In This Issue:
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Message from Dona
NEWS
- Featured Member Posting: Assistant, Television Business Affairs (CAA) - LA
- Get ready for the Harvardwood Virtual Holiday Party on December 10th, 2020! More information coming soon!
- Thank You to Harvardwood 101 Applicants
FEATURES
- Exclusive Q&A with Delirio Films Head of Production Zoë Morrison AB'11
- Industry Successes
- New Members' Welcome
- Alumni Profile: Julian Breece AB '03 (Writer of Netflix's When They See Us, ABC's upcoming Mason-Dixon & Searchlight's Alvin Ailey biopic)
CALENDAR & NOTES
- Calendar
- Become a Harvardwood member as we further engage in socially active programming, discourse, and action to help change the entertainment industry
Message from Harvardwood
I hope that everyone's recovering from their Halloween sugar coma and that you all remembered the daylight saving time change. Though it'll be getting darker earlier, Harvardwood's calendar is lit! The upside to the current state of affairs is our continued robust slate of virtual events that any member based anywhere can attend.
As the holiday season approaches, we are so thrilled to release a special music video tribute to the Harvard Classes of 2020-2024! This is sure to bring a big smile to your face, and we are grateful to all of the talented Harvardwood musicians who participated. I would also like to specially thank Harvardwood Co-Founder Adam Fratto and members Hegine Nazarian, Sam Pottash, and Russell Wolff for their tremendous work and volunteer hours dedicated to creating this music video. This Thanksgiving, I will be counting Harvardwood's very special community among my blessings!
- Dona
Assistant, Television Business Affairs (CAA) - LA
Creative Artists Agency (CAA) is currently seeking an assistant to support an executive in the Television Business Affairs department. The position offers an opportunity to learn about business affairs, work with industry executives and lawyers, as well as gain exposure to entertainment law. The ideal candidate is a self-starter, possessing a desire to gain exposure to the business and legal aspects of the entertainment industry.
Responsibilities:
- Efficiently support an executive responsible for negotiating deals for writing, directing, acting and producing clients in scripted and non-scripted television.
- General clerical and administrative duties including letter drafting, filing, handling phones, managing calendars, scheduling, expenses, and office management.
- Editing, proofreading, summarizing and redlining agreements and correspondence under the supervision of the executive.
- Depending on skill, educational level and motivation to learn, assistant will gain experience drafting and commenting on agreements.
- Maintain an awareness of the executive's obligations in order to proactively assist and/or anticipate needs.
Qualifications:
- At least 1+ years of Administrative Assistant experience at a talent agency, management company, studio and/or entertainment law firm.
- Ability to work well under pressure; meet tight deadlines; manage multiple projects and expectations; and maintain a sharp focus while managing competing priorities.
- Attention to detail and strong organization skills are a must.
- Strong interpersonal skills, while understanding the importance of maintaining confidentiality
- Strong command of the Microsoft Office suite and in particular Word, Excel & PowerPoint.
- Adept at quickly learning new processes and technology.
- Familiarity with film, television or other entertainment contracts is preferred, but not required.
Get ready for the Harvardwood Virtual Holiday Party on December 10th, 2020! More information coming soon!
We are so excited to bring you our first Virtual Holiday Party this December 10th! The party will feature special Harvardwood as well as Hollywood VIP performances, interactive experiences, and much more! Mark your calendars for that evening. More information is coming soon!
Thank You to Harvardwood 101 Applicants
The Harvardwood 101 application period has closed, and the program is just after the Holidays! Thanks so much to our talented applicant pool. We will be reaching out to everyone shortly. Students this year, while virtually involved, will still benefit from an immersive, high-touch experience that will connect them to key Hollywood executives and expose them to top creative business environments throughout Hollywood. We are excited to introduce some additional programming benefitting actors and other live performers.
Harvardwood strives to keep this program affordable to all Harvard students, regardless of financial status. If you are a 101 alum or simply someone who wants to help make Harvardwood 101 affordable for everybody, please make a donation to the Harvardwood 101 fund.
