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Projects Casting - Industry Intel - New Regional Theatre Landscape - Reopening Broadway

By Sean Gregory, August 24, 2021

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Can anyone tell me where my summer has gone? It's been a surreal past few weeks, watching production continue to take off and regional theaters announcing more casting calls and solidifying companies for their upcoming seasons. And I'm happy to say - I saw a BROADWAY SHOW last week 😲 Everyone MUST go see PASS OVER at the August Wilson; it was an incredibly thought-provoking welcome back to Broadway, and the actors who carry the show are masterclasses in scene work and character study. Get your tickets!

Lots of bits and pieces and continuations from stories we've been chatting about a lot over the past month or two in the email this week, so let's get to it!

Peace & Love ✌

Disney vs Black Widow Continues

The fallout from Scarlett Johansson's litigation against Disney continues as Disney took a swipe back at the BLACK WIDOW star this weekend, requesting that the case be moved into a confidential arbitration arrangement in New York, rather than moving forward with the trial slated for October. "After initially responding to this litigation with a misogynistic attack against Scarlett Johansson, Disney is now, predictably, trying to hide its misconduct in a confidential arbitration," Johansson's lawyer said in the aftermath of Disney's filings, all but ensuring that the Oscar nominee's team will push for an in-person court battle to present evidence of the company's breach of contract.

The road to creating an equitable client contract with a studio or production company is long, winding, and oftentimes fraught with disagreement. And the current trajectory of theatrical vs streaming releases will only continue to complicate negotiations moving forward. Variety's cover story last week dove into the intricacies that agents and entertainment lawyers are continuing to navigate - theatrical vs streaming, release windows, how much is owed to whom, and by what date. Enough to make your head spin, to say the least. Hollywood's A-listers are asking for more than ever to compensate for hybrid theatrical + streaming model - Daniel Craig is set to receive over $100 million for the next two KNIVES OUT movies, as an example. And all signs point to studios and streamers continuing to pay top dollar for named talent on their projects, in order to win eyeballs from the ever-growing sea of competition. May the best studio win 👀

Theaters & Streaming: Determining Film Success in 2021 and Beyond

"There’s no question that long theater runs legitimize a movie," IndieWire wrote in its recent episode of ScreenTalk, dissecting how and when a movie can capitalize on audience approval and industry hype to ride into box office glory and a successful award season. The landscape used to be much more simplistic: A good movie = a long theatrical window. With so many contracts stipulating 45/60/90 day release windows before hitting platforms, not to mention the controversial day-and-date strategy, analysts are hitting a wall in determining how to delineate which movies are finding success, and which will be washed away by the next weekend's release slate.

Streamers have become accustomed to keeping their viewing numbers close to the vest with pretty much any of their titles, deviating completely from the opening weekend box office model of days gone by and making it that much harder for viewers to decide what to watch, instead of flipping through their eighth run of PARKS AND REC (couldn't be me...). Take some time to listen to "The Future of Movies" with IndieWire's Box Office Editor to learn where our industry's reporting structure may be headed, and how that can affect actors' contracts moving forward.

Television Academy Sets Emmys COVID Plan

Attendees for the year's Primetime Emmys and Creative Arts Emmy Awards will be required to show proof of vaccination as well as a negative COVID test in order to enter the event, two of a handful of precautions that the Television Academy is taking to keep people safe as the Delta variant continues to drive up the COVID infection rate in Los Angeles. The shows, held over two weekends from September 11th through the 19th, will be limited to only nominees and a guest and will be held outside in an air-conditioned tent behind the Microsoft Theatre in LA.

Deadline's annual award season panel discussion - Contenders Television - is officially live on Deadline's streaming site. You can check out discussions with dozens of guests from this year's most exciting series ahead of the Emmys in September. Listen to what the stars of the small screen have to say on their process for making the best TV of the year come to life 📺

Industry Intel

The latest phase of industry restructuring talks has turned to work days for cinematographers, as a group of DP's hope to address the "hazards of unsafe working hours" that their section of the industry has had to handle for decades. "Most notable are the numerous car accidents our colleagues have suffered in recent years, including the weekend before we entered these negotiations," referring to the disturbing history of post-shoot accidents that cinematographers have dealt with after sometimes working behind the camera for up to 14 hours per day. "This past year has shown that when employers and craftspeople work together to confront a world-wide safety threat, it is possible to both protect everyone on our sets and successfully complete the most ambitious projects," the collective of DP's wrote in a letter to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

