Chuck Lorre to Receive Inaugural Norman Lear Award at Variety Showrunners Dinner
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Ahead of the 75th Emmys, Variety’s annual Showrunners Dinner presented by A+E Studios will return on Jan. 11, coinciding with the 2023 Variety TV Producers Impact Report.
At the invite-only dinner, held in Los Angeles, Chuck Lorre will receive the inaugural Norman Lear Award to celebrate a career of hugely successful TV comedies that, much like Norman Lear’s, have tackled social issues including addiction and aging, while creating memorable characters and making audiences laugh.
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At the 2019 Variety Showrunners Dinner, Norman Lear was the first recipient of the predecessor to this award, the Variety Creative Conscience Award, which is why Variety felt it appropriate to rename it in his honor. Variety will continue to recognize a TV leader who is driving positive change for the industry annually, just as Lear did in breaking down barriers with his tremendous run of hit TV shows in the 1970s.
Barry Jossen, president and head of A+E Studios, will give the opening remarks at the dinner.
“Every week, Norman Lear’s vision gave us a window into ourselves — what we were thinking, how we were feeling, our hopes and our dreams. He made it okay for us to laugh at our flaws,” Jossen said. “From ‘All In The Family’ to ‘Sanford and Son’ to ‘Maude’ to ‘The Jeffersons’ and so much more, Lear created and expressed our culture. He elevated the power and potential of television storytelling.”
He added, “Lear inspired us to dream and for some of us, that dream was to create our own shows. Chuck Lorre pursued those dreams — to create, breathe life into characters with honesty, humor and heart and to tell stories that make audiences feel. He has given us ‘The Big Bang Theory,’ ‘Two and A Half Men,’ ‘Young Sheldon,’ the dazzling ‘Kominsky Method’ and a long list of hits. Chuck Lorre is the perfect recipient of the inaugural Norman Lear Award. This is the third consecutive year A+E Studios is hosting the Variety Showrunner’s dinner, and I am excited to meet Chuck Lorre for the first time and celebrate this great honor with him and all of the showrunners.”
“Norman Lear was a legend to all of us, and his legacy lives on via his landmark body of work — including shows like ‘All in the Family’ and ‘Good Times’ — as well as through the generations of writers and showrunners whom he inspired,” added Variety TV editor Michael Schneider. “I can’t think of a better creative to honor with the first Norman Lear Award than Chuck Lorre, whose series have moved us and make us laugh in the same way that Norman’s did.”
Expected guests include John Hoffman (“Only Murders in the Building”), Michael Patrick King (“And Just Like That”), Scott and Lauren Neustadter (“Daisy Jones and the Six”), Noah Hawley (“Fargo”), Liz Tigelaar (“Tiny Beautiful Things”), Tracy Oliver (“Harlem”), Cody Heller (“Jury Duty”), Janine Nabers (“Swarm”) and Alex Kurtzman (“Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” and “Star Trek: Picard”).
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