Exclusive Q&A with Delirio Films Head of Production Zoë Morrison AB '11
Zoë Morrison AB '11 recently became Head of Production at Delirio Films, where she's been the lead on a slew of amazing projects, such as Mike Wallace Is Here and Ask Dr. Ruth, which both premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival before their theatrical releases, and Hulu’s hit original documentary Too Funny To Fail: The Life and Death of the Dana Carvey Show (2017).
Q. When did your interest in producing come to you in life? Can you tell us about it?
A. Honestly I can tell you the exact moment. It was at a really great Office of Career Services seminar given by Harvardwood's Mia Riverton Alpert halfway through my sophomore year that broke down the different types of professions in Hollywood. She went through agents, managers, studio/network execs, and when she got to creative producers something clicked. I thought, that's a combination of my skills & interests that I can visualize myself doing well and enjoying—combining organization with creativity, helping artists hone their ideas and bring them to life, with a low risk for boredom thanks to the nature of the work being project-based with a constant stream of new collaborators. Plus, the fruit of my labors would be something tangible that would (hopefully) make an impact on people, giving them food for thought or at the very least bringing them joy, which is so valuable in itself. I had previously thought I'd go into the fine arts in some sort of administrative role, but had grown disenchanted with how that world felt inaccessible to many people. I had only ever considered film as a consumer, so the seminar really opened my eyes to it as a whole industry that was possible for me to enter, and I realized it could be the perfect sweet spot marrying the arts with a whole lot more action, commerce, and wider audience reach.
Q. In what ways did you get involved in film while at school?
A. Right after that seminar, I switched my secondary field from History of Art & Architecture to VES Film Studies and looked for ways to get involved with film via extracurriculars. I was already planning to study abroad my junior fall though, and because of the extracurricular structure and comping schedule at Harvard I was a bit late on that front. So I focused on maximizing my study abroad time with film classes at Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle, and when I returned to campus I landed at HUTV, where I spent the next year and a half planning events for guest speakers and helping to grow the relatively new organization. And I continued activities I had previously been involved with that weren't explicitly film related, but still relevant like producing the dance section of Arts First weekend and working as a tutor at the Writing Center. I also joined Harvardwood, which led to a fantastic summer internship at FilmNation in NYC. There I learned a lot more detail about different models of film production... and also learned that I hated living in New York! It was LA or bust after that.
Industry Successes
Kelley Johnson Purcell AB '02 was recently appointed Vice President of Membership & Industry Relations at the Recording Academy(R), the world's leading society of music professionals and the organization behind the annual GRAMMY(R) Awards. She will be responsible for overseeing all aspects of membership outreach, peer review, member account services, and the Academy's Chapter systems, including regional and local teams, Chapter events and programming, and all facets of Chapter service. Read more about Kelley and her new role, here.
Please check out We Are The Champions – a docuseries set for release on Netflix November 17th. The show explores an array of unique competitions and their passionate communities, from fantasy hair styling to dog dancing. Andrew Sachs AB ’97 supervised production for Prod. Co. Dirty Robber.
"Strath" (Ben Strathmore AB ‘18) releases his latest single That’s How It Goes with Portuguese pop artist Nana Lourdes. Strath (Melbourne) and Nana (Viana do Castelo) teamed up from across the world (still never having met) to unite over a single feeling: life doesn’t always move the way you want it to. It just moves on. They wrote, produced and mixed this track, which has been featured on Portugal’s New Music Friday and Pop Spotify playlists. Listen here.
Chrissy Horansky HGSE '07: we’re celebrating kick-ass WOMEN IN ACTION films for International Day of the Girl! I count down my Top 5 on Beyond the Playlist podcast. The stories we see on television and film shape who we dream we can be, especially for women and girls. Who most inspires YOU?
