Playground Entertainment promotes Scott Huff, David Stern to joint MDs

New York- and London-based production company Playground Entertainment has promoted Scott Huff and David Stern to joint MDs, giving them oversight of day-to-day operations as founder and executive chairman Colin Callender continues to focus to corporate strategy, coproductions and talent relationships. Huff and Stern will be charged with accelerating the growth of the transatlantic company, which has produced projects including BBC Two drama Wolf Hall, BBC/Starz crime series The Missing and Amazon’s King Lear adaptation starring Anthony Hopkins.

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Variety 500 - Colin Callender

Callender originally mounted “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” as a two-night, five-hour-plus stage spectacular in 2018, but when he returned the show to Broadway’s Lyric Theatre in December 2021, the version for post pandemic had been pared down to a still spectacular three and a half hours. That “single play” version has since opened in Melbourne, Toronto and Tokyo, while the original two-parter continued on in Hamburg, Germany, and London’s West End. An Emmy winner for 1982’s “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby,” Callender in 2022 launched new seasons of TV shows he produced: “Dangerous Liaisons” (Starz), starring Lesley Manville and Carice van Houten; Peter Kosminsky’s “The Undeclared War” (Peacock/Channel 4), with Simon Pegg and Mark Rylance; and James Herriot’s “All Creatures Great and Small” (Masterpiece on PBS/Channel 5).  

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‘Harry Potter’ producer has quite a packed ‘Callender’

After producer Colin Callender opened “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” on Broadway, he didn’t have much time to reflect on the raves.

Days later, he was at the US premiere of his PBS and Masterpiece miniseries “Little Women,” which stars newcomer Maya Hawke, daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, as well as Angela Lansbury, Michael Gambon and Emily Watson. (Maya’s also just been cast in the next season of “Stranger Things.”)

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Producer Colin Callender On His Next Chapter, Converging Theater, Film & Television And Taking On Harry Potter

Colin Callender‘s first producing effort, a nine-hour TV adaptation of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s stage production of The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby launched UK’s Channel 4 and won him his first Emmy in 1983. After a stint as an independent producer in his native Britain, Callender joined HBO where he shepherded films and miniseries like Angels In America, John Adams, Maria Full Of Grace and American Splendor to the tune of 104 Emmy Awards, 29 Golden Globes, 3 Oscars, and top awards at the Sundance Film Festival. Since leaving HBO in 2008, he has kept a low profile.

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