RIP Jac Venza

 

In Memoriam: Jac Venza

PBS

May 29, 2024

 

GREAT PERFORMANCES mourns the passing of its founding Executive Producer, Jac Venza, who was one of pioneering leaders of American public media for over three decades, and a major force in harnessing the power of television to achieve international recognition for America’s leading performing artists. Beginning with the GREAT PERFORMANCES series in 1972, Mr. Venza created a new framework for the performing arts on PBS, launching the sub-series THEATER IN AMERICA, DANCE IN AMERICA and MUSIC IN AMERICA to initiate television collaboration with performers and artistic companies throughout the country. GREAT PERFORMANCES’s vast program collection has garnered virtually every major television honor, including 67 Emmy Awards.

With Venza’s purview expanding in 1997 as WNET’s Director of Culture & Arts Programs, Venza’s co-productions included AMERICAN VISIONS, the eight-part series with TIME Magazine critic Robert Hughes on the history of American art; YO-YO MA: INSPIRED BY BACH, a six-part exploration of the creative process via J.S. Bach’s Suites for Solo Cello; the six-part I’LL MAKE ME A WORLD: A Century of African-American Arts; the six-part GREAT COMPOSERS profiling some of classical music’s most enduring composers; and Sir Richard Eyre’s six-part history of the English-language theater, CHANGING STAGES. In October 2000, Venza launched WNET’s new theater showcase STAGE ON SCREEN with the live telecast of The Man Who Came to Dinner starring Nathan Lane from the Roundabout Theatre on Broadway. In 2004, the Culture & Arts unit produced the Emmy-winning series BROADWAY: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL hosted by Julie Andrews, an epic six-part chronicle of the American musical theater from the Ziegfeld Follies to the blockbuster premiere of Wicked.

Born in Chicago in 1926, Venza’s father was an Italian immigrant shoemaker. Looking back on his prolific achievements for a 30th anniversary interview in 2002, Venza remarked, “There’s nothing in my background that should have brought me here.” Nevertheless, Venza’s passion for the arts was always a driving force, with the veteran producer adding, “But I knew from the age of eight that I wanted to be an artist.”

VENZA, Jac

Born: 12/23/1926, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

Died: 5/2?/2024, New York City, New York, U.S.A.

 

Jac Venza’s western – set decorator:

Mr. I. Magination Episode 2: Annie Oakley - 1952