The first feature from Chris Baker AB '09 as writer and star is an official selection of this year’s Newport Beach Film Festival, which has gone all virtual! The film is titled The Estate. ABOUT: When the spoiled son and newest wife of a billionaire patriarch plot to murder him, they form a psychosexual bond with their brutally hot hitman as they kill and kill (and kill) in their quest for wealth and recognition. STARRING: Chris Baker, Eliza Coupe, Eric Roberts, Heather Mattarrazzo, Lala Kent and Alexandra Billings. // Chris Baker is a New York City native and a graduate of Harvard University where he was part of the Film Theory concentration — which includes fellow alums Darren Aronofsky and Damien Chazelle. He originally found success in music as a pop artist, racking up millions of views on YouTube and profiles in Billboard and Paper Magazines. He performed with LA’s best at the Upright Citizens Brigade and the Groundlings and appeared on NBC’s Marry Me and ABC’s The Catch. He wrote and starred in three seasons of Baker Daily, his Funny or Die web series where he played an inept cable news anchor whose hijinks inadvertently impeach President Trump. Chris is repped by Ryan Daly and Molly Hurwitz at Zero Gravity Entertainment and Jeff Endlich at Morris Yorn.
AFI Fest, which took place online from Oct. 15-22, honored Sofia Coppola, Kirby Dick, Rita Moreno and Mira Nair AB '79 each with an evening of conversation celebrating their careers.
Grown-ish star Yara Shahidi '22 is set to play Tinker Bell in David Lowery’s Peter Pan and Wendy. This would mark the first time a person of color has filled the role that traditionally has featured a white actress and follows in the footsteps after Disney set Halle Bailey to play Ariel in The Little Mermaid (Deadline).
Grainne Godfree AB '03 has been tapped to write and executive produce a TV series in works at Amazon Studios! The series is based on Jennifer Lynn Barnes’s recently released YA novel, The Inheritance Games. In the novel, when an eccentric billionaire dies and leaves his fortune to a teenage girl he’s never met, the world—and his relatives—are obsessed with figuring out why. Congratulations, Grainne! (Deadline)
Heyday Television, the production company run by Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Marriage Story producer David Heyman AB '83, is adapting Peter McLean’s fantasy crime novel Priest of Bones for television! The company has optioned the rights to the book, which was published in October 2018 by Ace Books and Jo Fletcher Books, and is working with its joint venture partner NBCUniversal International Studios on the project (Deadline).
Watch Baby Yoda vibe to the Schitt’s Creek and Curb themes in the Emmys music medley arranged by Hans Cutiongco AB '06 here.
In this article, the writer and actor Rashida Jones AB ‘97 opens up about giving birth to a son and grieving for her mother while filming On the Rocks with Sofia Coppola and Bill Murray. She talks about grief, resilience, and challenging Pixar.
Conan O’Brien AB '85 and Audible's Team Coco have signed a global multi-project, first-look development and production deal! The Emmy-winning digital media company will produce scripted and unscripted episodic series, non-fiction documentaries, etc. The first original already has been greenlighted: The episodic scripted comedy podcast A Total Switch Show teams real-life mother-daughter duo Lea Thompson and Zoey Deutch and is set to premiere May 6 exclusively on Audible (Deadline).
Lionsgate has struck a first-look television deal with the producer Temple Hill, founded by Marty Bowen AB '91! The company has inked a multi-year deal to develop and produce scripted programming with the company across broadcast, cable and streaming. This deal comes after the two companies worked together on the feature side on the Twilight Saga movie franchise as well as on Power Rangers, Uncle Drew and Down a Dark Hall (Deadline).
Lisa Joy JD '07 guest stars on the latest episode of IMPACT: The Podcast! The podcast hosts entertainment’s most creative minds to explore larger themes of content creation and how artists’ perspectives shape what we create and share with the world.
Check out Hollywood Insider's tribute to Matt Damon, the Academy Award-winning and additional four times nominated actor, writer, and producer. Damon briefly studied English at Harvard College in 1988.
The super-producer Miky Lee AM '87 talks with the Hollywood Reporter about hitting a peak with her Oscar-winning movie Parasite, how her multibillion-dollar CJ Entertainment is pivoting amidst COVID, and building relationships in the industry.
Girl Culture Films, a female-driven production company founded earlier this year by director Lauren Greenfield AB '87, is bolstering its roster and adding a screening series to showcase its clients!
An inaugural screenwriting lab co-founded by Margot Robbie, designed to help women writers break into the action and franchise film market, has seen a stunning 100% sales return on six original pitches, one of which was written by Sue Chung AB '02.
Michael B. Jordan will join Reginald Hudlin AB '83 on the feature project that was first revealed during August's DC FanDome event, Static Shock.
