PBS 50th Anniversary TCA Summer 2020

Panelist Bios

Paula Kerger Paula A. Kerger is president and chief executive officer of PBS, the nation’s largest non-commercial media organization, with more than 330 member stations throughout the country. Having joined PBS in March 2006, Kerger is the longest-serving president and CEO in PBS history. Under Kerger’s leadership, PBS has grown its audiences across genres and platforms. PBS has moved from the 14th most-watched network in America to number seven in the past decade. Over the course of a year, 83% percent of all U.S. television

households watch PBS, and each month, Americans view nearly 300 million videos across PBS’s web, mobile and connected device platforms. Since Kerger’s arrival, PBS has consistently presented high-quality, groundbreaking content that delivers on the founding mission of public television — to educate, inspire and entertain the American people. Among her accomplishments are the pop culture phenomenon “Downton Abbey” on MASTERPIECE; Ken Burns’s and Lynn Novick’s critically acclaimed THE VIETNAM WAR; the documentary “Hamilton’s America,” about the Broadway smash hit musical, on GREAT PERFORMANCES; “Freedom Riders” on AMERICAN EXPERIENCE; and award-winning children’s programs such as DANIEL TIGER’S NEIGHBORHOOD. In the past year, PBS and its producing partners have been recognized with several prestigious honors, including seven Peabody Awards, six Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards and nine News & Documentary Emmy Awards. Kerger has made particularly strong commitments to PBS’s work in children’s education. She led the historic launch of the PBS KIDS 24/7 broadcast and streaming channel, ensuring that PBS’s educational programming can reach children anytime and anywhere through local stations. In addition, Kerger oversaw the development of PBS LearningMedia, which empowers teachers across America to engage and inspire their students with high-quality digital content. Kerger also serves as president of the PBS Foundation, an independent organization that raises private sector funding — a significant source of revenue for new projects at PBS.

Kerger is regularly included in the Hollywood Reporter’s “Women in Entertainment Power 100,” an annual survey of the nation’s top women executives in media, as well as Washingtonian Magazine’s “Most Powerful Women in Washington.” She has been honored with the Woman of Achievement Award from Women in Development, New York; the National Education Association Friend of Education Award; the Giants of Broadcasting Award; the Realscreen Hall of Fame Award; and Promax/BDA, B&C and Multichannel News Brand Builder Award. In 2017, she received the Advancing American Democracy Award from the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site. Prior to joining PBS, Kerger served for more than a decade at Educational Broadcasting Corporation (EBC), the parent company of Thirteen/WNET and WLIW21 New York, where her ultimate position was executive vice president and chief operating officer. Her tenure boasts many achievements, including WNET’s completion in 1997 of the largest successful endowment campaign ever undertaken by a public television station. Kerger received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Baltimore, where she serves on the Merrick School of Business Dean’s Advisory Council. She has received honorary doctorates from Washington University in St. Louis, Grand Valley State University, Allegheny College, Northeastern University and the University of North Carolina Asheville. She is a member of the Women’s Forum, director of the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, a member of Meredith Corporation’s Board of Directors and chair of the board of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History.

Judy Woodruff Broadcast journalist Judy Woodruff is the anchor and managing editor of the PBS NewsHour. She has covered politics and other news for five decades at NBC, CNN and PBS. At PBS from 1983 to 1993, she was the chief Washington correspondent for the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. From 1984 to 1990, she also anchored PBS's award-winning documentary series "Frontline with Judy Woodruff." Moving to CNN in 1993, she served as anchor and senior correspondent for 12 years; among other duties, she anchored the weekday program "Inside

Politics." She returned to the NewsHour in 2007, and in 2013, she and the late Gwen Ifill were named the first two women to co-anchor a national news broadcast. After Ifill's death, Woodruff was named sole anchor. In 2011, Judy was the anchor and reporter for the PBS documentary "Nancy Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime." And in 2007, she completed an extensive project on the views of young Americans, titled "Generation Next: Speak Up. Be Heard." Two hour-long

documentaries aired on PBS, along with a series of reports on the “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” NPR, in USA Today and on Yahoo News. From 2006 to 2013, Judy anchored a monthly program for Bloomberg Television, "Conversations with Judy Woodruff." In 2006, she was a visiting professor at Duke University's Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy. In 2005, she was a visiting fellow at Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. At NBC News, Woodruff was White House correspondent from 1977 to 1982. For one year after that, she served as NBC's “Today Show” chief Washington correspondent. She wrote the book This is Judy Woodruff at the White House, published in 1982 by Addison-Wesley. Her reporting career began in Atlanta, where she covered state and local government. Woodruff is a founding co-chair of the International Women's Media Foundation, an organization dedicated to promoting and encouraging women in journalism and communication industries worldwide. She serves on the boards of trustees of the Freedom Forum, The Duke Endowment and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and is a director of Public Radio International and the National Association to End Homelessness. She is a former member of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, a former director of the National Museum of American History and a former trustee of the Urban Institute. Judy is a graduate of Duke University, where she is a trustee emerita. She is the recent recipient of the Radcliffe Medal, the Poynter Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism, the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism from Arizona State University. She received the Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award in Television from Washington State University, the Gaylord Prize for Excellence in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Oklahoma and the Al Neuharth Award for Excellence in the Media from the University of South Dakota. She was inducted into the Georgia Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame and received the Leonard Zeidenberg First Amendment Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association and the Duke Distinguished Alumni Award, among others. She is the recipient of more than 25 honorary degrees. Judy lives in Washington, DC, with her husband, journalist Al Hunt. They are the parents of three children: Jeffrey, Benjamin and Lauren.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker and literary scholar. He is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He has authored or co-authored 24 books and created 21 documentary films. His six-part PBS documentary series THE AFRICAN AMERICANS: MANY RIVERS TO CROSS (2013), which he wrote, executive produced and hosted, earned the Emmy Award for Outstanding Historical Program — Long Form, as well as the Peabody Award, Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award

