David Jammy on Story-First Producing and the 2025 Mark Twain Prize

Monica Holt: Welcome back to CI to Eye. I’m Monica Holt. On March 23rd, 2025, the 26th annual Mark Twain Prize honored Conan O’Brien at the Kennedy Center, just weeks after the Trump administration had seized control of the institution. That night, an incredible group of artists and comedians celebrated Conan on stage in an event David Letterman called “the most entertaining gathering of the resistance ever.” But producing a celebration that managed to honor comedy’s most beloved figure while acknowledging the extraordinary circumstances required navigating uncharted territory for everyone involved, most particularly the lead producers. My guest today is David Jammy, Executive Producer at Done+Dusted, the company behind broadcasts of the Emmy Awards, the Kennedy Center Honors, and the Global Citizens Festival. He’s also one of the minds behind the transformation of the Mark Twain Prize into what’s now recognized as the highest honor in American comedy. David’s story begins an apartheid-era South Africa, where as a student activist, he witnessed media’s power to transform society, a lesson that would define his approach to producing cultural events that capture history as it unfolds. It was wonderful to catch up with David and explore his storytelling philosophy, his journey to American cultural creator, and the delicate art of translating live moments into lasting television. We’ll also share with you some of the story of our spring and how we produced the 2025 Mark Twain Prize: a night that became both tribute and resistance, both celebration and farewell. Let’s dive in.

David Jammy, welcome to CI to Eye. Thank you for being here.

David Jammy: Thanks for having me. It’s so nice to see you in a different context.

Monica Holt: I agree. It’s great to see you in this context. I think you have a pretty interesting story that I would love for you to share a little bit about, and we’ll also talk about all things live events and broadcasts, and maybe talk a little bit about this spring and some of the adventures we had there together. But to kick us off, obviously I am most familiar with you from all of your work in executive producing live events and the work we’ve done together. But before all of that, you were growing up and working in South Africa during one of the most transformative periods of that country’s history. And I’d love for you to just walk us a little bit through that story and your relationship to media and storytelling that developed throughout those years.

David Jammy: Honestly, if I were to think about anybody living in any time, I can’t think of a more extraordinary experience of both the ups and downs and the highs and lows of humanity than in South Africa. So I feel completely blessed to have been a child really in the height of the apartheid years in many ways, and then come to consciousness and maturity just as the popular uprisings against Apartheid reached their zenith. It was a time of great drama and great extremes, and having been a student activist and seen both of the possibilities that humanity kind of creates, I suppose both good and bad, was an extraordinary experience. And then of course, the ANC was banned and Mandela was released. And because I was 20 something and knew nothing about the world, I thought I was personally and individually solely responsible for the end of apartheid as 20 year olds do.

And then I became a professional and a filmmaker in the early years of the post-apartheid period. And that was also just an unbelievable period because South Africa was, it was the fairy tale of the 20th century. It was the story of a nation that had kind of overcome oppression and suppression and injustice and inhumanity in not a bloodless revolution, but certainly in a successful revolution that had the full weight of the world behind it. It was the Mandela moment, and the world was celebrating what was largely seen as the impossible and embracing the possibility of how a country can remake itself. And so I started making media in that period, and it was an amazing moment because if you’ll indulge me, I’ll just give you a bit of a context. So the Apartheid government held off the advent of television in South Africa until 1977. And the reason they did that is because whilst you can control radio regionally, you can’t control the footprint of television.

So they didn’t like the idea that any television that got produced in the country could be seen by everyone. So they held it off and held off. And then in 76, 77 round there, they launched TV channels in South Africa. And I grew up, when I was growing up, there were two and then three TV channels, which were all state propagandist channels, which conscientiously excluded 80%, 90% of the population of South Africa because they were really being produced for white South Africans and were mouthpieces for the government. So the vast majority of South Africans until 94 when democracy came to South Africa, had not seen themselves represented on South Africa’s TV screens. And so the idea of making TV in that post-apartheid moment when for the first time people were seeing themselves being represented in their own voices on TV, it was just the, and we were making up the rules as we went. There was no, it’s tiny — it’s a small industry in a small country. And so we got the opportunity to do whatever the hell we wanted really, and it was so much fun. So on the one hand, it was just a great introduction to media and the power of media, but also because of course there was no infrastructure for Black South Africans and education was non-existent. TV became a trusted source of information and education in a way that I’ve never seen it before.