Joshua Jackson will be replacing Jamie Dornan in Peacock's Dr. Death, a show produced by Marshall Lewy AB '99!
The showrunners behind ABC's Lost, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse AB '81, reunited for a special virtual panel to answer fan questions about unanswered mysteries and future reboots of the show.
Hayes MacArthur is set as a lead opposite Lucy Liu in ABC’s Untitled Workplace Comedy pilot from Better with You creator Shana Goldberg-Meehan AB '94.
R.J. Cutler AB '83 has launched the production company This Machine, with an investment from Industrial Media. The investment gives Cutler the backing to add to a distinguished list of credits that includes The War Room, A Perfect Candidate, The September Issue, The World According to Dick Cheney, Thin and Listen to Me Marlon (Deadline).
The Hollywood Reporter has released their annual list of the most powerful TV showrunners, and many Harvard alums have made the list! Congratulations to Greg Daniels AB '85, Lisa Joy JD '07, and Mike Schur AB '97!
Nicholas Britell AB '03, whose Succession theme song took home an Emmy award in 2019, received the World Soundtrack Award’s TV composer of the Year Award.
The live table read series Zoom Where It Happens, presented by Black women artists to raise awareness around voting rights, concluded recently with the reimagined A Different World, hosted by Yara Shahidi '22.
New Members' Welcome
Harvardwood warmly welcomes all members who joined the organization last month:
- Adiya Abdilkhay, College, BOS/Campus
- Ashley Akaeze, College, BOS/Campus
- Christopher Baker, College, LA
- Khalidah Bello, HSPH, Toronto
- Ina Bhoopalam, College, BOS/Campus
- Julia Blank, College, BOS/Campus
- Maribel Cervantes, College, BOS/Campus
- Natalie Choo, College, BOS/Campus
- Matthew Cole, College, BOS/Campus
- Sam Dvorak, College, BOS/Campus
- Alejandro Eduarte, College, BOS/Campus
- Braden Ellis, College, BOS/Campus
- Madi Fabber, College, BOS/Campus
- Maxwell Gay, College, LA
- Stephanie Geosits, KSG, Toronto
- Ece Hakim, College, BOS/Campus
- Kerry Hammond, College, Int'l
- Jaspreet Kaur, College, LA
- Chloe E.W. Levine, College, BOS/Campus
- Melissa Lo, College, LA
- Samyra Miller, College, BOS/Campus
- Priscilla Nguyen, FOH, BOS/Campus
- Helen Pang, College, CHI
- Pearl Park, Ext., Int'l
- Elyse Pham, College, SF/Bay Area
- Sarah Rossman, College, NY
- Amelia Roth-Dishy, College, BOS/Campus
- David Sabot, College, BOS/Campus
- Harris Scott, College, BOS/Campus
- Suba Sivakumaran, KSG, UK
- Lincoln Sorscher, College, BOS/Campus
- Ruth Streeter, College, NY
- Jaden Thompson, College, BOS/Campus
- Jeremy Tsai, College, BOS/Campus
- Erin Williams, College, LA
- Rachel Yang, FOH, BOS/Campus
- Ava Zydor, GSBA, NY
*FOH = Friend of Harvardwood
Alumni Profile: Julian Breece AB '03, Writer of Netflix's When They See Us, ABC's upcoming Mason-Dixon & Searchlight's Alvin Ailey biopic
By Carly Hillman AB '15
“Oh, I should re-read that,” Julian Breece AB ’03 whispers to himself as he scans his bookshelf and reads me his favorite titles, as if he were reminding himself to call an old friend to catch up. I’d asked him about his favorite books from college, and the final addition to the list is not a book, but an admission: “I could go on forever.”
His adoration is apt, because those books changed his life. Before he read them, he had a plan: he was going to be an academic. He would graduate from Harvard, get his masters, next his PhD, and then he’d become a professor. There were some questions of course (like whether he’d get a Rhodes Scholarship) but the general route was mapped. Then, he started the thesis writing process. “That was when I realized, ‘Oh, hell no. Academic writing is not for me,’” he remembers.
