Drama

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Drama

‘Vida’ on Starz: Home Is Where Your Secrets Are

May 2, 2018 Lori Acken

Though she’s worked on high-profile series with diverse casts and bold storytelling, writer/producer Tanya Saracho knew something was still missing in the modern TV landscape: a series that reflected her own life and lineage. So Saracho, who proudly identifies as queer and prefers the gender-neutral term Latinx over Latina/Latino, created Vida, a gutsy dramedy about estranged Los Angeles sisters whose return home forces them to confront myriad truths about their mother, their past and their own self-images as Americans of Mexican heritage. “Most of our department heads are female,” said Saracho of the show’s proudly female and inclusive pedigree, at […]

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‘Howards End’ on Starz: Hayley Atwell Talks the Schlegel Sisters’ Bond

April 8, 2018 Lori Acken

In 1992, famed filmmakers James Ivory (a 2018 Oscar winner for Call Me by Your Name) and Ismail Merchant and their trusted screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala debuted a lush film adaptation of the E.M. Forster masterpiece Howards End. Beautifully rendered and perfectly cast — Emma Thompson, Anthony Hopkins, Helena Bonham Carter and Vanessa Redgrave starred — the tale of economic class, family bonds and social conventions in turn-of-the-century England became an instant classic, earning Oscars for Thompson and Jhabvala. Twenty-five years later, the BBC revisited the epic as a four-part miniseries, which makes its American debut this month on Starz. […]

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NBC’s New “Rise” Pits Football Against Theater

March 13, 2018 Barb Oates

Fans of Parenthood and Friday Night Lights will appreciate producer and showrunner Jason Katims applying what he does best — creating heartfelt family-fueled dramas — to his latest project Rise (Tuesdays at 10/9c). With hints of FNL, Smash and Glee (Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller is also involved), Katims introduces us to a working-class town where football rules and the theater program is simply an afterthought, if a thought at all. Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother) stars as a dedicated American lit teacher and family man who re-energizes his life when he asks to take on the high school’s […]