Latest / Arts Unscripted with Monica Holt / David Jammy on Story-First Producing and the 2025 Mark Twain Prize

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David Jammy on Story-First Producing and the 2025 Mark Twain Prize · Arts Unscripted with Monica Holt

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Welcome back to CI to Eye. I'm Monica Holt.
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On March 23rd, 2025,
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the 26th annual Mark Twain Prize honored Conan O'Brien at the Kennedy Center,
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just weeks after the Trump administration had seized control of the institution.
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That night,
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an incredible group of artists and comedians celebrated Conan on stage in an
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event David Letterman called "the most entertaining gathering of the resistance
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ever." But producing a celebration that managed to honor comedy's most
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beloved figure while acknowledging the extraordinary circumstances required
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navigating uncharted territory for everyone involved,
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most particularly the lead producers. My guest today is David Jammy,
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Executive Producer at Done+Dusted,
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the company behind broadcasts of the Emmy Awards, the Kennedy Center Honors,
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and the Global Citizens Festival.
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He's also one of the minds behind the transformation of the Mark Twain Prize
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into what's now recognized as the highest honor in American comedy.
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David's story begins an apartheid-era South Africa, where as a student activist,
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he witnessed media's power to transform society,
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a lesson that would define his approach to producing cultural events that
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capture history as it unfolds.
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It was wonderful to catch up with David and explore his storytelling philosophy,
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his journey to American cultural creator,
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and the delicate art of translating live moments into lasting television.
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We'll also share with you some of the story of our spring and how we produced
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the 2025 Mark Twain Prize: a night that became both tribute and resistance,
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both celebration and farewell. Let's dive in.
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David Jammy, welcome to CI to Eye. Thank you for being here.
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Thanks for having me. It's so nice to see you in a different context.
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I agree. It's great to see you in this context.
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I think you have a pretty interesting story that I would love for you to share a
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little bit about,
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and we'll also talk about all things live events and broadcasts,
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and maybe talk a little bit about this spring and some of the adventures we had
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there together. But to kick us off,
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obviously I am most familiar with you from all of your work in
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executive producing live events and the work we've done together.
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But before all of that,
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you were growing up and working in South Africa during one of the
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most transformative periods of that country's history.
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And I'd love for you to just walk us a little bit through that story and your
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relationship to media and storytelling that developed throughout those years.
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Honestly,
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if I were to think about anybody living in any time,
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I can't think of a more extraordinary experience of both the ups and downs and
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the highs and lows of humanity than in South Africa.
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So I feel completely blessed to have been a child really in the height
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of the apartheid years in many ways,
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and then come to consciousness and maturity just as the popular uprisings
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against Apartheid reached their zenith.
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It was a time of great drama and great extremes,
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and having been a student activist and seen both of
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the possibilities that humanity kind of creates,
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I suppose both good and bad, was an extraordinary experience.
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And then of course, the ANC was banned and Mandela was released.
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And because I was 20 something and knew nothing about the world,
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I thought I was personally and individually solely responsible for the end of
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apartheid as 20 year olds do. And then I
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became a professional and a filmmaker in the early years of
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the post-apartheid period.
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And that was also just an unbelievable period because South Africa was,
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it was the fairy tale of the 20th century.
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It was the story of a nation that had kind of overcome oppression and
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suppression and injustice and inhumanity in not a bloodless revolution,
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but certainly in a successful revolution that had the full weight of the world
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behind it. It was the Mandela moment,
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and the world was celebrating what was largely seen as the impossible
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and embracing the possibility of how a country can remake itself.
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And so I started making media in that period,
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and it was an amazing moment because if you'll indulge me,
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I'll just give you a bit of a context.
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So the Apartheid government held off the advent of television in
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South Africa until 1977.
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And the reason they did that is because whilst you can control radio
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regionally,
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you can't control the footprint of television. So they didn't like the idea that
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any television that got produced in the country could be seen by everyone.
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So they held it off and held off. And then in 76, 77 round there,
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they launched TV channels in South Africa. And I grew up, when I was growing up,
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there were two and then three TV channels,
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which were all state propagandist channels,
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which conscientiously excluded 80%,
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90% of the population of South Africa because they were really being produced
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for white South Africans and were mouthpieces for the government.
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So the vast majority of South Africans until 94
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when democracy came to South Africa,
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had not seen themselves represented on South Africa's TV screens.
