Production designer Dina Lipton has been elected president of the Art Directors Guild (ADG, IATSE Local 800), replacing outgoing president Nelson Coates who completes eight-and-a-half years at the helm of the Guild.
Lipton will lead a 20-member Executive Board. For the first time in the Guild’s history, the four top ranking members are all female executive officers.
“I’m thrilled to assume the role of president,” said Lipton. “Thank you to my fellow guild members for voting me into this role. I’m looking forward to working hard on behalf of the membership during my term.”
Members of the ADG elected sr. set designer Kristen Davis as VP, and supervising art director Helen Harwell as treasurer. Art director/sr. set designer Judy Cosgrove is reelected to the role of secretary. All four officers will serve three-year terms commencing June 1, 2024.
“Celebrating the results of our elections this year, we’re excited to highlight the milestone of electing all-female executive officers for the first time in the guild’s herstory,” said ADG national executive director Chuck Parker. “I look forward to the leadership they will provide over the next three years.”
Each of the four crafts that comprise the ADG also selected leadership during this election. The Art Directors Council (AD) reelected Miranda Cristofani as AD Craft Board trustee and renamed Rachel Robb Kondrath to the AD Board. Alex Gaines and Tracy Dishman will return to their roles as two of the four AD Council members, joined by new members Emma Koh and Marcia Hinds.
Illustrators, Storyboard Artists and Matte Artists (IMA) Council members elected Matthew Cunningham as IMA Craft Board trustee and Fae Corrigan as IMA Craft Board member. The four IMA council member roles will be filled by Phil Saunders, Stephen Platt, Zachary Berger and Rick Buoen.
Thomas Taylor steps into the role of Craft Board trustee for the Set Designers and Model Makers (SDMM) Council, while Shelley Wallace is reelected to the Board. Chad Frey, Anne Porter, Daniela Medeiros and Taura Rivera will serve as the four SDMM Council Members.
The Scenic, Title and Graphic Artists (STG) Council reinstated Dionisio Tafoya as its Board trustee, alongside newly elected Caitlin Miller to the role of STG Craft Board member. Cristina Colissimo and Eric Rosenberg will resume their roles as two of the four STG Council members, joined by new member Sara Escamilla. Sarah Gonzalez is shifting from the STG Craft Board to being the fourth member of the STG Council.
More than 67 million people watched Donald Trump and Kamala Harris debate. That’s way up from June
An estimated 67.1 million people watched the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, a sharp increase from the June debate that eventually led to President Joe Biden dropping out of the race.
The debate was run by ABC News but shown on 17 different networks, the Nielsen company said. The Trump-Biden debate in June was seen by 51.3 million people.
Tuesday's count was short of the record viewership for a presidential debate, when 84 million people saw Trump's and Hillary Clinton's first faceoff in 2016. The first debate between Biden and Trump in 2020 reached 73.1 million people.
With Harris widely perceived to have outperformed Trump on Tuesday night, the former president and his supporters are sharply criticizing ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis. The journalists waded into on-the-fly fact checks during the debate, correcting four statements by Trump.
No other debates are currently scheduled between the two presidential candidates, although there's been some talk about it and Fox News Channel has publicly offered alternatives. CBS will host a vice presidential debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance.
Tuesday's debate stakes were high to begin with, not only because of the impending election itself but because the last presidential debate uncorked a series of events that ended several weeks later with Biden's withdrawal from the race after his performance was widely panned.
Opinions on how ABC handled the latest debate Tuesday were, in a large sense, a Rorschach test on how supporters of both sides felt about how it went. MSNBC commentator Chris Hayes sent a message on X that the ABC moderators were doing an "excellent" job — only to be answered by conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who said,... Read More