ATX Television Festival Announces Programming For Virtual Event: ‘The Bold Type,’ ‘New Amsterdam,’ ‘Scrubs,’ and More
You didn’t think we’d just go a whole year without something fun from the ATX Television Festival, did you?
No, this year’s event won’t be taking place as originally planned, much like everything else, but there is some good news! The ATX Television Festival will be holding a virtual event, “ATX TV…From the Couch,” June 5-7, 2020.
The event will include panels with creatives and cast from The Bold Type, New Amsterdam, Nancy Drew, Scrubs, Cougar Town, and more. It will also include timely conversations on physical and mental health, election-year issues, Latinx representation, and creating during a pandemic.
“ATX TV… from the Couch!” will include three days of conversations with cast and creatives from various series, industry-forward panels with showrunners and executives, sneak previews of upcoming series, and virtual events such as TV trivia and a music showcase. The event will be free to access via a linear stream on ATX’s official YouTube channel, with the option for viewers to donate to select organizations providing COVID-19 relief regionally and nationally.
Freeform’s The Bold Type will debut an early look at the show’s summer premiere, which airs June 11, followed by a conversation with showrunner/executive producer Wendy Straker-Hauser, and cast members Katie Stevens, Aisha Dee, and Meghann Fahy.
NBC and Universal Television’s hit medical drama New Amsterdam will host 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 & urban hospital care are particularly relevant in the time of COVID-19. The conversation will include director/executive producer Peter Horton, writer/executive producer David Foster, writer/consulting producer Erika Green Swafford, cast members Ryan Eggold and Jocko Sims, and a representative from the American Heart Association.
The CW’s Nancy Drew will host a panel celebrating the 90th anniversary of the iconic sleuth’s literary debut, diving into the character’s pop culture significance from early novels, to the feature film adaptations to the modern TV depiction. Creator/executive producer Noga Landau, showrunner/executive producer Melinda Hsu Taylor, and stars Kennedy McCann and Scott Wolf are confirmed to participate. Additional panelists will be announced soon.
Additionally, Starz will debut an exclusive first look at their new summer drama P-Valley from creator/showrunner Katori Hall, set in and around a strip club in the Mississippi Delta. The extended preview will be followed by a conversation with creatives & cast about the process of adapting Hall’s play for the small screen, and what to expect from the show’s first season.
It was also recently announced that Cougar Town stars Busy Philipps and Christa Miller, as well as Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence and cast members Zach Braff, Donald Faison, Sarah Chalke, John C. McGinley, and Judy Reyes, will reunite for discussions during the virtual festival. The casts for both series were previously confirmed for ATX Season 9 in Austin, and have rescheduled their in-person reunions for the 2021 festival.
“ATX TV…from the Couch!” will also feature a variety of topical panels including “Channel Changers: A Conversation with TV’s Presidents,” an industry-forward conversation with network, studio, and streamer presidents about the state of the industry, the personal and professional philosophies they bring to their individual brands, and why inclusivity at the highest levels remains imperative to producing bigger and better storytelling.
The festival will highlight Latinx content creators with “Celebrating Authentic Stories,” a conversation about celebrating and continuing the push for positive Latinx representation, and how allies/decision-makers within the industry can better support and amplify Latinx voices. Showrunner/executive producer/director/actor Gloria Calderón Kellett (“One Day at a Time”), creator/showrunner/executive producer/director Tanya Saracho (“Vida”), creator/executive producer/director Steven Canals (“Pose”), and creator/executive producer Ilana Peña (“Diary of a Future President”) are confirmed to participate.
On top of all of that, the virtual event will also give viewers a look “Inside the Writers Zoom Room” in a Zoom-based discussion with showrunners and writers about the process/experience of taking their writers rooms digital and staying connected creatively. The panel will include creator/showrunner/executive producer/director Dan Goor (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine”), co-showrunner/executive producer Beth Schwartz (“Sweet Tooth”), showrunner/executive producer Melinda Hsu Taylor (“Nancy Drew”), and creator/showrunner/executive producer Sera Gamble (“You”). Additional panelists will be announced soon.
Longtime ATX partner the Television Academy will present “The Pivot,” a conversation with writers/producers/executives about the surprising and innovative ways that series continue to create in unprecedented circumstances.
ATX will also continue its socially conscious conversations with the ACLU, whose panel on TV’s approach to covering voter suppression and critical election-year issues will feature Dale Ho, director of ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, and creatives. In addition, USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center’s Hollywood, Health & Society will present a panel on mental health and addiction narratives. Panelists will be announced at a later date.
In the coming weeks, more programming from partners Disney+, HBO Max, HBO, CBS Television Studios, FX Networks, AMC Networks, and Peacock will be announced.
Registration for the virtual festival is now open. Register here!
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Ashley Bissette Sumerel
Ashley Bissette Sumerel is a television and film critic living in Wilmington, North Carolina. She is editor-in-chief of Tell-Tale TV as well as Eulalie Magazine. Ashley has also written for outlets such as Rolling Stone, Paste Magazine, and Insider. Ashley has been a member of the Critics Choice Association since 2017 and is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic. In addition to her work as an editor and critic, Ashley teaches Entertainment Journalism, Composition, and Literature at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.