With the help of a few creative writing classes he’d taken, he started to realize that he didn’t want to just write about the authors he admired—he wanted to do what they did. He switched to writing a creative thesis, and esteemed novelist and essayist Jamaica Kincaid signed on as his advisor.
Breece followed the creative path out of Cambridge all the way to Hollywood. He’s now written for shows like The First, When They See Us, and First Wives Club. Currently, he’s writing a screenplay about Alvin Ailey, which Barry Jenkins is set to direct, and working on a TV show at ABC with Lee Daniels.
Becoming a creative was more of a homecoming than a pivot. Breece grew up acting in his hometown of Washington, DC. He describes himself as a theater kid, which, upon deeper questioning, is a humble depiction. He was an actual working actor who performed at The Kennedy Center and appeared on shows like Teen Summit. Ultimately, he quit acting (“I embraced the fact that I was an introvert”) but continued to chase what had drawn him to acting in the first place. “Acting was a way of communicating,” he says, “and I always had something to say.”
He started writing when he was young, and even his earliest stories made an impact. “I actually got in trouble in high school,” he laughs, “because I would write these salacious soapy stories about people in my school, and they got around to the administration.”
Even as he began to drift away from academia at Harvard, he didn’t immediately embrace the title of artist. He thought he might want to be a producer, someone who “facilitates art.” He enrolled at the Peter Stark Producing Program at USC after college. Yet, it was his degree in producing that led him away from production. The freedom to take creative classes along with business and marketing courses gave him a macro-view of the industry. While there, he wrote a screenplay called “Ball” that he submitted to competitions after graduation. In 2007, he was named a Finalist for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Nicholl Fellowship. That accolade got him a manager, who he is still with today.
In the years since, he’s written and directed powerful works that span genre, style, and medium. The connecting tissue of a Julian Breece piece is broader than any IMDB filter; he defines his body of work as “character, over everything.” He’s dedicated to creating fully realized human beings on the page.
His latest character is famed choreographer Alvin Ailey. Breece is writing a screenplay about his life to be directed by Oscar winner Barry Jenkins, who wrote and directed both Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk. While it sounds like a dream job, he had originally told his agent he wasn’t sure that he wanted to do another biopic. But he took the meeting with Jenkins for a personal reason—his mother was a dancer in the Ailey Company.
“As a creative kid, my Mom was my idol,” Breece says, remembering what it was like to hear the stories of her dance career. She quit earlier than she wanted to because she felt pressure to go to college, to get married, to have a steady job. “I feel like there is a degree to which she left dance for us. For my brother and I, for my Dad, for our family—even though we came about way after,” Breece says.
Now, he’s had the chance to thank her for that sacrifice. He took her to New York to visit the Ailey studios, where she ran into people she knew from when she was young. His creative career is growing in the space of the one she left behind.
He’s also been grateful for the chance to work with Jenkins and calls him a fantastic “creative partner” multiple times. The phrase is telling. “I’ve worked with a lot of people who want me to execute their vision, but I’ve never been given this degree of freedom,” he says. “He is really trusting me with this story, which is a real honor.”
After years of pouring himself into his scripts, Breece has earned that trust. The energy he has spent thinking about the development of these fictional characters has reverberated off the page and into his life. In his twenties, he worked on multiple projects where he did not even realize how much of himself he was putting into his characters. “I was working out things with my own identity, and I didn’t know it at the time,” he says. “Those projects became an outlet for me and really saved me in certain ways.”
His characters helped him grow, and now he’s returning the favor. “As someone who in his own life is constantly evolving and moving towards becoming the person I was meant to be, it’s a rewarding exercise to be able to do that for characters on the page,” he says. But his characters’ growth is ultimately limited by their humanity. Like all writers, he often gets the question, “How does your character change at the end?” Breece answers it differently. “For me, it’s less of a broad change, and more of an inch,” he says. “Moving them an inch is everything. Because people, on some level, are who they are—unless they do really deep work to change things.”
As we talk about the concept of “moving an inch,” I ask if there is a most meaningful inch that he’s moved. “Everyone has an idea of what you can be for them,” he starts, choosing his words carefully. “I’ve learned to put myself and the things I’m here to do ahead of what the industry wants from me. It’s easy to lose track of what you set out to do. I want my vision to come across. I would let anything go if I feel it is not going to be what I want it to be.”