And so the idea of being able to use media to really influence the conversation and the climate and that kind of thing was very enticing and very seducing to me. And in my mind, in my kind of naive mind, it was always the idea of using it for good.

Monica Holt: Well, we’re glad for that. We’re grateful for that. And I just think that’s such an interesting foundational piece because obviously I knew you and was working with you before I knew frankly that whole background and your whole story, but you have always talked about being story first, being really committed to the impact of authentically telling an individual story or an event story. And I have to imagine you’ve just walked us through why that was kind of ingrained with you from the beginning, because it’s also truth in the power of telling that story and creating the social impact.

David Jammy: Absolutely. The operative word in all of that is storytelling because the bottom line is producing, is producing, is producing, it’s kind of genre neutral. On the fringes, there’s skills you have to learn of whether you’re making factual or scripted work or big events. But the essence I think remains pretty much the same. And the essence really, when you strip everything else away, the essence of it is storytelling. There’s no rocket science in producing a great TV show or a great event because you hire people to do the jobs well and then you manage them. But really, I think the thing that distinguishes very good and great is how well you understand the story you’re telling. And I really believe that.

Monica Holt: Well, I think that’s what makes your mentality and therefore Done+Dusted also such a great partner for live events in the arts and culture space too. I’m curious, do you remember the very first live events you worked on with Done+Dusted?

David Jammy: Yeah. My first inception with Done+Dusted was, it was in, I think 2012, and they were producing a show called CNN Heroes.

Monica Holt: Oh, sure.

David Jammy: And they needed somebody to make the little profile films of the people being awarded in the show. So not actually the live event part of it, but the pre-made films. And I was a filmmaker. And in the course of that, I got to know the company and thought, well, these are nice people. And then did some development work for them. And then the first show I really conceived of and produced was a Kelly Clarkson Christmas special.

Monica Holt: How about that?

David Jammy: And it was totally batshit crazy, the special, I have no idea how I, because I parlayed this ridiculous narrative into the Christmas special, which I’m still incredibly proud of. It was fantastic and crazy. It had a meta narrative, and it started with Kelly Clarkson in the story of the show, going to the network and pitching this idea of a Christmas special and kind of made no sense and was I thought pretty great. And it had a very young Ken Jeong in it, and William Shatner was in it. It was totally bizarre. And so it was fun, and I think it’s great. I dunno if it’s held up…

Monica Holt: I mean, we’ve got to find it and add it to the show notes if we do. But as you approach an event and you’re just kind of getting started on the pitch for it, how do you work through breaking what that story should be for particularly for live events?

David Jammy: The trick about pitching for things is you’ve got to tell people what they want to hear, not what you want to say. And that’s been a hard lesson for me because when I was younger and greener, I would think that my job was to walk into a room and I was pitching and convince people that I was the smartest person in the room. And of course, that’s completely wrong. When you’re pitching for something, you’ve got to walk into a room and tell the person you’re pitching to that they’re the smartest person in the room.

I mean, yes, you have to have good ideas embedded in that, but it’s a very different task. But then you get the job in some form or another and assemble the creative team. And then to the chagrin and irritation of my colleagues, I spend ridiculous amounts of time doing what I call naval gazing. And we do this deep research and we sit around and explore the idea of what’s the story of the show is. And obviously that makes sense if you’re doing a show that has an obvious story. But I’m talking about doing an award show, like the story of the Emmys is, it’s opening envelopes. But my philosophy is every single show has a story, a story that’s bigger than what it is. And thinking about what the story of the Emmys is this year, it’s still going to be — 90% of the show’s going to be people walking onto stage and telling you who the nominees are and opening an envelope. But somewhere in the zeitgeist of that show and the fabric of how you put it together, if you know that you’re trying to tell the story, and you know what that story is, the difference will be marginal, but it also will be critical.