Streaming services continue to implicitly win the day in the battle for talent and viewership as more writers share the positive experience of working with the typically more lax approval structure of places like Hulu and HBO Max. "A lot of other places that didn’t understand our show or tone, they would have set these characters together faster," HACKS creator Paul W. Downs says. "But HBO and HBO Max were so collaborative and understanding of our wanting to build the backstory and the world." An increasing number of writers seem to be in agreement with Downs, and the results speak for themselves - streaming shows blew traditional TV out of the water in Emmy nominations this year, as has been the growing case since streaming content really began to blossom.

Is this the end of the line for worthwhile linear offerings? Not so fast. A growing cacophony of cries from young writers looking to make a name for themselves is grabbing attention as Hollywood deals with a dwindling number of showrunner apprentice positions, as most streaming services finish writing before filming begins, eliminating the potential for on-set experience for young writers looking to learn from industry vets. The linear model is much more friendly to these positions, offering a more accessible writers room to up-and-coming scribes hoping to snag their first authorship credit. Time will certainly tell how all of these issues play amongst themselves, but it's safe to say the clock is ticking ⏰

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Reopening Broadway & Beyond

It's surreal being able to type this, but I sat in a New York theater last week and watched a Broadway show. For anyone who's ready to do so, I highly recommend PASS OVER on Broadway, a WAITING FOR GODOT meets Biblical philosophy 80-minute one-act that I can't wait to watch again. BROADWAY IS BACK, BABY 🥰 Check out the current reopening status for each show, and the COVID protocols keeping everyone safe along the way.

The Broadway community is, understandably, pretty freakin' ready to get back into the swing of things too. "I think theatre is essential in helping us understand our feelings around all of the things that keep us awake at night," Celia Keenan-Bolger said, particularly of her return to TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. "I believe in its power to not only change us as individuals but as a community. I cannot wait to be in the presence of those 1400 other beating hearts as they sync and set off this next chapter of healing and reconciliation." While the Broadway League has announced that it will not be sharing weekly show grosses for the 21-22 season, saying "the data will not be comparable with previous seasons," I can only imagine how excited audiences will be once every marquee is blazing and the streets are filled with Playbills on a Saturday evening once more.

Are you a theatre professional that left NYC during COVID and is now looking to make your way back home? Places Please Project has partnered with The Actors Fund to provide grants for artists looking to cover initial rent expenses, security deposits, or moving costs. The program is open to actors, designers, stage managers, anyone who helps make the NYC theatre community the wonderful place that it is. Check out the article for full eligibility and submission information!

New Regional Theatre Landscape Taking Shape

When COVID shuttered all live performances venues in March 2020, owners and artistic directors across the country had to make a slew of difficult financial and personnel decisions in order to ensure the long-term survival of their organizations. The unfortunate truth and all-too-familiar narrative became: many of these organizations simply did not have the resources to weather the storm, and our industry endured one of the biggest losses of companies big and small in recent history.

But there is hope on the horizon. Organizations in major regional hubs like Boston and Chicago are releasing their COVID reopening guidelines, including vaccine requirements, negative COVID tests, and mask mandates throughout their fall seasons. "We are pleased that many members of our vibrant performing arts community that will be opening have come together to craft a unified response to this crisis so that audiences can once again experience the joy of live performance without future disruption," League of Chicago Theatres exec Deb Clapp said in a statement.

The reopenings don't come without their fair share of question marks, however. Portland Stage Center is one of dozens of companies slowly adding staff back to their payrolls, leaving some employees wondering how long they may be able to hang around before moving on to other opportunities. "[P]art of our process was not only looking at what positions would come back, but would they be the same positions, or would some positions morph into something else based on the scope of our work?" managing director Cynthia Furman said, speaking to a larger movement of consolidating certain positions at regional theaters to keep costs low amidst ongoing COVID restrictions.