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And so the idea of making TV in that post-apartheid moment when for
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the first time people were seeing themselves being represented in their own
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voices on TV, it was just the, and we were making up the rules as we went.
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There was no, it's tiny -- it's a small industry in a small country.
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And so we got the opportunity to do whatever the hell we wanted really,
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and it was so much fun. So on the one hand,
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it was just a great introduction to media and the power of media,
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but also because of course there was no infrastructure for Black South Africans
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and education was non-existent.
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TV became a trusted source of information and education
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in a way that I've never seen it before. And so the idea of being able
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to use media to really influence the
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conversation and the climate and that kind of thing was very
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enticing and very seducing to me. And in my mind, in my kind of naive mind,
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it was always the idea of using it for good.
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Well, we're glad for that. We're grateful for that.
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And I just think that's such an interesting foundational piece
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because obviously I knew you and was working with you before I knew frankly that
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whole background and your whole story,
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but you have always talked about being story first,
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being really committed to the impact of authentically telling
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an individual story or an event story.
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And I have to imagine you've just walked us through why that was kind of
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ingrained with you from the beginning,
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because it's also truth in the power of telling that story and creating the
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social impact.
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Absolutely.
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The operative word in all of that is storytelling because the bottom line is
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producing, is producing, is producing, it's kind of genre neutral.
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On the fringes,
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there's skills you have to learn of whether you're making factual or scripted
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work or big events.
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But the essence I think remains pretty much the same.
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And the essence really, when you strip everything else away,
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the essence of it is storytelling.
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There's no rocket science in producing a great TV show or a great event
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because you hire people to do the jobs well and then you manage them.
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But really,
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I think the thing that distinguishes very good and great is
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how well you understand the story you're telling. And I really believe that.
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Well,
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I think that's what makes your mentality and therefore Done+Dusted also such
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a great partner for live events in the arts and culture space too. I'm curious,
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do you remember the very first live events you worked on with Done+Dusted?
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Yeah. My first inception with Done+Dusted was, it was in,
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I think 2012,
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and they were producing a show called CNN Heroes.
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Oh, sure.
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And they needed somebody to make the little profile films of the
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people being awarded in the show. So not actually the live event part of it,
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but the pre-made films. And I was a filmmaker.
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And in the course of that, I got to know the company and thought, well,
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these are nice people. And then did some development work for them.
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And then the first show I really conceived of and produced
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was a Kelly Clarkson Christmas special.
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How about that?
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And it was totally batshit crazy, the special, I have no idea how I,
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because I parlayed this ridiculous narrative
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into the Christmas special, which I'm still incredibly proud of.
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It was fantastic and crazy. It had a meta narrative,
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and it started with Kelly Clarkson in the story of the show,
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going to the network and pitching this idea of a Christmas special
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and kind of made no sense and was I thought pretty great.
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And it had a very young Ken Jeong in it, and William Shatner was in it.
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It was totally bizarre. And so it was fun, and I think it's great.
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I dunno if it's held up...
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I mean, we've got to find it and add it to the show notes if we do.
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But as you approach an event and you're just kind of getting started on the
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pitch for it,
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how do you work through breaking what that story should be for particularly for
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live events?
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The trick about pitching for things is you've got to tell people what they want
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to hear, not what you want to say.
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And that's been a hard lesson for me because when I was
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younger and greener,
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I would think that my job was to walk into a room and I was pitching and
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convince people that I was the smartest person in the room. And of course,
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that's completely wrong. When you're pitching for something,
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you've got to walk into a room and tell the person you're pitching to that
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they're the smartest person in the room. I mean, yes,
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you have to have good ideas embedded in that, but it's a very different task.
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But then you get the job in some form or another and assemble
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the creative team. And then to the chagrin and irritation of my colleagues,
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I spend ridiculous amounts of time doing what I call naval gazing.
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And we do this deep research and we sit around
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and explore the idea of what's the story of the show is.
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And obviously that makes sense if you're doing a show that has an obvious story.
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But I'm talking about doing an award show, like the story of the Emmys is,
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it's opening envelopes. But my philosophy is every single show has a story,
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a story that's bigger than what it is.
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And thinking about what the story of the Emmys is this year,
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it's still going to be --
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90% of the show's going to be people walking onto stage and telling you who the
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nominees are and opening an envelope.