Monica Holt: I would also say, I mean, award shows are one thing, but something I said to you just a couple of days ago when we were chatting was, there’s this kind of archeological nature to what you’re doing because you are capturing a moment in time that is never going to happen exactly that same way again. And so you’re capturing that, but you’re also preserving it as a moment in history that people other than those who were in the audience for that moment will see. I imagine when you’re driven by story, that at least helps create what that thread is, how you bridge those two audiences. But that’s got to be pretty challenging also to think about how you balance something that feels unpredictable with something that becomes a package 90 minute to two hour television or streaming program. And is that challenge the exciting part for you, or do you wish that maybe those boundaries that have existed around that kind of final package delivery could be broken a little bit more?

David Jammy: I think I understand the kind of relationship between aspiration and humility in the sense that we all reach for greatness and we reach for greatness in what we do every day in some ways. And so when I make a show, I absolutely want it to change the world, and I absolutely want it to live for posterity, and I want it to be a great capture of moment and place and time. And I think that aspiration is always good, but then I also think I’ve got a healthy dose of humility, which is really in the final instance, we are just making stuff, and it’s true. And yes, the Mark Twain prize, it’ll be an absolutely critical moment in Conan O’Brien’s life, but it won’t be much more than that. And that’s not nothing. If you are doing justice to that person and capturing the essence of the thing that they’ve aspired to their whole life and done it in a way that feeds you creatively, you’ve done a good job. And there are very few single pieces of media or single events that change the world. Very, very few. And that’s okay too, but you should always aspire to it.

Monica Holt: I mean, I agree with you and I love what you’re saying, and I would also though say that those things also bring a lot of other people, joy or comfort or entertainment. And so it depends on, I guess, what your definition of change the world is. Yours might be a little more ambitious than that, certainly, but I think these days in particular, that’s worth something too.

David Jammy: No, I think that’s right. We are making entertainment and there’s a lot to be said for entertaining people and I wouldn’t want to undermine that.

Monica Holt: Okay, so we’ve danced a little bit towards it, but obviously I first became most aware of you in 2018, Done+Dusted joined the Kennedy Center as the executive producers of the Mark Twain Prize. I was kind of in another section of the building, so I wasn’t working directly with you then, but it was pretty clear from that first Twain Prize, which I believe was Julia Louis Dreyfus, right?

David Jammy: That’s right. Yeah,

Monica Holt: That we were in for — Okay. We are both leveling up what we’re doing with the Twain Prize, something a little more modern, more impactful, maybe I can even say more interesting, which I will say, but you don’t have to. All that being said, you were joining a legacy institution, a program that didn’t have a enormously long history, but it had, I think, almost two decades at that point, a little less than that. What was your approach coming into the center and kind of walking in and taking your vision for what the prize could be and how did you jump in and find success, which then I think could really continue to evolve enormously over the next several years too?

David Jammy: Well, thanks for saying all those nice things. So when we were invited to produce, I think it was, it’s just had, its 25th, so I think that was, its 19th or

Monica Holt: Something? I think so, yeah,

David Jammy: The 19th mark twain prize, and you’re right, let’s just be frank. It had been going for those 18 or 19 years, had followed a very similar format. And the format had been that they would choose a prize winner and then invite very established and successful comedians who had a relationship to that person to come onto the stage and say funny and nice things about that person, and was a procession onto the stage of extraordinary people saying really funny stuff in tribute to the prize winner. And the public at large knew nothing about it really. It didn’t have any profile, prominence, status in the public. And so that was really our brief, our brief when we took over was how do you take this event that has currency and status in the comedy community and turn it into a cultural event, turn it into something that has a public facing profile and a piece of entertainment.

So I looked at it and the kernel of the story has become the essence of the show. And the thing that I love most about the show, the kernel of this thought was that the comedy community is very unique in the arts. I think in the sense that there are only three or four strands in the comedy community of how you come up and find success. Either you’re in the trenches of the comedy clubs, which many of them were and knew each other from, or you’ve come up through some of the comedy troops. There are three or four comedy troops that they’ve all had experience in or been in some time or another. But the bottom line is that they’ve known each other for very long. They’ve all followed quite similar routes to success, and they all know how incredibly fucking hard it is. And therefore, they celebrate each other’s successes with generosity and warmth, which you don’t get in any other genre. You don’t get that amongst pop stars. You don’t get that amongst actors. You don’t get that. You know what I mean? It is very unique. And I saw this, and the weird thing about it was that was never the story of the show. Everybody in the show sits in the green room until it’s their time to come out. They’re backstage in the green room.

