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Exclusive: The Writers Guild Foundation has teamed with the Northwestern Prison Education Program (Npep) on the Justice-Impacted Writers Project (Jiwp), a fellowship for aspiring writers currently incarcerated at Sheridan Correctional Center in Sheridan, Illinois. The start date is Jan. 9.

The project is spearheaded by writing partners Sammy Horowitz and Adam Pasen (Power Book IV: Force). Horowitz, now a successful screenwriter, is a former Chicago gang member who was imprisoned for nearly a decade and spent several years incarcerated at Stateville Correctional Center, in Crest Hill, Illinois.

The idea for the fellowship came after Horowitz and Pasen taught a screenwriting workshop last year at Stateville for Npep. Students learned the six plot points of a feature and developed their own story markers along with a logline.

“It was surreal walking back into Stateville as a free man after being locked up there…and especially to teach. It was really a flood of emotions,...

Fresh from winning an Emmy for hosting Peacock’s The Traitors, Alan Cumming has lined up a new gig.

The multi-hyphenate talent, a veteran and Tony Award-winning star of the stage, has been named artistic director of Pitlochry Festival Theatre, known as “Scotland’s theater in the hills.” Cumming replaces Elizabeth Newman who is departing in November after serving Pitlochry since September 2018. Her last production, The Sound of Music, runs Nov. 15 – Dec. 22. It was announced in July that Newman would be exiting as artistic director in favor of a leadership role, a move that launched a three month recruitment period and selection process.

Cumming assumes the artistic director post beginning in January 2025, and has sights set on programming the 2026 season. Up first, Pitlochry will stage previously announced productions The Great Gatsby, Grease, The 39 Steps and four new plays in the venue’s studio.

“For me, all roads lead to the...

Exclusive: Former Disney TV studio executive and CAA agent Elizabeth Newman has joined Literate as its first new partner since the television-focused boutique management and production company was launched in early 2018 by founding partners A.B. Fischer and Dennis Kim.

With her background in television, publishing and book adaptations, Newman will manage a curated roster of film & TV writer/showrunners and will expand Literate’s business in representing screen rights for intellectual property creators, rightsholders, and estates. She also will work with authors, journalists, and playwrights transitioning to Hollywood.

This marks a return to representation for Newman who started her entertainment career at CAA. During her nearly 15-year tenure, she was a TV Literary & Media Rights agent, representing TV writer/creators, showrunners, producers, directors, and intellectual property, brokering major rights deals on behalf of bestselling authors such as Anne Rice and James Patterson.

At the end of 2019, Newman segued to the TV executive ranks,...

Kvea is clearly doing something right. The Telemundo-owned Los Angeles station, part of a duopoly with sister NBC outlet Knbc, swept this year’s key newscast categories at the 75th Los Angeles Area Emmy Awards. The Spanish language station dominated the evening, winning the Emmys for evening (7 p.m. to 12 a.m.), daytime (11 a.m. to 7 p.m.) and morning (4 a.m. to 11 a.m.) newscasts.

Kvea had won the daytime newscast Emmy last year as well.

Overall, Kvea earned eight L.A. Area Emmy awards this year, tied with local public broadcaster Kcet. (That was also up from Kcet’s haul of six last year.) Given the tie with Kvea, that still preserves Kcet’s streak of this being the seventh year in a row that Kcet won the most.

The Kcbs/Kcal duopoly was next in line, with four wins, while ABC-owned Kabc and cabler Spectrum SportsNet LA were next with three.

Pubcaster Kcet landed 24 nominations to lead the field vying for the 75th Los Angeles Area Emmy Awards, the Television Academy revealed today, with Spanish-language station Kvea next at 20.

Spectrum News 1 is the only other outlet with double-digit noms, scoring 14. KTLA5 and ABC7 were next with nine and seven, respectively. See the full list of nominees below.

The L.A. Area Emmys honor locally produced programs in 34 categories spanning Crime and Social Issues, Culture and History, the Arts, Human Interest, Sports, the Environment, and Live and Breaking News Coverage. The hardware will be handed out Saturday, July 28, at the Four Seasons Hotel Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills. Journalist Michaela Pereira will host the ceremony.

Here are the nominees for the 75th Los Angeles Area Emmy Awards:

L.A. Local Color

Giant Robot (Artbound) • Kcet

Angela Boisvert, Executive Producer

Juan Devis, Executive Producer

Nic Cha Kim, Producer

Dylan Robertson, Director, Producer

Dennis Nishi,...

Disney has let go SVP and Chief Compliance Officer Alicia Schwarz, Deadline has learned, amid a major retrenchment at the company.

Her role will be absorbed by Senior Executive Vice President and General Counsel Horacio Gutierrez. She joined the company in 2014 as principal counsel, later serving as Vice President and Assistant General Counsel, as well as Global Deputy Chief Compliance Counsel.

The corporate compliance function oversees compliance with Disney’s global ethics and standards of business conduct and manages regulatory compliance with anti-corruption and trade law.

Disney under chief executive Bob Iger is in the midst of a sweeping overhaul that includes rounds of layoffs – the first starting this week – in a push to cut billions in costs against an uncertain background for media and the broader economy.

All told, the cuts will target 7,000 staffers. As Deadline reported, an initial exodus is related to a consolidation of production operations across Disney TV Studios,...

Jeffrey R. Epstein, a vice president of corporate communications for Disney and the man who spearheaded the official Disney fan club D23, was among those laid off this week, TheWrap has confirmed.