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But somewhere in the zeitgeist of that show and the fabric of how you put it
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together, if you know that you're trying to tell the story,
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and you know what that story is, the difference will be marginal,
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but it also will be critical.
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I would also say, I mean, award shows are one thing,
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but something I said to you just a couple of days ago when we were chatting was,
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there's this kind of archeological nature to what you're
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doing because you are capturing a moment in time that is never going to happen
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exactly that same way again. And so you're capturing that,
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but you're also preserving it as a moment in history that people other than
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those who were in the audience for that moment will see.
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I imagine when you're driven by story,
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that at least helps create what that thread is,
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how you bridge those two audiences.
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But that's got to be pretty challenging also to think about how you
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balance something that feels unpredictable with something that becomes
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a package 90 minute to two hour television or
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streaming program. And is that challenge the exciting part for you,
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or do you wish that maybe those boundaries that have existed around that
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kind of final package delivery could be broken a little bit more?
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I think I understand the kind of relationship
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between aspiration and humility in the sense that we
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all reach for greatness and we reach for greatness in what we do every day in
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some ways. And so when I make a show, I absolutely want it to change the world,
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and I absolutely want it to live for posterity,
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and I want it to be a great capture of moment and place and
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time. And I think that aspiration is always good,
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but then I also think I've got a healthy dose of humility,
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which is really in the final instance, we are just making stuff,
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and it's true. And yes, the Mark Twain prize,
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it'll be an absolutely critical moment in Conan O'Brien's
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life, but it won't be much more than that.
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And that's not nothing.
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If you are doing justice to that person and capturing the essence of the
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thing that they've aspired to their whole life and done it in a way that feeds
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you creatively, you've done a good job.
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And there are very few single pieces of media or single events that
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change the world. Very, very few. And that's okay too,
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but you should always aspire to it.
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I mean, I agree with you and I love what you're saying,
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and I would also though say that those things also bring a lot of other people,
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joy or comfort or entertainment. And so it depends on, I guess,
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what your definition of change the world is.
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Yours might be a little more ambitious than that, certainly,
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but I think these days in particular, that's worth something too.
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No, I think that's right.
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We are making entertainment and there's a lot to be said for entertaining people
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and I wouldn't want to undermine that.
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Okay, so we've danced a little bit towards it,
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but obviously I first became most aware of you in 2018,
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Done+Dusted joined the Kennedy Center as the executive producers of the Mark
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Twain Prize. I was kind of in another section of the building,
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so I wasn't working directly with you then,
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but it was pretty clear from that first Twain Prize,
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which I believe was Julia Louis Dreyfus, right?
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That's right. Yeah.
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That we were in for -- Okay.
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We are both leveling up what we're doing with the Twain Prize,
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something a little more modern, more impactful,
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maybe I can even say more interesting, which I will say, but you don't have to.
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All that being said, you were joining a legacy institution,
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a program that didn't have a enormously long history, but it had,
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I think, almost two decades at that point, a little less than that.
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What was your approach coming into the center and kind of walking in
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and taking your vision for what the prize could be and how did
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you jump in and find success,
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which then I think could really continue to evolve enormously over the next
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several years too?
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Well, thanks for saying all those nice things.
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So when we were invited to produce, I think it was,
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it's just had, its 25th, so I think that was, its 19th or.
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Something? I think so, yeah.
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The 19th mark twain prize, and you're right, let's just be frank.
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It had been going for those 18 or 19 years,
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had followed a very similar format.
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And the format had been that they would choose a prize winner and then invite
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very established and successful comedians who had a relationship to that person
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to come onto the stage and say funny and nice things about that person,
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and was a procession onto the stage of extraordinary people saying really funny
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stuff in tribute to the prize winner.
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And the public at large knew nothing about it really.
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It didn't have any profile, prominence, status in the public.
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And so that was really our brief,
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our brief when we took over was how do you take this event that has currency and
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status in the comedy community and turn it into a cultural event,
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turn it into something that has a public facing profile and a piece of
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entertainment. So I looked at it and the kernel of the story has
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become the essence of the show. And the thing that I love most about the show,
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the kernel of this thought was that the comedy community is very unique in the
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arts.
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I think in the sense that there are only three or four strands in the
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comedy community of how you come up and find success.