The ability to “let go” is something he’s been working on for years. He first got that advice at Harvard, but it’s not something he learned in a packed lecture hall or from a book buried deep in the stacks. Instead, the lesson came over a pitcher of sangria at a restaurant in Cambridge. Professor Jamaica Kincaid took her creative writing class out to dinner, and at the end of a boisterous night someone asked what advice she would offer to aspiring writers. They expected professorial platitudes. “Just hop on a plane and go to Paris,” she surprised them. “Don’t think about the world that you left behind. Make love to a beautiful woman. Or a beautiful man.” At the time, Breece was twenty years old, and his takeaway was simple: “I thought, ‘I don’t know what the fuck that means. I can’t just do that!’”
But after years of reflecting on that sangria-fueled counsel, he’s come to appreciate how it fits into his own life. “Going, and living, and letting go,” he pauses between each verb. “Letting go of Hollywood is a big thing that I tell younger people. This is not the world. The earlier you realize that, the happier you’ll be in your career here.”
He wishes he had learned that lesson earlier but acknowledges that everyone has to go through their own journey to absorb advice that bold. “Those are the moments, whatever you want to call it, like God’s whisper, when somehow you have to separate yourself from the world as you see it in order to see the path toward the light that is really yours to have,” he says.
I end our interview by posing the same cliché question that his classmate had asked Jamaica Kincaid over dinner. What advice would you give to an aspiring writer? He starts with traditional advice (he calls it “corny”), to read the screenplays of your favorite movies start to finish, and also to read the book Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need in order to learn traditional three-act structure. Not in order to stick to it, he clarifies, but to help inform how you can experiment and play with that structure.
Then, he pivots into the Kincaid territory of powerful guidance. No sangria needed. “Learn the industry, but break the rules. Do not honor and worship it. Break the rules as soon as possible,” he says. “Those are the people out here that people clamor to work with. The people who make us see things differently, make us see things purposefully, make us see what’s possible—who step outside the lines and write outside the lines.”
For a moment, we sit in the silence of the advice. “Know the rules so that you can break them,” he emphasizes once more for me. Or maybe for himself. “And know that breaking them is what is going to make you. And what is going to make you happy.”
Calendar
Harvardwood Presents: Tech in Entertainment: Video Games, VR, and Beyond - with Jonathan Hamel - Mon., Nov. 2
A live Q&A / AMA on November 2nd, 5-630pm PT discussing interactive technologies, their ever-increasing impact on entertainment and the world, and the strange career path of our own Jonathan Hamel AB '91. More about Jonathan is below:
Jonathan Hamel is an author and veteran game designer with over 20 years of experience in entertainment and software development. As a Designer/Programmer on What Remains of Edith Finch (winner of Best Game at the 2018 BAFTAs), he proved that yes, a game can make people cry. He helped reinvent one of the most recognizable and commercially-successful game franchises in the world with his design leadership on the Tomb Raider reboot (2013) and its sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider (2015). He gave players new battle strategies to explore in The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II: The Rise of the Witch-king. And he has made children smile, launching over 100 games on SesameStreet.com. He currently works as Lead Game Designer at Ready At Dawn, part of Facebook Reality Labs, where he supports teams on two of the most beloved VR games in the world--Lone Echo and Echo VR--as well as future unannounced projects.
We are so excited for our members to join this event!
Harvardwood Social Impact: A Conversation with HBS Professor Rebecca Henderson - Tues., Nov. 10
Hosted by Gene Pao HBS '97 and Director of Harvardwood's Social Impact initiative, join us for a highly interactive discussion on how film and television can help advance the messages in Professor Henderson's stories!
Harvardwood Lowdown: November 2020 - Fri., Nov. 13
All of your entertainment industry questions answered!! Well, we'll try. This Lowdown call is open to ALL Harvardwood members. Confirmed panelists include Harvardwood Co-Founders Adam Fratto and Mia Riverton Alpert, as well as President Allison Kiessling.
Attendance is capped, so sign up now!
The Harvardwood Lowdown is an open Q&A for members to pick our brains about anything on your minds -- career questions, creative questions, or questions and suggestions about Harvardwood's programming. We look forward to talking to you!
