Jeff Margolis, executive producer and director of the 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, announced the team of talented producers and artists who will create this year’s ceremonies. “We look forward to the SAG Awards® as an opportunity for fresh collaboration with an outstanding group of creative colleagues,” said Margolis, whose Jeff Margolis Productions produces the awards telecast, presented by SAG-AFTRA, in association with Screen Actors Guild Awards, LLC. “We take great pride in designing a memorable evening for both the community of actors at the awards ceremony and for our audience at home which has grown consistently year after year.”
Margolis has executive produced acting’s most glamorous evening since the 5th Annual SAG Awards and served as the telecast’s director since the 13th ceremony. Kathy Connell has produced the Screen Actors Guild Awards® since its inception. Connell is also SAG-AFTRA’s assistant national executive director of awards and national programming.
The Awards Committee for Screen Actors Guild — Chair JoBeth Williams, Vice Chair Daryl Anderson, Committee members Scott Bakula, Shelley Fabares, Paul Napier and Woody Schultz — oversees all stages of the production. Supervising producers are Gloria Fujita O’Brien and Mick McCullough. Fujita O’Brien, who met Jeff Margolis on ABC’s primetime special airing of the “Special Olympics Opening Ceremonies,” has spearheaded project development and show production for Jeff Margolis Productions since 1988. McCullough was brought aboard to produce the “72nd Annual Miss America Pageant” in 1992. Twenty years later, Fujita O’Brien and McCullough continue to serve as producers on most Jeff Margolis Productions projects.
Executive in Charge of Production Benn Fleishman is a three-time Emmy® nominee for the HBO specials “Bill Maher…But I’m Not Wrong” (2010), “Ricky Gervais: Out of England” (2009) and “Bill Maher: The Decider” (2008). He most recently served as supervising producer on “George Lopez: It’s Not Me, it’s You” on HBO and the syndicated “A Hollywood Christmas Celebration at the Grove.” He line-produced the “Creative Arts Emmy Awards,” the “NewNowNext Awards” for Logo and the 2012 “Do Something Awards” for VH1.
Emmy-winning scribe Dave Boone joins the SAG Awards for the first time after years of writing for such awards shows as the TV Land Awards, the Golden Globes®, the Tony Awards® and the Academy Awards®. He recently finished writing for the 15th season of ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars.” Boone and Jeff Margolis first collaborated on “The First Family’s Holiday Gift to America: A Tour of the White House” with President and Mrs. Clinton back in 2000.
Production designers John Shaffner & Joe Stewart have been honored with 34 Emmy nominations, an Art Directors Guild Award for the 2006 Emmy Awards, plus four Art Directors Guild nominations and five Emmys. Shaffner was the chair of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Board of Governors, while Stewart serves as chair of the Academy’s Governor’s Ball and Sculpture committees.
Lighting designer Jeffrey Engel is an Emmy-winner and 22-time Emmy nominee for such projects as the 63rd and 64th Academy Awards. He has also led the lighting design for “The 78th Annual Miss America Pageant,” “The 79th Annual Miss America Pageant, “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy.”
Composer and conductor Lenny Stack is an Emmy-winner for music arranging for the “Screen Actors Guild 50th Anniversary Special” and composer of the current SAG Awards theme. Stack is also the musical director for the Golden Globe ceremony.
Eight-time Emmy nominee Douglass M. Stewart Jr. will produce the film tribute saluting the accomplishments of SAG Life Achievement Award honoree Dick Van Dyke. Stewart is a veteran of 28 Oscar® telecasts, 13 Emmy shows and 20 Emmy nominations announcements.
Paul Fagen will produce the SAG Awards’ In Memoriam homage. Fagen produces content for live events specializing in tributes and award shows. With his company P. Fagen Productions, he also produces/directs trailers, industrials and documentaries.
Quinn Monahan is producing the SAG Awards’ annual salute to union members. Monahan has created film packages for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the Costume Designers Guild Awards.
Keith Greco will design the SAG Awards’ grand entrance and showroom décor. Among many recent entertainment and corporate projects, Greco Décor designed the premiere for Cirque du Soleil’s “Zarkana” debut in Las Vegas and spearheaded the construction of the world’s largest paper airplane for Red Bull. He also created the scenic components for the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride in Griffith Park, which drew 50,000 visitors.
Maggie Barrett-Caulfield returns as the SAG Awards’ talent producer for the 12th year.
Rosalind Jarrett Sepulveda, executive in charge of publicity, was the 2011 recipient of the ICG Publicists Bob Yeager Award for community service. She was previously honored with the Publicists Guild’s 1986 and 1991 Maxwell Weinberg Showmanship Awards.
SAG Awards coordinating producer Jon Brockett began his career at SAG in 1996 at the New York office in production development and later served as interim co-director of SAG Indie. He joined the SAG Awards in 1998.
Cynthia Kistler has served as the SAG Awards’ associate producer since 2002 — and previously was the Awards’ production manager, 1999-2001. She most recently was associate producer on the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, the 2012 “Do Something Awards” for VH1, the “NewNowNext Awards” for Logo, and the syndicated “A Hollywood Christmas Celebration at the Grove.”
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,” coordinates the Awards’ event design and logistics. She and Greco create the Champagne Taittinger toast that opens the SAG Awards Red Carpet.
Lucques Catering, under the direction of celebrated restaurateurs Suzanne Goin, a James Beard award-winning chef, and business partner Caroline Styne, will cater the SAG Awards for the fourth year in a row. Goin and Styne own three of Los Angeles’ hottest restaurants: Lucques, Tavern and A.O.C. They’re in the process of expanding their empire (which includes The Larder at Tavern and The Larder on Maple Drive), with The Larder at Burton Way, The Larder at Tavern at the Tom Bradley International Terminal, and a new restaurant concept in Montecito. They share the SAG Awards’ philosophy of “going green” in their choices of food purveyors and culinary practices, while offering the impeccable service that a televised awards show requires.
Lucques’ menu will be complemented by Champagne Taittinger’s Brut La Française, which is also served in the Champagne Taittinger toast that opens the SAG Awards Red Carpet each year.
Punctuating the dinner table design will be the classic Hollywood-inspired floral arrangements by Christopher Matsumoto of C.J. Matsumoto & Sons. C.J. Matsumoto & Sons was co-named Best Florist by Southern California Meetings and Events Magazine in their 2010 Best of Industry Awards.
While the showroom is being transformed, rising in the Shrine’s east parking lot is the tent housing the post-awards gala hosted by People, the world’s most successful and popular magazine, and the Entertainment Industry Foundation, a philanthropic leader in the entertainment industry for 70 years, to honor the charitable endeavors of SAG-AFTRA members. EIF and People not only throw the fabulous SAG Awards after-party to honor actors charitable endeavors but also make a generous annual donation to support the SAG Foundation.