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Either you're in the trenches of the comedy clubs,
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which many of them were and knew each other from,
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or you've come up through some of the comedy troops.
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There are three or four comedy troops that they've all had experience in or been
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in some time or another.
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But the bottom line is that they've known each other for very long.
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They've all followed quite similar routes to success,
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and they all know how incredibly fucking hard it is. And therefore,
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they celebrate each other's successes with generosity and
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warmth, which you don't get in any other genre.
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You don't get that amongst pop stars. You don't get that amongst actors.
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You don't get that. You know what I mean? It is very unique. And I saw this,
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and the weird thing about it was that was never the story of the show.
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Everybody in the show sits in the green room until it's their time
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to come out. They're backstage in the green room.
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They didn't used to be in the boxes?
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No.
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I forgot.
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So the first thing I did was I was like, put the people in the room.
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The show is about that community.
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You want to see that community, you want to see them celebrating each other.
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You want to see that.
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And the other thing is that the recipient was in this balcony--
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That I remember.
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--At the back of the room, and I said, no, no, no. It's all,
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the story of this show is all about the relationships between the
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people coming to tribute the prize winner and the prize winner.
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So put them in proximity to each other, allow them to interact,
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allow the audience to have view of just how these people adore each other and
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how funny they are. And so we did that with Julia Louis Dreyfus,
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but we didn't do much else.
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And that in itself actually felt like a subtle but huge kind of shift.
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And then in the years after that,
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we managed to make a very different show every single year.
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And I think one that probably a lot of folks remember,
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because after it was on PBS, then it had this window on Netflix,
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was Dave Chappelle, which felt like, okay,
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there was this incremental change for Julia,
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and then feet were firmly planted and a whole new storytelling approach that at
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least that's how I remember it being.
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That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. So Chapelle fell to the other extreme. I mean,
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it was a ridiculous and ambitious and fabulous
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night. And that one, the way the Mark Twain Prize works is just --
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for people that haven't seen it,
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is that it's a procession of people onto the stage.
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Each one crafts their own tribute to the prize winner.
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There's often music folded in, and then at the end,
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the prize winner makes a speech, an acceptance speech.
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So it's a pretty conventional format. But with Dave Chappelle,
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it was really interesting because when we figured out what --
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that same naval gazing process I was talking about earlier --
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about what story we'll be telling, and we sat around and we kind of said, well,
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there are two things that were unique about Dave Chappelle's story.
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The one is he is a DC native,
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and his soul is firmly rooted in DC and two,
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he's quintessentially a standup comedy guy and his happy place and
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his native territory is standup comedy clubs. And so what
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we did with that is we kind of said, well, if we want to tell that story,
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we should figure out a way to see and hear from him throughout the show,
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not just for his acceptance speech. And so what we did with that is we thought,
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how should we do that? And we went to a local standup comedy club.
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And the night before the big fancy audacious event at the Kennedy
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Center, we filmed with him and a bunch of people at a local comedy club,
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and we took that night of standup comedy and threaded it
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through the main event in the edits.
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We had a long time to edit that show, and we cut it like a film.
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And it feels that way.
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Yeah.
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And I would say the other added benefit from my lens too was it also
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created another connection between the Twain Prize, the center,
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and the local comedy scene.
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Because as much as you can start to bring events like that that have this kind
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of gala-on-high feel because of years and years and start to say,
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wait, but this can also be part of the city's culture,
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this can also be something we're all celebrating together,
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which is something we have been talking about or had been talking about for
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honors too,
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how we make it more of a celebration that more people are invited to.
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I think in a lot of ways, yes,
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that wasn't the priority or the primary objective for why you were
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doing that,
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but it was certainly a wonderful outcome that in turn also speaks to the
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story of Dave and DC and the city. So that was, I think,
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a real watershed moment for Twain Prize. And then of course, going into,
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I think about all the great moments in John Stewart's show,
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the banana peel in the coal mine commentary seems particularly relevant
21:55
these days. And then going into the past couple years with Netflix,
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I think we all talk about Adam Sandler.
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You really picked up on that kind of very family,
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big,
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warm hug feeling of who he is.
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But also, it really came across, I think, in that show, and as you were saying,
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each one kind of took on an embodiment of the honoree,
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which is such a special approach for what could have otherwise just been a year
22:24
after year award show.