Harvardwood Presents: Welcome to Chechnya - Mon., Nov. 16
Harvardwood is screening the HBO Documentary Welcome to Chechnya online for up to 50 Harvard students!
Be one of the first 50 current students to register below, and receive a code to watch the film beginning November 5th.
The Q&A discussion with Dr. Neal Baer will be moderated by Professor Doris Sommer on November 16th.
Dr. Neal Baer is an award-winning showrunner, television writer/producer, physician, author and a public health advocate and expert. Dr. Baer currently serves as Executive Producer and Showrunner of the third season of Designated Survivor, starring Kiefer Sutherland and coming back to audiences globally on Netflix in the summer 2019. He was most recently an Executive Producer and Showrunner for the hit CBS television series Under The Dome. Previously, he was Executive Producer of the CBS medical drama A Gifted Man, as well as the Executive Producer of the hit NBC television series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit from 2000-2011, where he oversaw all aspects of producing and writing the show, with a budget of $100 million. During his tenure, among the awards the series won include the Shine Award, People’s Choice Award, the Prism Award, Edgar Award, Sentinel for Health Award and the Media Access Award. Actors on the show have won six Emmys and the Golden Globe.
Professor Doris Sommer, Director of the Cultural Agents Initiative at Harvard University, is the Ira and Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of African and African American Studies. Her academic and outreach work promotes development through arts and humanities, specifically through Pre-Texts in Boston Public Schools, throughout Latin America and beyond. Pre-Texts is an arts-based training program for teachers of literacy, critical thinking, and citizenship. Among her books are Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America (1991) about novels that helped to consolidate new republics; Proceed with Caution when Engaged by Minority Literature (1999) on a rhetoric of particularism; Bilingual Aesthetics: A New Sentimental Education (2004); and The Work of Art in the World: Civic Agency and Public Humanities (2014). Sommer has enjoyed and is dedicated to developing good public school education. She has a B.A. from New Jersey's Douglass College for Women, and Ph.D. from Rutgers University.
Harvardwood Presents: Casting in 2020 & Beyond: A Panel - Thurs., Nov. 19
Harvardwood is proud to present Casting in 2020 & Beyond: A Panel for our members and affiliates in the acting world, or with interests thereof! This amazing group of panelists will speak about their experiences pre-and-post pandemic, where the industry is heading, and answer questions!
About the panelists:
Erica Hart - Erica has been in casting for over 10 years, working on many high profile projects, including “Ray Donovan” (Showtime), “The Bold Type” (Freeform), “Defending Jacob” (Apple), and “Godfather of Harlem”, as well as many film and theater projects.
Maria Hubbard - Now as a full time coach and teacher, Maria shares her experiences from over 12 years in casting, including her years at the FOX network and as an independent casting director and casting associate, culminating in casting over 100 episodes of television.
Caroline Liem - For 20 years Caroline has cast studio features, independent films, television series and television pilots for Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox, Disney Studios, Sony, Warner Bros, Nick Jr, ABC, CBS, NBC, The CW and Fox.
The Event will me moderated by Harvardwood Director of Programs Justin W. White AB '10 and member Matt Walker AB '16, both experienced actors!
We can't wait to see you there!
Become a Harvardwood member as we further engage in socially active programming, discourse, and action to help change the entertainment industry
In these unprecedented times, we are doubling down on providing impactful programming that not only helps our membership build and further entertainment careers, but create socially active habits and spheres of influence and knowledge. The entertainment industry is changing before our eyes, and our recent programming is just the tip of the iceberg. We'd love your help in furthering this mission. In various capacities, we work hard to create programming that you, the membership, would like to be engaged with. Please consider joining Harvardwood and becoming an active member of our arts, media, and entertainment community!
DISCLAIMER
Harvardwood does not represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any of the information, content or advertisements (collectively "Materials") contained on, distributed through, or linked, downloaded or accessed from any of the services contained in this e-mail. You hereby acknowledge that any reliance upon any Materials shall be at your sole risk. The materials are provided by Harvardwood on an "AS IS" basis, and Harvardwood expressly disclaims any and all warranties, express or implied.