and NAACP Image Award. Professor Gates also wrote, executive produced and hosted the Emmy Award-nominated two-part PBS documentary series BLACK AMERICA SINCE MLK: AND STILL I RISE (2016), chronicling the last 50 years of African American history in the U.S. In addition to the ongoing production of FINDING YOUR ROOTS, his most recent projects include the three-part PBS documentary series AFRICA’S GREAT CIVILIZATIONS (2017), the four-hour PBS history series RECONSTRUCTION: AMERICA AFTER THE CIVIL WAR (2019), winner of the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, and the related books Dark Sky Rising: Reconstruction and the Dawn of Jim Crow with Tonya Bolden (Scholastic, 2019) and Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow (Penguin Random House, 2019) a New York Times Notable Book of 2019. Having written for such leading publications as The New Yorker, The New York Times and Time, Professor Gates serves as chairman of TheRoot.com, a daily online magazine he co-founded in 2008, and chair of the Creative Board of FUSION TV. He oversees the Oxford African American Studies Center, the first comprehensive scholarly online resource in the field, and has received grant funding to develop a FINDING YOUR ROOTS curriculum to teach students science through genetics and genealogy. The recipient of 56 honorary degrees and numerous prizes, Professor Gates was a member of the first class awarded “genius grants” by the MacArthur Foundation in 1981, and in 1998, he became the first African American scholar to be awarded the National Humanities Medal. He earned his B.A. in English language and literature, summa cum laude, from Yale University in 1973, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in English literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge in 1979.

Ken Burns Ken Burns has been making documentary films for over 40 years. Since the Academy Award-nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, Ken has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made, including The Civil War; Baseball; Jazz; The War; The National Parks: America’s Best Idea; The Roosevelts: An Intimate History; Jackie Robinson; The Vietnam War; and Country Music. A December 2002 poll conducted by Real Screen Magazine listed The Civil War as second only to Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North as the “most influential documentary of all time,” and

named Ken Burns and Robert Flaherty as the “most influential documentary makers” of all time. In March 2009, David Zurawik of The Baltimore Sun said, “… Burns is not only the greatest documentarian of the day, but also the most influential filmmaker period. That includes feature filmmakers like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. I say that because Burns not only turned millions of persons onto history with his films, he showed us a new way of looking at our collective past and ourselves.” The late historian Stephen Ambrose said of his films, "More Americans get their history from Ken Burns than any other source." And Wynton Marsalis has called Ken “a master of timing, and of knowing the sweet spot of a story, of how to ask questions to get to the basic human feeling and to draw out the true spirit of a given subject.” Future film projects include Hemingway, Muhammad Ali, The Holocaust and the United States, Benjamin Franklin, The American Buffalo, Leonardo da Vinci, The American Revolution, LBJ & the Great Society, and Emancipation to Exodus, among others. Ken’s films have been honored with dozens of major awards, including 16 Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards and two Oscar nominations; and in September of 2008, at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Ken was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

FRONTLINE Executive Producer Raney Aronson-Rath Raney Aronson-Rath is the executive producer of FRONTLINE, PBS’ flagship investigative journalism series, and is a leading voice on the future of journalism. From the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic to the true toll of Flint’s water crisis to the consequences of Amazon’s global dominance, Aronson-Rath oversees FRONTLINE’s acclaimed investigative reporting on air and online and directs the series’ editorial vision — executive producing more than 20 in-depth documentaries each year on critical issues facing the country and the world. FRONTLINE has won every major award in broadcast journalism under Aronson-Rath’s leadership, including Emmy Awards, the first Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Gold Baton to be awarded in a decade, and the series’ first-ever Peabody Institutional Award. Aronson-Rath has also expanded FRONTLINE’s theatrical documentary footprint, with the series earning its first-ever Academy Award nomination for Abacus: Small Enough to Jail in 2018 and its second in 2020 for For Sama. The 2019 Hearst Digital Media Lecturer at Columbia Journalism School, Aronson-Rath has spoken on journalism and filmmaking at the Skoll World Forum, the TV Next Summit, the Power of Narrative Journalism Conference, and at universities including Stanford, UC Berkeley, NYU and MIT. She is a member of the Board of Visitors for Columbia University’s journalism school, and serves on the Advisory Board of Columbia Global Reports. Aronson-Rath joined FRONTLINE’s staff as a senior producer in 2007 after producing notable FRONTLINE documentaries including News War, The Last Abortion Clinic, The Jesus Factor, Law & Disorder, and Post Mortem. She was named deputy executive producer by the series’ founder, David Fanning, in 2012, and then became executive producer in 2015. Before FRONTLINE, Aronson-Rath worked at ABC News and The Wall Street Journal. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin and her master’s from Columbia Journalism School. Michael Kirk Documentary filmmaker Michael Kirk has produced more than 200 national television programs. A former Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University, Kirk was the original senior producer of FRONTLINE, PBS’ flagship long-form documentary series, from its inception in 1983 until the fall of 1987, when he created his own production company, the Kirk Documentary Group. The winner of every major award in broadcast journalism, including four Peabody Awards, four duPont-Columbia Awards, two George Polk Awards, 16 Emmy Awards, and 12 Writers Guild of America Awards, Kirk has produced, directed and written more than 100 hours of FRONTLINE — including multiple installments of “The Choice,” the acclaimed election-year series profiling the two major-party presidential candidates.