Monica Holt: They didn’t used to be in the boxes?

David Jammy: No.

Monica Holt: I forgot.

David Jammy: So the first thing I did was I was like, put the people in the room. The show is about that community. You want to see that community, you want to see them celebrating each other. You want to see that. And the other thing is that the recipient was in this balcony–

Monica Holt: That I remember.

David Jammy: –at the back of the room, and I said, no, no, no. It’s all, the story of this show is all about the relationships between the people coming to tribute the prize winner and the prize winner. So put them in proximity to each other, allow them to interact, allow the audience to have view of just how these people adore each other and how funny they are. And so we did that with Julia Louis Dreyfus, but we didn’t do much else. And that in itself actually felt like a subtle but huge kind of shift. And then in the years after that, we managed to make a very different show every single year.

Monica Holt: And I think one that probably a lot of folks remember, because after it was on PBS, then it had this window on Netflix, was Dave Chappelle, which felt like, okay, there was this incremental change for Julia, and then feet were firmly planted and a whole new storytelling approach that at least that’s how I remember it being.

David Jammy: That’s exactly right. Yeah.

Yeah. So Chapelle fell to the other extreme. I mean, it was a ridiculous and ambitious and fabulous night. And that one, the way the Mark Twain Prize works is just — for people that haven’t seen it, is that it’s a procession of people onto the stage. Each one crafts their own tribute to the prize winner. There’s often music folded in, and then at the end, the prize winner makes a speech, an acceptance speech. So it’s a pretty conventional format. But with Dave Chappelle, it was really interesting because when we figured out what — that same naval gazing process I was talking about earlier — about what story we’ll be telling, and we sat around and we kind of said, well, there are two things that were unique about Dave Chappelle’s story. The one is he is a DC native, and his soul is firmly rooted in DC and two, he’s quintessentially a standup comedy guy and his happy place and his native territory is standup comedy clubs.

And so what we did with that is we kind of said, well, if we want to tell that story, we should figure out a way to see and hear from him throughout the show, not just for his acceptance speech. And so what we did with that is we thought, how should we do that? And we went to a local standup comedy club. And the night before the big fancy audacious event at the Kennedy Center, we filmed with him and a bunch of people at a local comedy club, and we took that night of standup comedy and threaded it through the main event in the edits. We had a long time to edit that show, and we cut it like a film.

Monica Holt: And it feels that way.

David Jammy: Yeah.

Monica Holt: And I would say the other added benefit from my lens too was it also created another connection between the Twain Prize, the center, and the local comedy scene. Because as much as you can start to bring events like that that have this kind of gala-on-high feel because of years and years and start to say, wait, but this can also be part of the city’s culture, this can also be something we’re all celebrating together, which is something we have been talking about or had been talking about for honors too, how we make it more of a celebration that more people are invited to. I think in a lot of ways, yes, that wasn’t the priority or the primary objective for why you were doing that, but it was certainly a wonderful outcome that in turn also speaks to the story of Dave and DC and the city.

So that was, I think, a real watershed moment for Twain Prize. And then of course, going into, I think about all the great moments in John Stewart’s show, the banana peel in the coal mine commentary seems particularly relevant these days. And then going into the past couple years with Netflix, I think we all talk about Adam Sandler. You really picked up on that kind of very family, big, warm hug feeling of who he is. But also, it really came across, I think, in that show, and as you were saying, each one kind of took on an embodiment of the honoree, which is such a special approach for what could have otherwise just been a year after year award show.

David Jammy: That’s very kind of you. Yeah. It’s also, to be frank, it’s what makes it fun, because otherwise you just like, it’s just painting by numbers. And that’s not fun. And I can’t take credit solely for this because I think we had such extraordinary partners at the Kennedy Center and Matt Weiner and you and Deborah Rutter, because everybody played a huge role in both kind of supporting the evolution of the show, but also latching onto, building a vision, both for the Kennedy Center and for the show. And I do think people, what we’ve achieved together is, if nothing else, the thing I’m most proud of is that I think the Mark Twain prize is now known far and wide and recognized publicly as the highest recognition for comedy in the land. And I think that we did that.

