The Piano Lesson, directed by Malcolm Washington and co-written by Washington and Virgil Williams, will receive the 2024 Gotham Awards Ensemble Tribute at the 34th Annual Gotham Awards ceremony on Monday, December 2, 2024 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City.
The Gotham Awards Ensemble Tribute was created in 2005 to recognize the talented casts whose artistry and chemistry captivate audiences on the big screen. With this tribute, The Gotham will honor The Piano Lesson’s cast which includes Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, Ray Fisher, Danielle Deadwyler, Michael Potts, Corey Hawkins, and Erykah Badu.
“The Piano Lesson is a stunning adaptation, bringing August Wilson’s play to life with captivating cinematic artistry,” said Jeffrey Sharp, executive director of The Gotham Film & Media Institute. “The remarkable talent, effort, and chemistry of this brilliant ensemble cast forms the heart of the film, elevating its touching story of family legacy. It’s precisely this kind of collaborative excellence that our Ensemble Tribute Award aims to recognize.”
Constanze Romero-Wilson, executive producer of The Piano Lesson, said, “What Malcolm Washington, his brilliant filmmaking team and ensemble cast of John David Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Danielle Deadwyler, Ray Fisher, Corey Hawkins, Michael Potts, Erykah Badu and Skylar Smith have achieved is an August Wilson story in cinematic form. His words still resonate…are still singing but so are the images, the performances, and the intimate window into each character’s inner world. I am honored and grateful to be part of this project which brings August Wilson’s meaningful stories to a new generation of audiences.”
Set in 1936 Pittsburgh during the aftermath of the Great Depression, The Piano Lesson–adapted from the Wilson play of the same name–follows the lives of the Charles family in the Doaker Charles household and an heirloom, the family piano, which documents the family history through carvings made by their enslaved ancestor.
Following a premiere at Telluride Film Festival in August, The Piano Lesson will be shown in select theaters starting November 8 and will be available to stream on Netflix on November 22. Produced by Denzel Washington and Todd Black, executive producers on the project include Constanza Romero Wilson, Jennifer Roth, and Katia Washington.
Since the category’s inception in 2005, the Gotham Awards’ Ensemble prize has been awarded to notable projects, including Fire Island, The Hurt Locker, Babel, Winter’s Bone, Moonlight, The Favourite, and The Trial of the Chicago 7.
Winners of the 34th Annual Gotham Awards will be honored at the same awards ceremony on Monday, December 2.
Changing OpenAI’s Nonprofit Structure Would Raise Questions and Heightened Scrutiny
The artificial intelligence maker OpenAI may face a costly and inconvenient reckoning with its nonprofit origins even as its valuation recently exploded to $157 billion.
Nonprofit tax experts have been closely watching OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, since last November when its board ousted and rehired CEO Sam Altman. Now, some believe the company may have reached — or exceeded — the limits of its corporate structure, under which it is organized as a nonprofit whose mission is to develop artificial intelligence to benefit "all of humanity" but with for-profit subsidiaries under its control.
Jill Horwitz, a professor in law and medicine at UCLA School of Law who has studied OpenAI, said that when two sides of a joint venture between a nonprofit and a for-profit come into conflict, the charitable purpose must always win out.
"It's the job of the board first, and then the regulators and the court, to ensure that the promise that was made to the public to pursue the charitable interest is kept," she said.
Altman recently confirmed that OpenAI is considering a corporate restructure but did not offer any specifics. A source told The Associated Press, however, that the company is looking at the possibility of turning OpenAI into a public benefit corporation. No final decision has been made by the board and the timing of the shift hasn't been determined, the source said.
In the event the nonprofit loses control of its subsidiaries, some experts think OpenAI may have to pay for the interests and assets that had belonged to the nonprofit. So far, most observers agree OpenAI has carefully orchestrated its relationships between its nonprofit and its various other corporate entities to try to avoid that.
However, they also see... Read More