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Biographical Notes

RoadkillSundays, November 1 - 22, 2020 at 9/8c

Hugh LauriePeter Laurence, RoadkillHugh Laurie is a two-time SAG® Award and three-time Golden Globe® Award-winning actor, comedian, and musician. Laurie currently stars in HBO’s Avenue 5 as the lead character Ryan Clark, the charming American Captain of Avenue 5. Created and executive produced by Armando Iannucci, the space tourism comedy is set 40 years in the future. Recent performances include his award-winning turn in The Personal History of David Copperfield opposite Dev Patel and Tilda Swinton, the role of Tom James, a senator and running mate opposite Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus)

in the fourth season of the Emmy® Award winning HBO series, Veep, and his role as Major de Coverley in Hulu’s six-part limited series Catch-22 directed by George Clooney, which was nominated for Best Limited Television Series at the 2020 Golden Globes®. His performance as Dr. Gregory House garnered him two Golden Globe® Awards for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series, six Emmy® nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, and two SAG® Awards for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series. He has been honored twice by the Television Critics Association with TCA Awards for Individual Achievement in Drama. Other memorable roles include Richard Roper in The Night Manager alongside Tom Hiddleston and Olivia Colman, Vincent Minnelli opposite Judy Davis in Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows and Mr. Little in the Stuart Little films. Laurie produced The Cellar Tapes with Stephen Fry and Emma Thompson, which propelled the trio into several groundbreaking British television shows, including four seasons of A Bit of Fry and Laurie, which Laurie co-wrote for BBC with Stephen Fry; and three seasons of Blackadder. In addition, four seasons of Jeeves and Wooster, based on the novels of P.G. Wodehouse, aired on MASTERPIECE from 1990-1995. Laurie’s first novel “The Gun Seller” was published to critical acclaim and adapted into a screenplay. Laurie also recorded the celebrated New Orleans blues album “Let Them Talk” which was released in the US in September 2011. The album was the biggest-selling blues album of 2011 in the UK. The performance documentary about Laurie’s musical passion, Hugh Laurie: Let Them Talk – A Celebration of New Orleans Blues also aired on PBS’s Great Performances that same year. His second album, “Didn’t It Rain,” was released in August 2013 along with his second PBS special Live on the Queen Mary. Laurie was born in Oxford, England and educated at Cambridge University, where he received a degree in anthropology.

David HareWriter and Executive Producer, RoadkillDavid Hare is a playwright and film-maker. He has written over thirty stage plays which include Plenty, Pravda (with Howard Brenton), The Secret Rapture, Racing Demon, Skylight, Amy's View, The Blue Room, Via Dolorosa, Stuff Happens, The Absence of War, The Judas Kiss, The Moderate Soprano and I'm Not Running. For film and television he has written over twenty-five screenplays which include The White Crow, Licking Hitler, Dreams of Leaving, Saigon: Year of the Cat, Wetherby, Damage, The Hours, The Reader, Denial and The Worricker Trilogy: Page Eight, Turks & Caicos and Salting the Battlefield. Most recently David created the four-part series Collateral for the BBC and Netflix starring Carey Mulligan and Billie Piper. In a millennial poll of the greatest plays of the 20th century, five of the top 100 were his.

All Creatures Great and SmallJanuary 2021

Anna MadeleyMrs. Hall, All Creatures Great and SmallAnna has worked extensively in television, film and theatre. Most recently, she starred in Channel 4’s Deadwater Fell alongside David Tennant, and the sensationally received Patrick Melrose for Sky/Showtime, opposite Benedict Cumberbatch. Her other TV credits include The Child in Time, The Crown, Virtuoso, Crossing Lines and Affinity for which she won the Best Actress Golden Nymph award. On film she has appeared in The Nutcracker & the Four Realms for Walt Disney Pictures playing Mackenzie Foy's mother, The Little Stranger, The Mercy, Strawberry Fields, Brideshead Revisited, In Bruges and Stoned. Anna also has a successful and varied career in theatre, most recently starring in Les Blancs at the National Theatre (Dir. Yael Farber), The Height of the Storm with Eileen Atkins and Jonathan Pryce (Dir. Jonathan Kent), A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Young Vic (Dir. Joe Hill-Gibbins),

The Crucible at the Old Vic (Dir. Yael Farber) for which she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress What’s On Stage Award in 2015, Private Lives in Toronto and New York (Dir. Richard Eyre), Becky Shaw at the Almeida Theatre (Dir. Peter du Bois) and Earthquakes in London at the National Theatre (Dir. Rupert Goold). Anna has just finished filming series one of All Creatures Great and Small playing Mrs. Hall and can be seen in both Sitting in Limbo on BBC 1 and Unprecedented: Real Time Theatre from a State of Isolation on BBC, a series of shorts made during lockdown.

Nicholas RalphJames Herriot, All Creatures Great and SmallNicholas Ralph trained at the prestigious Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and has since performed in various roles predominantly on stage, until 2019 when he secured the leading role of James Herriot in All Creatures Great and Small. His portrayal of the British veterinary surgeon will mark his debut television role. Ralph’s past theatre credits include playing Logan in Interference, a 2019 futuristic trio of plays directed by Cora Bissett at National Theatre of Scotland, and Captain Amazing, a one man show directed by Tess Munro-Summerville at Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre. In 2017 Ralph appeared in feature film The Wife, directed by Bjorn Runge. He was recently cast in the upcoming supernatural thriller, The Devil’s Light, which is to be directed by Daniel Stamm and begins filming later this year.