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That's very kind of you. Yeah. It's also, to be frank, it's what makes it fun,
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because otherwise you just like, it's just painting by numbers.
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And that's not fun.
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And I can't take credit solely for this because I think we had such
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extraordinary partners at the Kennedy Center and Matt Weiner and you and Deborah
22:43
Rutter,
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because everybody played a huge role in both kind of supporting the
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evolution of the show, but also latching onto, building a vision,
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both for the Kennedy Center and for the show. And I do think people,
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what we've achieved together is, if nothing else,
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the thing I'm most proud of is that I think the Mark Twain prize is now
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known far and wide and recognized publicly as the highest recognition for comedy
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in the land. And I think that we did that.
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So certainly that's never been more true. That kind of brings us to this spring.
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So this year's Mark Twain Prize was certainly created in extraordinary
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circumstances.
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Folks who have listened to this podcast before or read a paper in the past six
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months,
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know that President Trump took over the Kennedy Center in
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February. That weekend,
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that kind of February 7th to February 12th,
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I had a front row seat to a lot of things that were happening and a lot of
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questions being asked, hope that became unfounded,
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et cetera. And then on the 13th, at that point,
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David Rubenstein had been relieved of his duties as chairman the weekend before,
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the day before Deborah had been released as President of the center.
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And though I can't say the dust settled on that Thursday because the dust
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still I think is settling for a lot of people... That day,
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that Thursday was the first day that
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we were no longer trying to see what fight could be put up to preserve an
24:20
institution's independence. And instead it became,
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okay, what is about to be on the horizon? And for me,
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that became what can we protect? How do we do that?
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I knew that I wasn't going to stay,
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but I also knew that I could do some good if I stayed for a little bit to give
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some folks time to figure things out.
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And also for these other decisions to be made,
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one of which was the Twain Prize.
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Conan O'Brien had accepted the invitation from David Rubenstein and Deborah
24:52
Rutter, and I think we didn't know what was going to happen,
24:56
if he was still interested in coming.
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We didn't know if the new administration was still interested in having the
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event. And so at that point,
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I think you and I began on parallel but separate tracks.
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So I was very much in a protect, preserve,
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keep-away moment where I was having the conversations I needed to have with the
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new administration,
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but I was also positioning myself as their only point of contact with anything
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to do, frankly, with any programming at that point in time,
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which included saying that everything was fine and not to worry and not to look
25:29
too closely, frankly,
25:30
at what was happening with the Mark Twain prize. At the same time,
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you are wondering about executive producing this event
25:38
that could be monumentally different than something you have been planning for
25:42
the past year, essentially.
25:45
So walk me through what your decision-making process was for moving
25:49
forward and kind of what those weeks were like for
25:54
you as you were figuring out what the new landscape was.
25:58
Well,
26:00
I think it all started with Conan and his position on the show.
26:06
Well, lemme just set the stage.
26:09
Many people were withdrawing their participation in events
26:14
at that time in the aftermath of the Trump Administration.
26:18
That's right.
26:18
And we also had a lot of artists that week questioning or pulling out from the
26:22
Kennedy Center as this was happening.
26:24
So it was a complicated situation,
26:26
most of all I think for Conan because one,
26:30
he is not a political grandstander, that's not his brand. Obviously,
26:34
he over the years has expressed views,
26:37
but it hasn't been his brand of late night or his brand of comedy.
26:40
I think it'd be very different if it was a John Stewart or Stephen Colbert or
26:45
Jimmy Kimmel or whatever. But of the slate of late night hosts,
26:48
he occupies a very, I think, quite unique position.
26:52
And so we wanted to take our cue from him.
26:55
And so right from the beginning, his position was,
26:59
I was awarded the prize by the Kennedy Center in whenever it was, in December,
27:04
under the ambit of the former president and chair of the council,
27:09
Deborah Rutter and Dave Rubenstein.
27:11
And he didn't speculate as to what would happen if he was awarded it
27:16
under the new regime because it wasn't, it wasn't the case.
27:20
And his position was, as far as he was concerned,
27:24
it probably could or should continue under those auspices.
27:29
That's right.
27:29
And Conan has pretty much unparalleled love and respect in the comedy community.
