting new playwrights, reading new works, and finding voices that you can identify with and follow their artistic journies as you continue to cultivate your own. There has never been a better time to start making your list of writers that are creating work you truly love. Ask yourself: Who's writing a world that I know I can live in? What type of language am I seeing onscreen (and soon enough, on stage) that I would love to keep reading/watching and being involved with? Here are a handful of up-and-coming playwrights that will be receiving financial/professional support in the coming weeks and months, but we always encourage you to do your own research and find even more writers that resonate with you!

What to Watch & Read