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Rachel ShentonHelen Alderson, All Creatures Great and SmallFluent in British Sign Language, Rachel won an Oscar® for the live action short she wrote and stars in, The Silent Child. She will soon appear as regular role Helen in Channel 5 and MASTERPIECE's upcoming revival of the classic All Creatures Great and Small. Rachel starred in A Very British Christmas for Showtime in December of last year and appeared in the lead cast for the second series of the BBC’s White Gold, as well as Jeff Pope’s acclaimed ITV drama A Confession - based on the highly publicised murder of Sian O’Callaghan. Rachel was originally best known for portraying the regular role of Mitzeee in Hollyoaks for Channel 4, a character she played for 3 years, before temporarily relocating to LA to star as a regular in U.S. series Switched at Birth.

Samuel WestSiegfried Farnon, All Creatures Great and SmallSamuel West has dozens of credits to his name across TV, film, theatre and audio. He stars as Siegfried Farnon in the new TV adaptation of All Creatures Great and Small. Recent screen work includes the art historian and spy Anthony Blunt in Season Three of The Crown and Lord Pressfield in Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen. In 2017 West appeared as Churchill's right-hand man Anthony Eden in Darkest Hour directed by Joe Wright, and the British drama On Chesil Beach, directed by Dominic Cooke. Other films include Van Helsing, Hyde Park on Hudson, Zeffirelli's Jane Eyre and Howards End, for which he was nominated for a BAFTA award. Among his many television credits are Frank Edwards in four seasons of Mr Selfridge for ITV and MASTERPIECE, Anthony Blunt (again) in Cambridge Spies, Sir Walter Pole in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and Richard Cartwright in the BBC’s W1A. West is also busy on stage, most recently appearing in The Writer by Ella Hickson at the Almeida. He played Hamlet and Richard II for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Valentine

in the first production of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia at the National Theatre and in 2010 was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for his performance as Jeffrey Skilling in Enron in the West End. He has directed thirteen plays and two operas; his most recent production was The Watsons by his partner Laura Wade, which was due to transfer from the Chichester Festival Theatre to London's Harold Pinter theatre when Covid-19 hit. West is an Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company and Chair of the National Campaign for the Arts.

Callum WoodhouseTristan Farnon, All Creatures Great and SmallCallum Woodhouse is a young exciting actor originally from Durham. He played the role of Leslie Durrell in ITV and MASTERPIECE's much-loved series The Durrells in Corfu. In the feel-good series loved by fans and critics alike, Callum played the second eldest son of the Durrell family, opposite Keeley Hawes (Bodyguard) and Josh O'Connor (The Crown). Callum also starred in seasons 6 and 8 of ITV's much-loved British comedy-drama Cold Feet as Josh Marsden alongside James Nesbitt, Fay Ripley, Robert Bathurst, Hermione Norris and John Thomson. The series, on screens since 1997, follows the lives of three couples as they navigate love and life in Manchester. On stage, Callum appeared at the Hampstead Theatre in Filthy Business by Ryan Craig and directed by Edward Hall in 2017. The play opened to rave reviews with Callum's performance highlighted as "sharply

defined" (The Guardian), "glinting promise" (The Telegraph) and "a fine performance" (The Financial Times). Callum trained at the London Academy of Music and Drama Art (LAMDA).

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F U N D I N G F O R M A S T E R P I E C E P R O V I D E D BY

Colin CallenderExecutive Producer, All Creatures Great and SmallColin Callender is an Emmy®, BAFTA, Golden Globe®, Tony® and Olivier award-winning television, film and theatre producer who founded Playground in 2012. Playground has produced over 90 hours of scripted television, including the Golden Globe®, BAFTA and Peabody award-winning miniseries adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, starring Mark Rylance, Damian Lewis and Claire Foy for BBC and MASTERPIECE; Richard Eyre’s Emmy®-nominated adaptation of King Lear, starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson for BBC and Amazon; the Golden Globe® and BAFTA-nominated adaptation of Ronald Harwood’s The Dresser for BBC and Starz; Academy Award®-winner Kenneth Lonergan’s adaptation of EM Forster’s Howards End for BBC and Starz; and Heidi Thomas’s adaptation of Little Women for BBC and MASTERPIECE. Upcoming productions include All Creatures Great and Small for Channel 5

and MASTERPIECE, and Dangerous Liaisons for Starz. On stage, Callender produced Nora Ephron’s Lucky Guy, starring Tom Hanks in his stage debut; Macbeth, directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh at the Park Avenue Armory; Hedwig and the Angry Inch, winner of the Tony® Award for Best Musical Revival; and Dear Evan Hansen, winner of the Tony® Award for Best Musical. Callender, along with Sonia Friedman Productions, is the producer of the critically acclaimed mega-hit Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in the West End, Broadway, Melbourne, Hamburg and San Francisco. The play won a record breaking nine Olivier Awards and six Tony® Awards. Callender received a CBE in 2003 and Knighthood in 2016 for services to British film, theatre and television in the US.