27:35
And we were approaching people saying,
27:36
the show should be first and foremost a tribute to Conan,
27:40
but don't feel we are going to edit or audit
27:45
you in any way if you feel like you want to
27:50
address the context of the Kennedy Center. Basically,
27:54
we pretty much made it clear that we were going to largely leave it up to the
27:58
individual people on the show to figure out how they wanted to
28:03
address the moment. And my job was really, again,
28:06
in the context of weaving a story,
28:09
I felt like we had to address the moment.
28:12
It would be inappropriate and weird to not address what
28:17
was going on at the Kennedy Center in that moment. And also, I personally,
28:22
obviously you were all my colleagues and we've worked
28:27
intimately together for almost 10 years.
28:29
I felt emotional about it myself.
28:32
Of course.
28:33
Not to mention that we were in the national
28:38
site of the protection of and the furtherance of the performing arts.
28:41
So all that to be said,
28:44
we didn't edit or audit who we invited to the show.
28:48
We invited all the right people who should be on that show to tribute Conan.
28:54
Also, by the way,
28:55
just going back to what we were talking about earlier about storytelling,
28:57
I didn't want the Kennedy Center to be the story of the night.
29:00
I wanted Conan to be the story of the night.
29:02
And so we did all our usual naval gazing. It was just like, well,
29:05
what the hell is the story of Conan?
29:08
And I guess we landed on a narrative about him being both the
29:13
silliest and the cleverest person in the room at any given time,
29:16
which is so true to Conan.
29:19
And so we also wanted a show that was completely unruly,
29:23
completely inappropriate, which wasn't about anything about the Kennedy Center,
29:27
but it was about how you tell the story of Conan.
29:29
Oh, completely. I mean,
29:30
you don't start any other honorific show for a comedian with a masturbating bear
29:35
unless he's Conan --
29:36
Conan.
29:36
-- O'Brien.
29:37
Unless they're Conan. Right.
29:38
Exactly. So there was always going to be this sense of chaos,
29:41
I think if maybe it was exactly the right person for the moment in so
29:46
many ways.
29:46
As it turns out, it was the perfect person for the moment.
29:50
And the silliness, the cleverness,
29:53
and also just his kindness in the moment.
29:55
I think what's struck me is just he kept saying over and over again that he
30:00
wanted to be there for the staff and also he wanted to be there and the folks
30:04
that were coming with him to celebrate with him and that you were working with,
30:07
that he wanted them to be able to go on stage and say whatever they wanted to
30:11
say.
30:11
Totally.
30:12
And this moment of freedom of speech being celebrated,
30:15
even in a silly way and a celebratory way,
30:18
I think it was such a moment of catharsis.
30:21
But I am curious how you balanced that all as executive producer hat too.
30:25
Well, the other thing is we were all in an unknown territory.
30:30
We had no idea what the takeover of the building meant,
30:35
how much I was worried that when somebody found out that Stephen Colbert or
30:40
Sarah Silverman and many, many others on the stage --
30:44
Yes. But we just made sure they never found out.
30:46
And I think that one day we'll write the whole book on the emergency
30:51
phone calls in the grocery store,
30:53
finding out that someone was copied onto an email that we didn't want copied.
30:56
But for now,
30:58
I think you're right that because we were in these parallel lanes,
31:02
I think both of us trying not to worry the other one or put
31:07
anyone in any position that we didn't want them in.
31:10
There was this weird also thread of let's just say
31:14
enhanced project management that wouldn't have needed to happen in a different
31:18
year.
31:19
Oh God, absolutely. And I don't think there are any secrets --
31:21
because of the unknown,
31:23
I made sure that none of the names of people on the show were released.
31:28
And you did as well from the Kennedy Center's side.
31:31
So we made sure the spotlight was not shining on the recipients until the day of
31:35
the event. Because we were in the building for a number of weeks,
31:38
I made sure that every script was redacted and there were no documents published
31:43
about who was going to be in the show. In retrospect,
31:46
out of an excess of caution because there was absolutely no attempt to
31:50
censor anything.
31:51
But to your point, we didn't know.
31:54
And it's also about protecting the folks who wanted to show up for Conan and not
31:58
putting them in a compromising situation.
31:59
Absolutely.
32:00
Right?
32:00
And that's what the center should always be doing is putting the artists first.
32:04
And that's what you were doing.