Previously working under Zenia Mucha, the feared and respected former senior executive vice president and Cco (otherwise known as the “Director of Revenge”), Epstein is perhaps best known as the spokesperson for D23 – an official Disney fan club that included a quarterly published glossy magazine and, eventually, an official fan convention known as D23 Expo, held every other year in Anaheim, California. Stephen Clark initially developed the concept and the current president of D23 is Michael Vargo.

The last D23 Expo event was held in 2022, having its schedule thrown off by the pandemic. Epstein additionally co-hosted a D23-themed podcast, “D23 Inside Disney,” along with Oh My Disney’s Sheri Henry.

News of the ouster came from six...

As part of the impending mass layoffs that will impact as many as 7,000 employees, Disney is eliminating its metaverse division, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

The metaverse team, per WSJ, was tasked with “fiinding ways to tell interactive stories in new technological formats using Disney’s extensive library of intellectual property.” It employed approximately 50 people, all of whom have been let go, according to WSJ. However, the division’s boss, former Disney consumer products executive Mike White, remains with the company in an undetermined capacity.

Representatives for Disney didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from TheWrap.

The move comes just over a year after Disney created the division under former CEO Bob Chapek. In February 2022, in a memo to employees, Chapek wrote that the team would “create an entirely new paradigm for how audiences experience and engage with our stories.”

Chapek doubled down on the metaverse...

Exclusive: More changes at Paramount+: Tanya Giles, the streaming platform’s chief programming officer, is leaving after a combined 28 years at Paramount Global and its various iterations. A rep for Paramount+ confirmed Giles’ departure to Deadline, declining further comment. There is no immediate replacement, and Giles’ decision to step down is not part of a restructuring, sources said.

Related Story Disney General Entertainment Layoffs Include Mark Levenstein, Jayne Bieber & Elizabeth Newman As TV Production Gets Consolidated, IP Acquisitions Dissolved Related Story Paramount+ International Rollout Could Have Been Speedier, But Marco Nobili "Proud" Related Story 'A Gentleman In Moscow': Leah Harvey, Paul Ready & More Join Paramount+ & Showtime Drama Series

Giles was named to the role in June 2021 as part of a content leadership restructure at Paramount+. She has been overseeing a programming strategy for content offerings across the streamer and Pluto TV.

Giles is the third Paramount+ executive...

The first round of layoffs at Walt Disney, announced this morning in a company-wide memo, are already beginning to include some major losses.

Multiple media sources affirm that among those getting the pink slip are Mark Levenstein, Hulu’s senior vice president of production, and Jayne Bieber, Freeform’s senior vice president of production management and operations. Additionally, the VP of development who oversees creative acquisitions for 20th Television Studios, Elizabeth Newman, is being let go.

Newman’s acquisitions department will be dissolved, with its functions being absorbed by the studio. Bieber and Levenstein’s respective production teams will be folded under Carol Turner, currently ABC Signature’s EVP of production. She’s now expected to take on an expanded role with network and platform production for scripted television across Disney Entertainment being consolidated under her. She will report to Eric Schrier, president of Disney Television Studios and global original television strategy for Disney Entertainment.

Updated: Details are starting to emerge about the first wave of Disney layoffs. It involves a consolidation of production operations across Disney TV Studios, Hulu, Freeform and FX under Carol Turner and the shutdown of the studio operation’s Creative Acquisitions department.

Carol Turner

Mark Levenstein, SVP Production for Hulu, and Jayne Bieber, SVP, Production Management & Operations for Freeform, are leaving as Turner, EVP and head of production for ABC Signature, is taking on an expanded role, with Network and Platform production for scripted television across Disney Entertainment getting consolidated under her. 20th Television EVP and head of production Nissa Diederich, and Nick Lombardo, SVP and head of production for FX, will now to report to her.

In her new role, Turner will report to Eric Schrier, Disney Television Studios & Global Original Television Strategy for Disney Entertainment.

Additionally, Elizabeth Newman, VP of Development who was based at 20th Television while...

Layoffs have begun in Disney’s television divisions.

Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Monday’s layoffs focused production and acquisitions. Among the notable staffers let go Monday are Jayne Bieber, senior vp production at Freeform/Onyx Collective; Mark Levenstein, head of production and postproduction at Hulu; and Elizabeth Newman, head of Disney’s acquisitions department.

Sources note Newman’s entire acquisitions team has been dissolved, while Bieber and Levenstein’s production teams will be folded under Carol Turner, exec vp production at ABC Signature. That team will continue to report to Eric Schrier, whom Dana Walden promoted late last year to president of Disney Television Studios and business operations at Disney General Entertainment.

Details on the size of Monday’s layoffs or what percentage of Disney’s workforce were impacted were not immediately available as additional TV side layoffs are expected to come by week’s end, with the largest round coming in April.

Why Watch? Because insomnia is a killer. So is questioning your reality. With just a tint of the particular brand of post-modern cleverness that Rubber had, this short features a man who can’t get to sleep and soon comes face to face with the hallucinations that not getting 40 winks can cause. But what if those hallucinations are real? And what do they have to do with the qualities of digital cameras? What Will It Cost? Just 12 minutes of your time. Does it get better any better than that? Check out The Glitch for yourself: The Glitch (2008) Written and Directed by: Joe Fordham Starring: Scott Charles, Elizabeth Newman, Scott Gerard, and Therese McLaughlin Trust us. You have time for more short films.