Susanne SimpsonExecutive Producer, MASTERPIECENamed Executive Producer of MASTERPIECE in 2019, Susanne Simpson is a two-time Academy Award® nominee and two-time Emmy® winner for her documentary and dramatic films for television and theater. Since joining MASTERPIECE in 2007, Simpson has been responsible for such programs as Sherlock, Wolf Hall, and Victoria, and oversaw all aspects of the U.S. broadcast of the hit series Downton Abbey, the most watched drama in PBShistory and recipient of 59 Emmy® nominations and 12 wins. She is also the Executive Producer of MASTERPIECE Studio, a podcast with more than 15 million downloads since 2016. Simpson created the MASTERPIECE Trust, a fund to ensure the future of the series. Prior to MASTERPIECE, she was a Senior Producer for the science series NOVA, responsible for the content development, financing, and production of new programming,

and was the executive producer of IMAX productions such as the award-winning Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure and Special Effects with George Lucas’s company, Industrial Light & Magic. Simpson is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, and the Writers Guild.

pbs.org/masterpiece

MASTERPIECE Press ContactsEllen Dockser, 617-300-5338, ellen_dockser@wgbh.orgLaura Garvey, 617-300-5342, laura_garvey@wgbh.org

About MASTERPIECEWinner of 83 Primetime Emmys® and 18 Peabody Awards, MASTERPIECE has been essential Sunday night viewing for millions of fans since 1971. Susanne Simpson is the executive producer and Rebecca Eaton is the executive-producer-at-large for the series. Funding for MASTERPIECE is provided by Viking and Raymond James with additional support from public television viewers and contributors to The MASTERPIECE Trust. Presented on PBS by WGBH Boston, MASTERPIECE is known for recent hits such as Sherlock, Downton Abbey and Victoria, and beloved classics such as Upstairs Downstairs, Prime Suspect, The Forsyte Saga and Poldark.

Press Contact: Ava Tews, WNET, 212.560.8153, tewsa@wnet.org Press Materials: http://pbs.org/pressroom or http://thirteen.org/pressroom Websites: http://pbs.org/americanmasters, http://facebook.com/americanmasters, @PBSAmerMasters, http://youtube.com/AmericanMastersPBS, http://instagram.com/pbsamericanmasters #AmericanMastersPBS

American Masters: Laura Ingalls Wilder

TCA Panelist Bios Mary McDonagh Murphy Director and producer, American Masters: Laura Ingalls Wilder @jeanlouisefinch Mary McDonagh Murphy is an independent film and television writer, producer and director. Her independently financed film, Hey, Boo: Harper Lee & To Kill a Mockingbird, was released theatrically in 20 cities and broadcast on PBS: American Masters – Harper Lee: Hey, Boo (2012) and the 2015 update Harper Lee: American Masters in honor of the release of Lee’s second novel, “Go Set a Watchman.” Murphy is the author of “Scout, Atticus & Boo,” a New York Times bestseller published by HarperCollins.

Murphy has written and produced primetime stories for NBC News and CBS News, where she won six Emmy Awards. Her other documentaries include The Making of the Wiz Live (NBC, 2015); The Making of Peter Pan Live (NBC, 2014); The Making of the Sound of Music Live (NBC, 2013); Cry for Help (PBS), about adolescent depression and suicide; Digital Days, an examination of the Internet’s impact on the newspaper industry; and Before Your Eyes: Don’t Take My Daddy (CBS), about deportation proceedings against three former members of the Irish Republican Army. Other credits include David Letterman: A Life on Television (CBS, 2015) and Live from Space (National Geographic, 2014). Murphy has written for Newsweek, Chicago Tribune, New York Post, Publishers Weekly and the Daily Beast. A native of Rhode Island, she is

a graduate of Wesleyan University and was a John S. Knight fellow at Stanford University. She lives in Scarborough, N.Y. Melissa Gilbert Actor and producer; Laura Ingalls Wilder on the TV series Little House on the Prairie, film interviewee @MEGBusfield Melissa Gilbert is an Outer Critics Circle, Theatre World and Emmy Award-winning actor, director, producer and New York Times bestselling author. Best known for playing Laura Ingalls Wilder on the television classic Little House on the Prairie, Gilbert has starred in over 50 television movies and numerous television series over the course of her 54-year career. A member of the legendary Actors Studio, Gilbert made her stage debut in 1979.

An activist for most of her life, Gilbert is the standing Board Chair for the Children’s Hospice and Palliative Care Commission. She served as President of Screen Actors Guild from 2001-2005, sat on the executive council of the AFL-CIO and the California Film Commission, and in 2016, was the Democratic nominee for Congress in Michigan’s 8th District. In 2017, Gilbert formed Grand River Productions with her partners Jeff Daniels and Timothy Busfield, her beloved husband. Their first independent feature, “Guest Artist,” was released on July 10, 2020. Alison Arngrim Actor, comedian and author; Nellie Oleson on the TV series Little House on the Prairie, film interviewee @Arngrim New York Times bestselling author of “Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated,” Alison Arngrim is best known to viewers worldwide for her portrayal of the incredibly nasty Nellie Oleson on the hit television series Little House on the Prairie, and she continues to amuse audiences through her many film, television, stage and multi-media appearances.

Her one-woman show “Confessions of a Prairie Bitch,” which started at Club Fez in New York in 2002, has travelled to Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Green Bay, San Francisco, Seattle, Puerto Vallarta and France, where Arngrim performed the show in French to standing room only crowds.

Arngrim has a long history of activism. In 1986, when her friend, Little House husband and co-star Steve Tracy, passed away due to complications related to HIV/AIDS, Arngrim immediately began volunteering at AIDS Project Los Angeles and has remained an AIDS activist and educator. She currently serves as President, National Spokesperson and Founding Board Member on the National Advisory Board of The National Association to Protect Children,