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Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

A new film pitch competition is set to help support students and recent alumni of HBCU's in the US. Beats and Macro have teamed up for the first annual Beats Black Creators Summit, which will provide a space for the competition's winners to pitch their film projects to top industry guests later in 2021. The winners will also be invited to the Macro Lodge at the Sundance FIlm Festival in January 2022. "Discovering and empowering Black and brown creatives is at the core of the mission of Macro and I know this effort is just one more step in how we work to increase access and opportunity for the next generation of innovators," Macro Chief Brand Officer Stacey Walker King said. Applications are available for any current HBCU students or recent grads through September 7th!

Kenan Thompson and Tracee Ellis Ross are no strangers to the screen, having both spent decades making the best of the opportunities they've been given in film and TV. With the continued success of the sitcoms - Thompson's KENAN and Ross on BLACK-ISH - Variety chatted with them about the current state of the Black family sitcom, and how the pair have driven conversations around the portrayal of Black families on screen in 2021. "One of the things that’s been so special on BLACK-ISH has been being able to see an American family that is Black — not that happens to be Black — where we are dealing with all of the things that any family is walking through but through the lens, the face, the beingness, the experience and the specificity of what it is to be a Black person in America," Ross said of BLACK-ISH, highlighting their push to emphasis specifically Black storylines that would resonate with Black American families in a way that may have never found their way into living rooms before.

Black women in TV were also the focus of this year's AllBlk "Developing and Creating While Black" panel, hosted by AMC streamer TCA. AllBlk execs and industry participants discussed the growing number of Black women in front of and behind the camera over the past 10 years, and the emphasis on expanding roles for Black women in both comedies and dramas. "There’s not just one way to be Black, there’s so much diversity within the Black race and culture, and different experiences," LACE's Michelle Ebony Hardy said of her work on the 80's miniseries, speaking to the importance of continuing to push for Black representation in every type of onscreen role moving forward.

And slowly but surely, the industry is responding. "We’re starting to see a change that’s happening, not just in front of the camera but also behind the camera and that’s how we shake things up," Starz' Monica Raymund said of the studio's #TakeTheLead initiative, which positions the company as a leader in creating the full package of diverse voices in front of and behind the camera. HIGHTOWN has become the calling card for Starz' commitment to developing underrepresented voices, as the series "is led by a woman, created by a woman, and told by a lot of women." Let's keep the momentum rolling!

A new initiative from the Wallace Foundation is set to research the intricacies of arts organizations of color in the US, with the goal of creating a system of research that maps out how these organizations reach members of their communities. The five-year, $53 program will support 10-12 companies, providing them with funding for both the research leg of the process as well as to develop works at the companies once the research is complete. "By listening to and partnering with arts organizations of color, and documenting and studying their work, we hope to highlight their important contributions and better understand the practices that make them matter so deeply to their communities." Wallace Foundation Director of Arts Bahia Ramos said.

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Actors on Acting

The rise of LOVECRAFT COUNTRY's Jonathan Majors has been equally exciting and compelling to watch, finding his star status from his first lead role in THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO before landing on the HBO pulse-pounder. I'll never understand how LOVECRAFT was canceled, particularly given its impressive 18 Emmy nominations, including a Best Actor nod for Majors. How does he do the work that leads to such notable accolades? "Some days it’s just like the rooms are dark, you have your candles, and you’re just sitting there relaxing and breathing and really preparing for the thing that you got to go do," he said in a recent interview, detailing his meticulous note-taking for every script he works on and how he stays grounded for each project.

It's a sentiment shared by many actors in the industry today. With more physically and emotionally demanding roles comes a heavier emphasis on what we, as actors, can do to protect ourselves while creating our characters onstage and onscreen. "[T]he words on the page made me understand so much more about myself, and a piece of that was letting go. In moments of sadness, you have to heal and you have to care for yourself." MJ Rodriguez said of her work as Blanca on FX' POSE, a role that has earned her the first Emmy nomination for a trans woman in history. It's work that others in the industry have noticed: BLACK-ISH star Tracee Ellis Ross said Rodriguez' approach to motherhood has provided inspiration for her own journey, something that Ross says is among her favorite parts of the business: "When entertainment is done really well, it entertains you, it occupies you and it gives you a safe place to be, expanding your understanding of something that you otherwise wouldn’t have had access to."