ATX Television Festival Adds ‘Nancy Drew,’ ‘New Amsterdam,’ ‘The Bold Type’ to Virtual Event Lineup
By Danielle Turchiano
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – In addition, ATX Television Festival is working with AMC Networks, CBS Television Studios, FX Networks, Disney Plus, HBO, HBO Max and Peacock to include some of their programming in the event, and they expect to announce those specifics in the coming weeks.
Dubbed “ATX TV… from the Couch,” the programming events will still consist of screenings, as well as cast and creative team member panels of both new and reunited shows. (“Scrubs” was previously announced to be one such reunion at this year’s event, and “Cougar Town” will deliver a mini-reunion through actors Busy Philipps and Christa Miller.) The festival will also continue to deliver themed panels that center on a content or business topic, rather than one specific show.
To celebrate the 90th anniversary of “Nancy Drew’s” literary debut, the creator of the most recent adaptation, Noga Landau, will be joined on a panel with showrunner Melinda Hsu Taylor and cast members Kennedy McCann and Scott Wolf to talk about the iconic character’s significance on pop culture over the decades. More panelists are expected to be announced soon.
“The Bold Type” will debut an early look at the show’s upcoming midseason premiere episode and also include a panel with showrunner Wendy Straker-Hauser and cast members Katie Stevens, Aisha Dee and Meghann Fahy.
“New Amsterdam” executive producer and director Peter Horton, along with executive producer and writer David Foster, consulting producer and writer Erika Green Swafford and cast members Ryan Eggold and Jocko Sims will be joined by a representative from the American Heart Association for a conversation about using fiction to navigate important conversations about health and healthcare access in underserved communities, and how recent storylines around heart health and rural and urban hospital care are particularly relevant in the time of COVID-19.
Starz will be giving attendees an exclusive first look at “P-Valley,” the cabler’s new summer drama from Katori Hall, who adapted her own play for the small screen. Creatives and cast members to be announced will talk about what to expect from the show’s first season, which is set in and around a strip club in the Missouri Delta.
Themed panel ATX Television Festival announced for the virtual event include “Channel Changers: A Conversation with TV’s Presidents,” which will bring together HBO Max’s Sarah Aubrey, NBC Entertainment’s Lisa Katz and Tracey Pakosta, OWN’s Tina Perry and more to be announced to discuss the state of the industry; “Celebrating Authentic Stories,” a conversation about the push for positive Latinx representation with “One Day at a Time’s” Gloria Calderón Kellett, “Vida’s” Tanya Saracho, “Pose’s” Steven Canals and “Diary of a Future President’s” Ilana Peña; and “The Pivot,” a conversation presented with the Television Academy about continuing to create in these unprecedented circumstances with HBO Max’s Joey Chavez and more to be announced soon.
The festival will also bring back a panel with the ACLU, this time to discuss television’s approach to covering voter supression. This panel will feature Dale Ho, director of ACLU’s Voting Rights Project and creatives to be named at a later date. It will also continue the discussion around the depiction of mental health and addiction on television with a panel presented by USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center’s Hollywood, Health & Society.
Originally scheduled to take place in Austin, Texas June 5-7, the festival pivoted to a virtual event in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The virtual event will take place over the same three days, but the panels will be free to watch on ATX’s official YouTube channel. Viewers will have the option to donate to select organizations providing COVID-19 relief regionally and nationally.