fighting to give children a legal and political voice in the war against child abuse. Arngrim lives in Los Angeles with her husband of over 25 years, musician Bob Schoonover. Lizzie Skurnick Author, film interviewee @lizzieskurnick Lizzie Skurnick is the author of “Pretty Bitches: On Being Called Crazy, Angry, Bossy, Frumpy, Feisty, and All the Other Words That Are Used to Undermine Women,” “That Should Be a Word: A Much-Needed Lexicon for the Modern Era” and “Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We’ll Never Stop Reading.” As the founding editor of Lizzie Skurnick Books, she reissued dozens of YA classics. She’s a frequent contributor to The New York Times, NPR, Elle, Jezebel and many other publications. In another life, she wrote for the “Sweet Valley High” book series. Skurnick lives in Jersey City and teaches at New York University. Skurnick identifies as Black and Jewish. She has written extensively about Laura Ingalls Wilder and the “Little House” books, most recently in a Boston Globe editorial describing how Wilder’s novel “The Long Winter” prepared her for the COVID-19 pandemic. Michael Kantor American Masters Executive Producer @MKantorfilm Michael Kantor joined American Masters as the series’ executive producer in April 2014 and founded its theatrical imprint, American Masters Pictures, in January 2016. American Masters Pictures premiered three films at Sundance Film Festival in 2019: Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, N. Scott Momaday: Words from a Bear and Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am; and other Sundance premieres include Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise (Peabody Award) and Richard Linklater – Dream is Destiny. Recent programs include Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, Itzhak and Raúl Juliá: The World’s a Stage. An Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, Kantor’s PBS series include Broadway: The American Musical (hosted by Julie Andrews), Make ‘Em Laugh (hosted by Billy Crystal) and Superheroes (hosted by Liev Schreiber), and he co-wrote the companion books for each series. He served as executive producer of Give Me the Banjo with Steve Martin and distributes the American Film Theatre series, including Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance, starring Katharine Hepburn, and Chekhov’s Three Sisters with Laurence Olivier. Kantor serves as a Tony nominator and oversees the American Masters Podcast.

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Press Contact: Chelsey Saatkamp, WNET 513.266.1748, saatkampc@wnet.org Press Materials: pbs.org/pressroom or thirteen.org/pressroom Websites: pbs.org/nature, facebook.com/PBSNature, @PBSNature, instagram.com/pbsnature, youtube.com/naturepbs, tiktok.com/@pbsnature, #NaturePBS

Nature: Australian Bushfire Rescue

Talent Biographies Fred Kaufman Executive Producer, Nature @kaufman_fred For more than 25 years, Fred Kaufman has been a leading executive in the natural history genre. As the executive producer of the acclaimed PBS series Nature, Kaufman has won seven Emmys and two Peabody Awards. He has worked on Nature since its beginning in 1982 and has overseen it since 1991. During his tenure, Nature has been honored with hundreds of industry awards. In 2012, Kaufman was named the recipient of the International Wildlife Film Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Media. In 2010, Nature earned the Outstanding Achievement Award from the prestigious Wildscreen Festival in Bristol, England. It was the first time in the 20-year history of the festival that the award was presented to an American wildlife series. Kaufman is a member of the Writers Guild of America and a board member of the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival and the Bronx Children’s Museum. He appears regularly on public television fundraising drives as a spokesman for quality natural history television.

Anja Taylor Narrator and Reporter Anja Taylor is an award-winning science filmmaker with more than 15 years of experience producing in-depth science programs for global audiences. Taylor is best known for her time as a regular host and director of Australia’s flagship, prime-time science program Catalyst, produced by national broadcaster the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). During a decade with the program, Taylor was a four-time finalist for Australia’s most prestigious prize in science journalism, the Australian Museum Eureka Prize. and won international awards for her environmental and climate change stories. Since leaving Catalyst, Taylor has been a presenter for the Foxtel science history documentary series Aussie Inventions That Changed the World, and a director and writer for the ABC’s documentary series Australia Remastered and the Discovery Channel disaster series Code Red. At the peak of Australia’s horrific fire season, Taylor filed six special digital short stories for Nature, establishing some of the unique native animal characters featured in the follow-up documentary Nature: Australian Bushfire Rescue. She is the field director, co-writer and narrator of the program. Adrina Selles Wildlife Caretaker A former nurse, Adrina Selles began wildlife care almost a decade ago, after a family member required full-time care at home. Through Sydney Wildlife Rescue, Selles went through several training programs to learn the skills for raising native animals, ranging from birds to marsupials. Eventually, Selles welcomed the first macropod into her home: a swamp wallaby. It was love at first sight. Now, Selles lives on the South Coast of New South Wales, on a 40-acre bush property, which has been transformed from a run-down fish farm to the peaceful kangaroo sanctuary it is today. During the Australian bushfires on New Year’s Eve, a gigantic blaze raged through the property, but miraculously spared the sanctuary zone and many of the kangaroos living there. Currently, she is caring for an estimated 40 wallabies and kangaroos.

TELEVISION CRITICS ASSOCIATION SUMMER 2020 PRESS TOUR

INDEPENDENT LENS: FEELS GOOD MAN BIOS

Arthur Jones - Director Feels Good Man is Jones’s directorial debut, but he’s uniquely suited to tell the story. He’s a cartoonist who came up in the same indie comics scene as the film’s subject, Matt Furie. Jones published a book of his illustrations in 2011: Post-it Note Diaries (Penguin/Plume Paperbacks). Over his career, he’s art directed animation and motion graphics for journalists and documentary filmmakers, working with companies including The New York Times, VICE, The Center for Investigative Reporting and The International Consortium of Journalists. Recently he’s been a part of several documentary features: Seed Money: The Chuck Holmes Story (2015), BUNKER 77 (Amazon Studios, 2017), Owned, A Tale of Two Americas (2018) and Hal (Oscilloscope Films, 2018). Jones is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. Giorgio Angelini - Producer Giorgio Angelini came into film from a longer, multi-faceted career in the creative arts. After touring in bands like The Rosebuds and Bishop Allen for much of his 20s, Giorgio enrolled in the Masters of Architecture program at Rice University during the depths of the 2008 real estate collapse. It was during this tumultuous time that the seeds for Giorgio’s directorial debut, OWNED: A Tale of Two Americas began to take shape. Following graduate school, Angelini began working with the boutique architecture firm, Schaum Shieh Architects, where he designed the White Oak Music Hall in Houston, Texas, as well as the headquarters for The Transart Foundation for Art and Anthropology, which won the Architect’s Newspaper’s “Design of the Year” award in 2018. Giorgio launched a production company, Ready Fictions, in 2019 with his producing partner, Arthur Jones. Matt Furie – Creator of Pepe the Frog Matt Furie (b.1979 is an artist, illustrator, and children's book author. He's best known for his character Pepe, a fun-loving stoner frog from his comic Boy's Club, who has become a ubiquitous internet meme. In 2012, McSweeney’s published Furie's first children’s book, The Night Riders, a wordless tale about the adventures of two best friends, a frog, and a rat. He's currently based in Los Angeles. Alt. Bio for Matt

