Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/231210
putting it together POWER THROUGH COLLABORATION A Glimpse into the Behind-the-Scenes Efforts of the SAG Awards Creative Team E xecutive Producer Kathy Connell vividly remembers the 14 months leading up to the inaugural Screen Actors Guild Awards® ceremony. As the first SAG Awards® Committee chair, Connell and four fellow board members, Daryl Anderson, Toey Caldwell, Paul Napier and Yale Summers, worked tirelessly to establish the entire awards program, from the categories, rules and design of the award to the sit-down dinner club ambience. "It was fairly terrifying when we sent out the invitations the first year," recalls Connell, who stepped down from the board to become the full-time producer of the show in 1996 and who also holds the title of SAG-AFTRA Assistant National Executive Director of Awards and National Programming. "We were throwing a very grand party and we didn't know if anybody would come. We didn't know then that when you send out 45 SAG-AFTRA | Special Issue 2014 | SAGAFTRA.org invitations nobody replies until the last two weeks before the show." But a bevy of enthusiastic guests did attend and were first-hand witnesses to the highly successful debut of the Screen Actors Guild Awards, broadcast on NBC. Since then, Connell's duties have significantly expanded. With counsel from the Awards Committee, she negotiates the contracts with the network and with Jeff Margolis Productions, and she oversees every aspect of the show's budget, marketing, promotion, corporate sponsorships and partnerships, as well as the awards and publicity departments. The SAG Awards Committee continues to play a vital role in the success of the show, which now airs on TNT and TBS. To this day, the committee, which includes Vice Chair Daryl Anderson