SAG Awards Actor Puts the ‘S’ in EGOTS at Atlanta Exhibit

The SAG-AFTRA Atlanta Local hosted the first-ever Atlanta EGOTS Exhibit on Jan. 19, featuring the SAG Awards Actor® as one of America’s top performance awards, along with the Emmy®, Grammy®, Oscar® and Tony®. The event, which was free to the public, was held inside the Woodruff Arts Center, home to the Tony Award-winning Alliance Theatre and the multi-Grammy Award-winning Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. The nearly 2,500 attendees were encouraged to take photos of the awards and post them to social media.

The event took place through the combined efforts of SAG-AFTRA Atlanta Local President Ric Reitz and SAG Awards Executive Producer Kathy Connell.

The display featured awards given to Georgia-based recipients, including:

• The 2018 Southeast Chapter Governors Emmy Award for outstanding achievement and dedication to broadcast television, presented to Reitz in tandem with Local Executive Director Melissa Goodman, local actor Wilbur Fitzgerald and casting director Shay Griffin;
• The 1985 Grammy for Best Classical Album presented to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus for Hector Berloiz: Requiem;
• The 1962 Oscar® for Best Original Song, awarded to Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini for Moon River, which appeared in the 1961 motion picture Breakfast at Tiffany’s;
• The Alliance Theatre’s own 2007 Regional Theatre Tony Award; and
• The SAG Awards Actor® statuette, emblematic of the award-winning cast of the Netflix series Stranger Things, which has been produced in Georgia since its first season.

The presence of the Actor in the exhibit served as a salute to Georgia’s growing industry presence and importance as a filming location. Atlanta is not only home to many SAG-AFTRA signatory productions — including several award nominees such as Black Panther, Ant-Man and the Wasp and Ozark — but also the Turner Company, the owner of the SAG Awards’ simulcast broadcast partners TBS and TNT.

 “It’s the appropriate time to recognize the SAG Awards Actor among the top five American performance awards,” said Reitz. “[W]e are especially proud of all our local members, artists and organizations that either perform or produce award-winning entertainment.”

Photo: SAG-AFTRA Atlanta Local Board President Ric Reitz stands with the EGOTS and SAG Awards® statuette, the Actor®. (Noel Reitz/SAG-AFTRA)