Hollywood, Broadway alums spark new class

An innovative new class is tapping the UW–Madison’s pipeline to the entertainment industry, bringing back alumni who have made a splash in Hollywood and on Broadway to share their experiences with students and the public.

“We like to promote role models for students and show them what can be done in the industry, and having close contact with professionals enables them to set high goals for themselves,” says Tino Balio, a professor of film in the Department of Communication Arts. Balio is teaching a course titled “The American Film Industry in the Age of Television – The Madison Connection.”

The class offers plenty of star power, featuring lectures by UW–Madison alumni who have risen to prominence in the entertainment world. Among them are film producers Walter Mirisch and Jerry Zucker, author and critic Richard Schickel, and media consultant Lee deBoer, who spent 19 years as an executive at Home Box Office, where he helped the cable network grow from its infancy.

On March 3, the class will feature a lecture by Broadway producers Rocco Landesman and Rick Steiner. They will speak at 4:30 p.m. in Vilas Hall’s Mitchell Theater. The lectures are free and open to the public. Vilas Hall is at 821 University Ave.

Landesman has been associated with more than 40 Broadway productions in the past 20 years, including “The Producers,” “Grease!” and “Smokey Joe’s Café.” He also serves as president of Jujamcyn Theaters, a consortium of five Broadway theaters and the third largest of the Broadway theater-ownership groups.

Steiner is the producer of a series of acclaimed original Broadway musicals, including “Hairspray,” which won the 2003 Tony Award for best musical, and “The Producers,” which won the same award in 2001.

On March 24, producer Deborah Schindler will speak in Room 4070 at Vilas Hall. Schindler is head of the New York-based Red Om Films, and is Julia Roberts’ producing partner. Red Om Films is based at Revolution Studios East where Roberts and Schindler work in association with Revolution Studios partner Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas. Schindler has produced, among others, the films “Mona Lisa Smile,” “Maid in Manhattan” and “How Stella Got Her Groove Back.”

Balio said the idea for the class grew out of a series of classes sponsored last year by the UW Arts Institute that brought design consultants for the new Overture Center to campus to discuss their work on the Cesar Pelli-designed performing arts complex being built in downtown Madison.

“We saw this as another opportunity to bring in professionals to discuss their work in a way that was relevant to students,” says Balio, executive director of the Arts Institute. “We floated the idea with a group of alums last year during a trip to Los Angeles, and people responded to the idea almost immediately.”

Balio is working with the UW Foundation to help bring the alumni to campus. Already this semester, students have enjoyed lectures by screenwriter, director and producer Jim Abrahams and Sidney Iwanter, a 25-year veteran in the competitive world of family programming on broadcast and cable television.

The resumes of the participants in Balio’s class are peppered with entertainment successes.

For instance, Mirisch, a 1942 graduate, is recognized as one of Hollywood’s most creative producers. His partnership with brothers Harold and Marvin to produce films for United Artists yielded more than 60 films – and Academy Awards for “The Apartment,” “West Side Story,” and “In the Heat of the Night.”

Schickel, a 1956 graduate, is an author and former film critic for Life magazine. Since 1972 he has produced, written or directed more than 30 television programs and documentaries on film history as president of Lorac Productions.

Zucker gained fame, along with his brother, David Zucker, and Jim Abrahams, for producing “Airplane!” along with the “Naked Gun” series of movies and the television series “Police Squad.”

Another expected participant is James Hirsch, an award-winning writer-producer who, along with business partner Robert Papazian, has produced and/or written more than 100 television movies, mini-series and series, including the CBS series “Nash Bridges.”

Among some of the other speakers expected to participate are:

• Edward Greenberg, managing director and global telecom strategist for Morgan Stanley’s Investment Banking Division and a former economist with the Federal Communications Commission, and
• William Immerman, a specialist in entertainment law who serves as vice president and chief operating officer of Crusader Entertainment in Beverly Hills and former executive at Twentieth Century-Fox, Cinema Group and Cannon Pictures.

Dates for all but the March 3 and March 24 appearances are tentative, and will be announced as they become available.

Balio says having such a distinguished lineup of speakers, with their broad spectrum of experience, is valuable to students.

“The hope is that some of the ambition that has marked the careers of our graduates will rub off on our students and give them some tools that they can use to build their own careers in entertainment,” he says.