Monica Holt: So certainly that’s never been more true. That kind of brings us to this spring. So this year’s Mark Twain Prize was certainly created in extraordinary circumstances. Folks who have listened to this podcast before or read a paper in the past six months, know that President Trump took over the Kennedy Center in February. That weekend, that kind of February 7th to February 12th, I had a front row seat to a lot of things that were happening and a lot of questions being asked, hope that became unfounded, et cetera. And then on the 13th, at that point, David Rubenstein had been relieved of his duties as chairman the weekend before, the day before Deborah had been released as President of the center. And though I can’t say the dust settled on that Thursday because the dust still I think is settling for a lot of people… That day, that Thursday was the first day that we were no longer trying to see what fight could be put up to preserve an institution’s independence.

And instead it became, okay, what is about to be on the horizon? And for me, that became what can we protect? How do we do that? I knew that I wasn’t going to stay, but I also knew that I could do some good if I stayed for a little bit to give some folks time to figure things out. And also for these other decisions to be made, one of which was the Twain Prize. Conan O’Brien had accepted the invitation from David Rubenstein and Deborah Rutter, and I think we didn’t know what was going to happen, if he was still interested in coming. We didn’t know if the new administration was still interested in having the event. And so at that point, I think you and I began on parallel but separate tracks. So I was very much in a protect, preserve, keep-away moment where I was having the conversations I needed to have with the new administration, but I was also positioning myself as their only point of contact with anything to do, frankly, with any programming at that point in time, which included saying that everything was fine and not to worry and not to look too closely, frankly, at what was happening with the Mark Twain prize.

At the same time, you are wondering about executive producing this event that could be monumentally different than something you have been planning for the past year, essentially. So walk me through what your decision-making process was for moving forward and kind of what those weeks were like for you as you were figuring out what the new landscape was.

David Jammy: Well, I think it all started with Conan and his position on the show. Well, lemme just set the stage. Many people were withdrawing their participation in events at that time in the aftermath of the Trump Administration.

Monica Holt: That’s right. And we also had a lot of artists that week questioning or pulling out from the Kennedy Center as this was happening.

David Jammy: So it was a complicated situation, most of all I think for Conan because one, he is not a political grandstander, that’s not his brand. Obviously, he over the years has expressed views, but it hasn’t been his brand of late night or his brand of comedy. I think it’d be very different if it was a John Stewart or Stephen Colbert or Jimmy Kimmel or whatever. But of the slate of late night hosts, he occupies a very, I think, quite unique position. And so we wanted to take our cue from him. And so right from the beginning, his position was, I was awarded the prize by the Kennedy Center in whenever it was, in December, under the ambit of the former president and chair of the council, Deborah Rutter and Dave Rubenstein. And he didn’t speculate as to what would happen if he was awarded it under the new regime because it wasn’t, it wasn’t the case. And his position was, as far as he was concerned, it probably could or should continue under those auspices.

Monica Holt: That’s right.

David Jammy: And Conan has pretty much unparalleled love and respect in the comedy community. And we were approaching people saying, the show should be first and foremost a tribute to Conan, but don’t feel we are going to edit or audit you in any way if you feel like you want to address the context of the Kennedy Center. Basically, we pretty much made it clear that we were going to largely leave it up to the individual people on the show to figure out how they wanted to address the moment. And my job was really, again, in the context of weaving a story, I felt like we had to address the moment. It would be inappropriate and weird to not address what was going on at the Kennedy Center in that moment. And also, I personally, obviously you were all my colleagues and we’ve worked intimately together for almost 10 years. I felt emotional about it myself.

Monica Holt: Of course.

David Jammy: Not to mention that we were in the national site of the protection of and the furtherance of the performing arts. So all that to be said, we didn’t edit or audit who we invited to the show. We invited all the right people who should be on that show to tribute Conan. Also, by the way, just going back to what we were talking about earlier about storytelling, I didn’t want the Kennedy Center to be the story of the night. I wanted Conan to be the story of the night. And so we did all our usual naval gazing. It was just like, well, what the hell is the story of Conan? And I guess we landed on a narrative about him being both the silliest and the cleverest person in the room at any given time, which is so true to Conan. And so we also wanted a show that was completely unruly, completely inappropriate, which wasn’t about anything about the Kennedy Center, but it was about how you tell the story of Conan.