Matt Furie graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio in 2001. Matt is a Leo, he enjoys long walks in the park, bubble baths, and an occasional glass of wine. His new art retrospective book, "Mind Viscosity," is coming out in late 2020 on Fantagraphics Press. Lois Vossen – Executive Producer, Independent Lens Lois Vossen is the founding executive producer of Independent Lens, a multi-platform broadcast and digital series on the PBS primetime schedule. Vossen is responsible for commissioning new films, programming the series and working with filmmakers on editorial and broadcast issues. Independent Lens films have received over 17 Emmy Awards, 21 George Foster Peabody Awards, six Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Journalism Awards and nine Academy Award nominations. The series was honored in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017 with the International Documentary Association (IDA) Award for Best Series. Before joining ITVS, Vossen was the associate managing director of the Sundance Film Festival and Sundance Labs. Currently, she represents the documentary branch on the Television Academy Board of Directors. She has served on the jury at Shanghai Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, SXSW, DOC New Zealand and Palm Springs International Film Festival, among others. Under her leadership, films funded or presented on Independent Lens include I Am Not Your Negro, TOWER, The Force, Newtown, Best of Enemies, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, (T)ERROR, The Waiting Room, The House I Live In, The Invisible War, The Trials of Muhammad Ali, God Loves Uganda, Hell and Back Again, Waste Land, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and The Weather Underground, among many others.

Press Contact: Elizabeth Boone, WNET, 212.560.8831, BooneB@wnet.org Press Materials: http://pbs.org/pressroom or http://thirteen.org/pressroom Websites: http://www.pbs.org/gperf, @GPerfPBS, facebook.com/GreatPerformances, youtube.com/greatperformancespbs #GreatPerformancesPBS

Great Performances: GRAMMY® Salute to Music Legends

TCA Panelist Bios

Jimmy Jam Host of Great Performances: GRAMMY® Salute to Music Legends; Songwriter, Producer Twitter: @flytetymejam; Instagram: @flytetymejam Five-time GRAMMY® Award winner Jimmy Jam is a world-renowned songwriter, record producer, musician, entrepreneur and half of the most influential and successful songwriting and production duo in modern music history. For nearly 40 years alongside his longtime partner, Terry Lewis, Jam’s accomplishments have elevated him to iconic status within the music industry.

To date, Jam and Lewis have collaborated on bestselling recordings for a diverse array of artists across all musical genres, including Prince, Michael Jackson, Boyz II Men, Sting, Elton John, Mary J. Blige, Usher, Beyoncé, Kanye West, Luther Vandross, Rihanna, Rod Stewart, Drake, Earth, Wind & Fire, Mariah Carey, Kendrick Lamar, Gwen Stefani, Willie Nelson, New Edition, Sounds of Blackness, Morris Day, The Time and Janet Jackson. They have written and/or produced over 100 albums and singles that have reached gold, platinum or diamond status with total worldwide sales in excess of 100 million records. The duo has amassed 26 No. 1

R&B singles and 16 No. 1 pop hits, giving Jam and Lewis more Billboard No. 1 songs than any other duo in chart history.

Jam and Lewis won their first GRAMMY® Award for Producer of the Year in 1986 and have since received 10 more nominations in the same category, making them the most nominated in this category in GRAMMY® history. As songwriters, Jam and Lewis have garnered over 100 ASCAP Awards, including Writer of the Year a record-breaking nine times. The duo has also been honored with Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and were inducted into the 2017 class of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Jam is the former Chairman of the Board of the Recording Academy® and was the first African American to be elected to that position. He currently serves as a board member of the GRAMMY® Museum and hosts The Jimmy Jam Show on SiriusXM Volume Channel 106 with guests including music luminaries like Questlove, Babyface, Ray Parker Jr., Barry Manilow, as well as legendary icons Clive Davis, Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson.

As part of their lifelong mission to leave music in a better place, 2020 finds Jam and Lewis completing work on their debut album project as artists entitled “Jam & Lewis Vol. 1.” The collection will include all new original songs and introduce a new technology called “Just Listen” designed to enhance the music listening experience. It honors Clarence Avant (known as “the Black Godfather”), who is credited as the man who “discovered” Jam and Lewis and famously says, “the world has music for those who listen.” Yola Four-time GRAMMY® nominee who pays tribute to Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Great Performances: GRAMMY® Salute to Music Legends Facebook: @iamyolaofficial; Twitter: @iamyola; Instagram: @iamyolaofficial Yola released her critically acclaimed debut album “Walk Through Fire” in February 2019, and nine months later, she received four GRAMMY® Award nominations, including Best New Artist. The album received accolades including Rolling Stone’s “Artist You Need To Know” and NPR Music’s “Artist To Watch,” who said Yola is “an artist sure to stun audiences for years to come.”