32:07
And just to be clear, we put a lot of work into the show,
32:11
and I'm very proud of it,
32:12
and I have the best writers in the world working on it,
32:15
but you're dealing with literally the best far and away the best comedians
32:20
in the world. A lot of them have a huge hand in what --
32:25
I can't control, I can make suggestions.
32:29
For some of the artists we work on entirely what they're going to
32:32
do on stage. But for some others, I mean,
32:36
I didn't know what Will Ferrell was going to do until the day of the show,
32:40
when he arrived with his script.
32:43
And so there was also a certain amount of anxiety because who knows what Sarah
32:48
Silverman or Stephen Colbert or whatever is going to do on the stage of Trump's
32:53
Kennedy Center. As it turned out, it was, I think,
32:58
just a perfect calibration between celebrating Conan first and foremost,
33:02
making a great piece of entertainment, and addressing the moment.
33:06
And then addressing the moment was both hilarious and deeply, deeply emotional,
33:12
particularly for you and the staff at the Kennedy Center.
33:15
Yeah, David watched me cry multiple times that weekend,
33:18
but I think a lot of us were beside ourselves for a number of reasons.
33:24
But I was going to ask you about that.
33:26
This idea of balancing a celebration and the celebration of Conan,
33:30
which I do think all of us were so desirous of making sure that that
33:35
wasn't overshadowed. And yet at the same time,
33:40
and I think you've even called it this before,
33:41
there was also a little bit of a wake for the Kennedy Center that was,
33:45
and that we hoped would always be, how do you as a leader in that moment,
33:51
you have huge amounts of talent, huge amounts of teams working on this event,
33:54
even without any of this extra stuff, you have a focus on the story,
33:59
but you're the EP, you're the folks everyone is looking to.
34:03
How do you center yourself in that moment to be able to lead with so
34:08
many competing, not just priorities, but also emotions?
34:14
So first of all, it's not my show. Yes, I corral that group of people,
34:18
but it's like a family, and we care so fucking much about that show.
34:24
It's not like other shows.
34:27
There is something about it that is in our souls,
34:29
and we pour our hearts and souls into the show.
34:33
And that's not just my group of producers, but the whole crew.
34:38
We had the same crew every year. And so right from the beginning,
34:43
it was not like other shows.
34:44
We pretty much were reconciled to the fact that this might be the last Mark
34:49
Twain prize. And so it was deeply emotional for us.
34:52
We adopted this baby and then we grew it up, we raised it,
34:57
and it's our baby.
34:58
So certainly the narrative amongst the crew was emotional from the start,
35:03
which is it might be the last show that we are going to go out with a bang. We
35:08
are going to make it the best show there's ever been,
35:11
and certainly the best tribute to Conan that anyone could ever wish for.
35:14
And I think it was a much more emotional process for me.
35:18
I think people were very committed to that for --
35:20
people are very emotional about it. And I will say this,
35:24
shows are like living organisms, each one is different.
35:28
You can do as much work as you like to prepare for it,
35:31
and in the process of building it,
35:33
and you can put them together in exactly the same way,
35:36
and every show will be entirely different.
35:38
And there was something obviously about this particular show which there was a
35:43
kind of magic that was happening. It was an extraordinary organism.
35:46
And I think people, first of all, everybody loves a drama,
35:50
so it was dramatic. Everyone loves a drama. And secondly,
35:55
there's something essential about the duality of making a --
35:59
particularly comedy,
36:00
which is it's always about the kind of smiling face and the crying face. So
36:06
it felt really moving and inspiring. And then of course,
36:11
Conan,
36:12
because he's both the most ridiculous man in the room and the cleverest man in
36:16
any room, made a speech that was just a speech for the ages.
36:21
I will say President Trump was not mentioned once.
36:24
No.
36:26
Which is kind of extraordinary.
36:27
No, it was very special. Listen,
36:30
a lot of us have many people to thank for that weekend.
36:33
You are high among them because I think for so many of us there,
36:38
that was such an important weekend.
36:41
It was a weekend of joy and a feeling of support. As you said,
36:45
Conan's speech at the end and the way that the room responded to him was
36:49
extraordinary to bear witness to and to feel supported and lifted by that.
36:54
But it was also, I think, a moment of closure, at least for now,
36:57
for a lot of us that we wouldn't have had.
