16th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards®

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:  Rosalind Jarrett
(310) 235-1030 - publicity@sagawards.org

Key Creative Team Returns for the 16th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® 

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SAG Awards® will be Simulcast on TNT and TBS on Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010, Preceded by “TNT and PEOPLE Present

the SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS® RED CARPET SHOW”

LOS ANGELES (Jan. 6, 2010) - Jeff Margolis, executive producer and director of the 16th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards®, announced that the team of talented producers and artists behind previous SAG Awards are returning to create this year’s ceremonies. The 16th Annual SAG Awards® also marks the 12th consecutive year Jeff Margolis Productions has produced the Actors® in association with Screen Actors Guild Awards, LLC.

The 16h Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremonies will be simulcast live on TNT and TBS from the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center on Saturday, Jan. 23, at 8 p.m. (ET/PT), 7 p.m. (CT) and 6 p.m. (MT). An encore presentation will air on TNT at 11 p.m. (ET/PT). (Viewers watching via satellite or in HD should check local listings.)

Preceding the SAG Awards® ceremony will be the premiere of “TNT and PEOPLE Magazine Present the SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS® RED CARPET SHOW” at 7:30 p.m. (ET/PT), 6:30 p.m. (CT) and 5:30 p.m. (MT) and the annual tnt.tv and tbs.com Red Carpet Webcast at 6:30 p.m. (ET), 5:30 p.m (CT), 4:30 p.m. (MT) and 3:30 p.m. (PT).

 “The whole Jeff Margolis Productions team is thrilled to come together for our 12th SAG Awards,” said Margolis. “Each year we look forward to the SAG Awards as a reunion of creative colleagues and an opportunity for fresh collaboration. We take great pride in designing a memorable evening for both our community of actors at the Awards ceremony and for our audience at home which has grown consistently year after year.”

Jeff Margolis first took the helm as executive producer of acting’s most glamorous evening with the 5th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. This year’s 16th Annual SAG Awards also marks the fourth consecutive year Margolis is bringing his Emmy® and DGA Award-winning directing talents to the Guild’s annual awards ceremony.

Kathy Connell will produce the Screen Actors Guild Awards for the 16th consecutive year (the first two were as a producer for SAG). Connell is also Screen Actors Guild’s executive producer for national programming and in 2007-2008 produced the Guild’s year-long award-winning celebration of its 75th Anniversary.

The Awards Committee for Screen Actors Guild—Chair JoBeth Williams, Vice-chair Daryl Anderson, newest committee member Scott Bakula and veterans Shelley Fabares and Paul Napier—will produce for SAG.

Gloria Fujita O’Brien and Mick McCullough of Jeff Margolis Productions return as supervising producers for the 12th consecutive year. 

Peabody Award winner Stephen Pouliot will be writing his 12th SAG Awards script. In addition to the SAG Awards, has collaborated with Jeff Margolis on numerous specials, including “CBS: 50 Years from Television City,” and “A Gala for the President at Ford’s Theatre.” Other specials he has written include “The 9/11 Concert for New York City”, the Academy Awards® and the Opening Ceremonies for the 2007 International Summer Olympic Games.

Also returning is the SAG Awards’ executive in charge of production since 1999, Benn Fleishman. He was a 2008 Emmy® nominee for the HBO special “Bill Maher: The Decider.” And a 2009 Emmy nominee for “Ricky Gervais: Out of England”, also on HBO.  In the interim between the 15th and 16th Screen Actors Guild Awards he served as production executive on the Creative Arts Emmy Awards”, Bravo’s A-List Awards and The Game Show Awards for the Game Show Network.

Production designers John Shaffner & Joe Stewart, who together share 30 Emmy nominations, an Art Directors Guild Award for the 2006 Emmy Awards plus four Art Directors Guild nominations and five Emmys (including their 2005 kudo for “The George Lopez Show”), will be designing their seventh new set for the SAG Awards.  Shaffner is the chair of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Board of Governors, on which Stewart serves as a Governor representing the Art Directors/Set Decorators Peer Group.

Also returning for his seventh year is lighting designer Jeffrey Engel, an Emmy-winner and 21-time Emmy nominee for such projects as the 63rd and 64th Academy Awards®, both directed by Margolis.

Composer and conductor Lenny Stack, an Emmy-winner for music arranging for the Screen Actors Guild 50th Anniversary Special and composer of the current SAG Awards theme, returns for his 12th Screen Actors Guild Awards. Stack has also been musical director for the Golden Globe® Awards since 1994.

Maggie Barrett Caulfield, executive in charge of talent since 2001, returns for her 10th SAG Awards.

Rosalind Jarrett, executive in charge of publicity, returns for her 11th SAG Awards. A 2009 nominee for the ICG Publicists Les Mason Award for Career Achievement, she was previously honored with the Publicists Guild’s Maxwell Weinberg Showmanship Award.

Awards Coordinating Producer Jon Brockett is returning for his 11th SAG Awards.

Filmmaker Douglass M. Stewart Jr. will produce the film salute lauding the accomplishments of SAG Life Achievement Award honoree Betty White. A veteran of 28 Oscar® telecasts and 13 Emmy shows, eight-time Emmy nominee Stewart returns for his sixth SAG Awards telecast.