Monica Holt: Oh, completely. I mean, you don’t start any other honorific show for a comedian with a masturbating bear unless he’s Conan —

David Jammy: Conan.

Monica Holt: — O’Brien.

David Jammy: Unless they’re Conan. Right.

Monica Holt: Exactly. So there was always going to be this sense of chaos, I think if maybe it was exactly the right person for the moment in so many ways.

David Jammy: As it turns out, it was the perfect person for the moment.

Monica Holt: And the silliness, the cleverness, and also just his kindness in the moment. I think what’s struck me is just he kept saying over and over again that he wanted to be there for the staff and also he wanted to be there and the folks that were coming with him to celebrate with him and that you were working with, that he wanted them to be able to go on stage and say whatever they wanted to say.

David Jammy: Totally.

Monica Holt: And this moment of freedom of speech being celebrated, even in a silly way and a celebratory way, I think it was such a moment of catharsis. But I am curious how you balanced that all as executive producer hat too.

David Jammy: Well, the other thing is we were all in an unknown territory. We had no idea what the takeover of the building meant, how much I was worried that when somebody found out that Stephen Colbert or Sarah Silverman and many, many others on the stage —

Monica Holt: Yes. But we just made sure they never found out. And I think that one day we’ll write the whole book on the emergency phone calls in the grocery store, finding out that someone was copied onto an email that we didn’t want copied. But for now, I think you’re right that because we were in these parallel lanes, I think both of us trying not to worry the other one or put anyone in any position that we didn’t want them in. There was this weird also thread of let’s just say enhanced project management that wouldn’t have needed to happen in a different year.

David Jammy: Oh God, absolutely. And I don’t think there are any secrets — because of the unknown, I made sure that none of the names of people on the show were released. And you did as well from the Kennedy Center’s side. So we made sure the spotlight was not shining on the recipients until the day of the event. Because we were in the building for a number of weeks, I made sure that every script was redacted and there were no documents published about who was going to be in the show. In retrospect, out of an excess of caution because there was absolutely no attempt to censor anything.

Monica Holt: But to your point, we didn’t know. And it’s also about protecting the folks who wanted to show up for Conan and not putting them in a compromising situation.

David Jammy: Absolutely.

Monica Holt: Right? And that’s what the center should always be doing is putting the artists first. And that’s what you were doing.

David Jammy: And just to be clear, we put a lot of work into the show, and I’m very proud of it, and I have the best writers in the world working on it, but you’re dealing with literally the best far and away the best comedians in the world. A lot of them have a huge hand in what — I can’t control, I can make suggestions. For some of the artists we work on entirely what they’re going to do on stage. But for some others, I mean, I didn’t know what Will Ferrell was going to do until the day of the show, when he arrived with his script. And so there was also a certain amount of anxiety because who knows what Sarah Silverman or Stephen Colbert or whatever is going to do on the stage of Trump’s Kennedy Center. As it turned out, it was, I think, just a perfect calibration between celebrating Conan first and foremost, making a great piece of entertainment, and addressing the moment. And then addressing the moment was both hilarious and deeply, deeply emotional, particularly for you and the staff at the Kennedy Center.

Monica Holt: Yeah, David watched me cry multiple times that weekend, but I think a lot of us were beside ourselves for a number of reasons. But I was going to ask you about that. This idea of balancing a celebration and the celebration of Conan, which I do think all of us were so desirous of making sure that that wasn’t overshadowed. And yet at the same time, and I think you’ve even called it this before, there was also a little bit of a wake for the Kennedy Center that was, and that we hoped would always be, how do you as a leader in that moment, you have huge amounts of talent, huge amounts of teams working on this event, even without any of this extra stuff, you have a focus on the story, but you’re the EP, you’re the folks everyone is looking to. How do you center yourself in that moment to be able to lead with so many competing, not just priorities, but also emotions?

David Jammy: So first of all, it’s not my show. Yes, I corral that group of people, but it’s like a family, and we care so fucking much about that show. It’s not like other shows. There is something about it that is in our souls, and we pour our hearts and souls into the show. And that’s not just my group of producers, but the whole crew. We had the same crew every year. And so right from the beginning, it was not like other shows. We pretty much were reconciled to the fact that this might be the last Mark Twain prize. And so it was deeply emotional for us. We adopted this baby and then we grew it up, we raised it, and it’s our baby. So certainly the narrative amongst the crew was emotional from the start, which is it might be the last show that we are going to go out with a bang.