She is featured in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s The Unbroken Circle exhibit paired with Dolly Parton and will play Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Baz Luhrmann’s musical drama “Elvis” alongside Tom Hanks and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Yola has performed on The Late Late Show With James Corden, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert, Jimmy Kimmel LIVE! and PBS’s Austin City Limits. Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Yola performed for numerous charitable and public awareness initiatives, including an appearance at Twitch’s Stream Aidto raise funds for the World Health Organization alongside some of the world’s biggest artists like Rufus Wainwright and John Legend. Yola will open for Chris Stapleton across multiple shows in 2021, including performing at Madison Square Garden.

Yola has also performed with Kacey Musgraves, Mavis Staples, The Highwomen and Dolly Parton. Her first U.S. headline tour had multiple sold-out dates, including two nights at the

Troubadour in Los Angeles, and she has appeared at The Hollywood Bowl, Newport Folk Festival, SXSW and Farm Aid. David Wild Writer, Great Performances: GRAMMY® Salute to Music Legends; Television Producer, Author Twitter: @wildaboutmusic; Instagram: @wildaboutmusicdavid David Wild is a Peabody Award-winning, multiple Emmy Award-nominated television writer and producer, a New York Times bestselling author and a longtime Contributing Editor to Rolling Stone. Wild has written the Great Performances: GRAMMY® Salute to Music Legends specials since 2018 and the Grammy Awards since 2001, for which he also became a producer in 2016. His extensive credits for television include the CMA Awards, the Independent Spirit Awards, Let's Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince, Motown 60: A Grammy Celebration, Aretha! A Grammy Celebration for the Queen of Soul, Elvis All-Star Tribute and America: A Tribute to Heroes. He has written books on Friends, Seinfeld and Brad Paisley, as well as “And the Grammy Goes To...: The Official Story of Music’s Most Coveted Award” and “The Showrunners: A Season Inside the Billion-Dollar, Death-Defying, Madcap World of Television’s Real Stars.” David Horn Executive Producer, Great Performances Director, Performance & Arts Programming, THIRTEEN Productions LLC Facebook: @GreatPerformances; Twitter: @GPerfPBS As the executive producer of the Emmy Award-winning series Great Performances, David Horn oversees the development, production and programming of WNET’s national performing arts presentations on PBS. During his 39-year tenure with the series, Horn has twice received the prestigious Peabody Award and has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy more than 25 times, winning five. In 2015, he was honored with The Drama League’s Unique Contribution to the Theater Award for his vital work in bringing New York theater to a larger audience across America.

In addition to Great Performances, Horn is the creator and executive producer of the Emmy Award-winning series NYC-Arts, a weekly magazine program hosted by Philippe de Montebello and Paula Zahn that features the dynamic arts and culture scene in New York City. Horn is also the creator, executive producer and director of Theater Close-Up, a series dedicated to showcasing the innovative productions of New York City’s Off- and Off-Off-Broadway theaters. Horn has also directed several productions in a new collaboration between WNET and the subscription streaming service BroadwayHD, including the historic first live stream of the Broadway musical She Loves Me, followed by Noël Coward’s Present Laughter, starring Kevin Kline; Paula Vogel’s critically acclaimed play Indecent; and Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn.

After his successful productions of King Lear, Cyrano de Bergerac and Macbeth, all of which were recognized with Best Actor Emmy nominations for Sir Ian McKellen, Kevin Kline

and Sir Patrick Stewart, respectively, Horn continued his commitment to incorporate Shakespeare into the Great Performances repertoire. In 2015, Horn served as executive producer alongside Sam Mendes and Gareth Naeme for the series The Hollow Crown. Produced as film adaptations of Shakespeare’s history plays, The Hollow Crown featured Jeremy Irons, Tom Hiddleston and Ben Whishaw, and was followed by The Wars of the Roses, starring Tom Sturridge as Henry VI, Benedict Cumberbatch as Richard III and an all-star cast, including Sophie Okonedo, Judi Dench and Hugh Bonneville. In summer 2019, he directed the first Great Performances live recording from The Public Theater’s Free Shakespeare in the Park since 1974, Kenny Leon’s modern production of Much Ado About Nothing, featuring an all-Black cast, including Danielle Brooks.

Horn’s extensive catalog of original productions includes creating In the Spotlight (1993), a series of primetime popular music specials, and executive producing Sessions at West 54th; he was honored with the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for both in recognition of excellence in music broadcast programming. He was also the executive producer of two landmark miniseries for PBS: Make ‘Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America in 2009 and Broadway: The American Musical, which garnered the Primetime Emmy for Non-Fiction Series in 2005.

Horn has produced numerous classical music concerts from Carnegie Hall, as well as internationally in Vienna, Salzburg, Rome and Paris. He has also played an instrumental role in producing a variety of regional operas, many of them world premieres, in San Francisco, Santa Fe, Los Angeles, Dallas and Houston, where he won an Emmy for John Adams’ Nixon in China.

Horn’s multi-camera directing credits for Great Performances include the recent Bernstein Centennial from Tanglewood, four GRAMMY® Salute to Music Legends specials, the Joan Baez 75th Birthday Celebration, Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga: Cheek to Cheek LIVE!, Steve Martin & Edie Brickell in Concert, Great Performances 40th Anniversary Celebration, multiple Andrea Bocelli concerts including his Central Park event, Pete Seeger’s 90th Birthday Celebration at MSG, Chess in Concert, Hitman: David Foster & Friends, We Love Ella!: A Tribute to the First Lady of Song, South Pacific at Carnegie Hall, Michael Bublé: Caught in the Act, Josh Groban Live at the Greek and many others. From 1981 to 1983, Horn produced the series In Performance at the White House.

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