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Jess Kasza ’11 is part of the production crew for PBS’s “Prideland”, which tells the stories of LGBTQ Americans in the South.

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Friday, October 8, 2021 4:08 PM

“Prideland” host Dyllón Burnside in a pic from the second episode of the Emmy-winning PBS web series

In the first episode of PBS Land of pride, viewers learn that the South is home to more queer people than any other region in the United States, despite being among the least politically hospitable. For example, it’s legal in most southern states to fire someone for being LGBTQ, and many southern states prohibit LGBTQ people from adopting children.

But, says host Dyllón Burnside, “The South is changing. This is because so many LGBTQ people and their allies have decided that nothing should stop them from living authentically, fearlessly, wherever they live.

Over the course of six episodes of less than 10 minutes each, the web series tells the stories of some of these people. The episodes originally appeared on PBS.org and YouTube in late spring and early summer 2020, and the comments gave the PBS team a glimpse of how the stories resonate.

“We received a lot of really wonderful comments from people saying that they had been through something similar and were very happy to have the performance, or that they walked away from their communities and wondered if they would have. had to stay, ”said Jess Kasza ’11 (pictured), COO of PBS Digital Studios.

Last June, Kasza and his colleagues learned that the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences also appreciated Land of pride, enough for him to be nominated for an Emmy in the Short Form Non-Fiction Program category. On July 18, her manager and husband appeared on a live broadcast of the ceremony to accept the award on behalf of the Land of pride team.

PBS started working on the series in late 2019. Kasza, who was involved from the early stages of the idea, was the executive in charge of production: she handled the funding and deals and worked closely together. to bring the production company up and make sure they understand PBS’s vision and goals for the project. Most of the filming took place in early 2020, much of it just before the pandemic hit, and Kasza and her team coordinated a plan to air the episodes both digitally and in an hour-long special. to be broadcast during Pride Month.

“We wanted to reach all Americans where they are,” says Kasza, who was a Media communication and anthropology double major at Muhlenberg. “We wanted to find audiences on YouTube, PBS.org, wherever we could reach them. It was the first time that PBS had done such a multiplatform project of this nature.

Currently, Kasza is working on administering a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which provides funding to member stations to launch their own digital series that raises diverse voices. Following Land of pride depends on funding and additional creative discussions, but Kasza hopes to oversee production for another season.

“One of my personal goals is to see other regions represented,” she says. “I know there are a lot of significant stories of struggle and triumph across the country in the LGBTQ community that we could highlight with this series.”