37:00
And so grateful to you and really grateful to Conan for
37:05
agreeing and being there and showing up for everyone as everyone showed up to
37:10
really celebrate him. Because truly what a career,
37:13
and I'm one of those crazy kids like John Mulaney who has been on the Conan
37:17
journey since the days when we were, as he said,
37:20
chaining ourselves to trees every time they threatened to cancel him.
37:24
Whether or not that was the final Mark Twain prize.
37:27
What do you think the future holds for cultural celebrations in the kind of
37:31
broadcast streaming space?
37:34
I think we're in a really quite interesting, quite pivotal moment.
37:37
I think that -- Listen. On the one hand, TV as a whole,
37:42
particularly TV, but film and TV, it's in crisis.
37:46
And that crisis is going to be exponentially increased in the next
37:51
five years with the advent of AI generated content because it's going to happen.
37:57
And the generation of entertainment is going to be
38:02
a tsunami of very cheap, very good,
38:07
very competent entertainment generated out of or interacting with
38:12
the world of AI. No doubt about it. On the other hand,
38:15
big events and live events are, I think,
38:19
going to be on the ascent because the
38:23
streamers, the big streamers where the money is,
38:26
the Netflixes and Amazons and others in the world,
38:30
they've got to figure out the next big thing.
38:32
And I think the next big thing is going to be the human in the world of AI,
38:36
in the world of everybody being more and more isolated by social media and
38:39
everything else. I think the idea of having a shared experience,
38:44
whether that's watching at exactly the same time and interacting with people or
38:49
being in the same place as other people, is it's currency is going to rise.
38:53
So I think my little corner of the industry is probably going to be
38:58
quite interesting in years to come.
39:00
Yeah. Okay. So quickfire culture.
39:04
Is there one piece of culture right now that you're currently obsessed with or
39:08
that you love?
39:10
I revisited recently the series, the TV series, the Americans,
39:15
and it is unbelievable to me that the
39:20
Americans did not get the notoriety and recognition
39:25
and fame and celebration that it -- by the end of it,
39:28
people kind of came around to it. But as a piece,
39:31
we talk about storytelling and we talk about empathy,
39:33
and we talk about the power of media.
39:36
The Americans is an extraordinary television series,
39:40
and just in every way,
39:43
in the writing and the acting and the characterization in the universe that it
39:47
occupies,
39:47
and the humanity of these two people whose job it is to kill people on
39:52
behalf of Russians, it's a phenomenal TV series,
39:57
and I'm so shocked that it doesn't have its space in the
40:01
kind of upper echelons of the canon of television drama.
40:04
Okay, good. So we have our watching cut out.
40:07
We need to go back and find the Kelly Clarkson special and we need to find The
40:10
Americans.
40:11
Right.
40:13
So one question that we ask at the end of every episode is,
40:17
if you could broadcast one message to all of the executive
40:21
directors and staffs and leadership teams and boards of thousands of
40:26
arts organizations, what would that message be?
40:31
Well, I think for me,
40:33
it would be that I've been thinking a lot about AI,
40:37
obviously, as everybody has,
40:39
because I think it'll permeate every corner of everything that we do,
40:44
very notably in the arts.
40:47
I think that as with all technology, it's a neutral tool,
40:53
really.
40:53
Its effect on our world is going to be determined by the hands that it's in and
40:57
who's using it.
40:59
And we need to all really lean in because it's not about
41:04
holding off the advent of AI and artificial intelligence.
41:08
It's about how we lean into it, because it's here.
41:12
And I think it's going to affect every single one of us and how we do our jobs
41:16
and what we see as creativity and what we see as excellence.
41:20
And the idea of getting on a pedestal and spouting moral kind of
41:25
horror is just -- we're in that moment where the temptation is to do that,
41:30
but fight the temptation. It's here.
41:35
Couldn't agree more. David Jammy, thank you. Thank you for your time.
41:40
Thank you for all that you have given and will continue to give in this space,
41:45
and just great to see you. Thanks for the conversation.
41:47
Well, I -- Wait, I didn't say it. Certainly not expressly enough,
41:52
but I think that you and the staff of the Kennedy Center are extraordinary human
41:57
beings and built an extraordinary institution and acted with grace and
42:01
dignity,
42:03
and I can't thank you enough for the experience that all of you created
42:08
for us in the arts. So thank you.
42:11
Thank you, David. That means the world.
42:22
Thank you for listening to CI to Eye with Monica Holt.
42:25
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42:27
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42:49
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