Paul Fagen will produce the SAG Awards “In Memoriam” homage for the fourth consecutive year.  Fagen produces live film events specializing in celebrity tributes and award shows. With his company P. Fagen Productions he also produces tribute reels, industrial films and documentaries. In the past 2 years, Fagen has honored celebrities such as: Clint Eastwood, Kate Winslet, Penelope Cruz, Ed Harris, Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones. A veteran of Los Angeles theater, Fagen was producing artistic director of 2nd Stage in Hollywood from 1984-1997.

Quinn Monahan is producing the SAG Awards annual salute to Guild members for the fourth successive year. Monahan has created film packages for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and last year for the TBS comedy special, “Cheech & Chong Roasted.” He is currently Director and Co-Creator of the Internet series, “Game Dads”. His work will also be featured in this year’s Miss America broadcast.

Cynthia Kistler, has served the SAG Awards as associate producer since 2002 and was production manager from 1999-2001. In the interim between the 15th and 16th Screen Actors Guild Awards she served as associate producer on the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, Tecate Premios Deportes, The Game Show Awards and Bravo’s A-List Awards.

Also returning for his 13th SAG Awards is Keaton S. Walker, who has served as the SAG Awards art director since 1997.  Walker is a multiple Emmy and Art Director’s Guild honoree for his work on the Oscars and the Emmys.

Keith Greco returns for the seventh year to design the Award ceremonies’ grand entrance and showroom décor. Among many recent projects, Greco Décor created scenery elements for the Emmys’ Governors Ball and the Annual City of Hope Spirit Awards, and created the premiere event for Cirque du Soleil’s “CHRIS ANGEL® Believe™” in Las Vegas.

SAG Awards event supervisor Andrea Wyn Schall, a two-time Special Events Gala award nominee and author of Budget Bash – Simply Fabulous Events on a Budget returns for the 11th year to coordinate event design and logistics. She and Greco will again create the Champagne Taittinger toast that opens the SAG Awards Red Carpet.

“The 16th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards” will be produced by Jeff Margolis Productions in association with Screen Actors Guild Awards®, LLC. Jeff Margolis is the executive producer and director. Kathy Connell is the producer. JoBeth Williams, Daryl Anderson, Scott Bakula, Shelley Fabares and Paul Napier are producers for SAG. Gloria Fujita O’Brien and Mick McCullough are supervising producers. Benn Fleishman is executive in charge of production.  More information is available online at www.sagawards.org.

Screen Actors Guild is the nation’s largest labor union representing working actors. Established in 1933, SAG has a rich history in the American labor movement, from standing up to studios to break long-term engagement contracts in the 1940s to fighting for artists’ rights amid the digital revolution sweeping the entertainment industry in the 21st century. With 20 branches nationwide, SAG represents more than 120,000 actors who work in film and digital theatrical motion pictures and television programs, commercials, video games, industrials, Internet and all new media formats.  The Guild exists to enhance actors’ working conditions, compensation and benefits and to be a powerful, unified voice on behalf of artists’ rights. Headquartered in Los Angeles, SAG is a proud affiliate of the AFL-CIO. More information is available online at www.sag.org.

TBS, a division of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., is television's top-rated comedy network.  It serves as home to such original comedy series as "My Boys," Tyler Perry's “House of Payne" and “Meet the Browns,” as well as the upcoming “Neighbors from Hell”; late-night series like “Lopez Tonight,” starring George Lopez, and “The Very Funny Show,” hosted by Tim Meadows; hot contemporary comedies like "The Office," "My Name is Earl," "Family Guy” and "Seinfeld"; specials like "Funniest Commercials of the Year"; special events, including star-studded comedy festivals in Chicago and Las Vegas; blockbuster movies; and hosted movie showcases.

Turner Network Television (TNT), one of cable's top-rated networks, is television's destination for drama and home to such original series as the acclaimed and highly popular detective drama "The Closer," starring Kyra Sedgwick; "Men of a Certain Age," starring Ray Romano, Andre Braugher and Scott Bakula; "Saving Grace," starring Holly Hunter; "Leverage," starring Timothy Hutton; "HawthoRNe," with Jada Pinkett Smith; and "Dark Blue" starring Dylan McDermott, as well as the newly acquired "Southland."  TNT also presents such powerful dramas, such as "Bones," "CSI: NY" and "Numb3rs"; broadcast premiere movies; compelling primetime specials, such as the "Screen Actors Guild Awards(r)"; and championship sports coverage, including NASCAR and the NBA.  TNT is available in high-definition.

Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner company, creates and programs branded news, entertainment, animation and young adult media environments on television and other platforms for consumers around the world.

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Jeff Margolis Productions in association with Screen Actors Guild Awards®, LLC
phone  310.235.1030  •  fax  310.235.1032  • e-mail  awardspr@sagawards.org  •  web  www.sagawards.org
1401 Westwood Boulevard  •  Suite 300  •  Los Angeles, CA 90024  •  Airs Saturday, January 23, 2010 on TNT & TBS