We are going to make it the best show there’s ever been, and certainly the best tribute to Conan that anyone could ever wish for. And I think it was a much more emotional process for me. I think people were very committed to that for — people are very emotional about it. And I will say this, shows are like living organisms, each one is different. You can do as much work as you like to prepare for it, and in the process of building it, and you can put them together in exactly the same way, and every show will be entirely different. And there was something obviously about this particular show which there was a kind of magic that was happening. It was an extraordinary organism. And I think people, first of all, everybody loves a drama, so it was dramatic. Everyone loves a drama. And secondly, there’s something essential about the duality of making a — particularly comedy, which is it’s always about the kind of smiling face and the crying face. So it felt really moving and inspiring. And then of course, Conan, because he’s both the most ridiculous man in the room and the cleverest man in any room, made a speech that was just a speech for the ages. I will say President Trump was not mentioned once.

Monica Holt: No.

David Jammy: Which is kind of extraordinary.

Monica Holt: No, it was very special. Listen, a lot of us have many people to thank for that weekend. You are high among them because I think for so many of us there, that was such an important weekend. It was a weekend of joy and a feeling of support. As you said, Conan’s speech at the end and the way that the room responded to him was extraordinary to bear witness to and to feel supported and lifted by that. But it was also, I think, a moment of closure, at least for now, for a lot of us that we wouldn’t have had. And so grateful to you and really grateful to Conan for agreeing and being there and showing up for everyone as everyone showed up to really celebrate him. Because truly what a career, and I’m one of those crazy kids like John Mulaney who has been on the Conan journey since the days when we were, as he said, chaining ourselves to trees every time they threatened to cancel him. Whether or not that was the final Mark Twain prize. What do you think the future holds for cultural celebrations in the kind of broadcast streaming space?

David Jammy: I think we’re in a really quite interesting, quite pivotal moment. I think that — Listen. On the one hand, TV as a whole, particularly TV, but film and TV, it’s in crisis. And that crisis is going to be exponentially increased in the next five years with the advent of AI generated content because it’s going to happen. And the generation of entertainment is going to be a tsunami of very cheap, very good, very competent entertainment generated out of or interacting with the world of AI. No doubt about it. On the other hand, big events and live events are, I think, going to be on the ascent because the streamers, the big streamers where the money is, the Netflixes and Amazons and others in the world, they’ve got to figure out the next big thing. And I think the next big thing is going to be the human in the world of AI, in the world of everybody being more and more isolated by social media and everything else. I think the idea of having a shared experience, whether that’s watching at exactly the same time and interacting with people or being in the same place as other people, is it’s currency is going to rise. So I think my little corner of the industry is probably going to be quite interesting in years to come.

Monica Holt: Yeah. Okay. So quickfire culture. Is there one piece of culture right now that you’re currently obsessed with or that you love?

David Jammy: I revisited recently the series, the TV series, the Americans, and it is unbelievable to me that the Americans did not get the notoriety and recognition and fame and celebration that it — by the end of it, people kind of came around to it. But as a piece, we talk about storytelling and we talk about empathy, and we talk about the power of media. The Americans is an extraordinary television series, and just in every way, in the writing and the acting and the characterization in the universe that it occupies, and the humanity of these two people whose job it is to kill people on behalf of Russians, it’s a phenomenal TV series, and I’m so shocked that it doesn’t have its space in the kind of upper echelons of the canon of television drama.

Monica Holt: Okay, good. So we have our watching cut out. We need to go back and find the Kelly Clarkson special and we need to find The Americans.

David Jammy: Right.

Monica Holt: So one question that we ask at the end of every episode is, if you could broadcast one message to all of the executive directors and staffs and leadership teams and boards of thousands of arts organizations, what would that message be?

David Jammy: Well, I think for me, it would be that I’ve been thinking a lot about AI, obviously, as everybody has, because I think it’ll permeate every corner of everything that we do, very notably in the arts. I think that as with all technology, it’s a neutral tool, really. Its effect on our world is going to be determined by the hands that it’s in and who’s using it. And we need to all really lean in because it’s not about holding off the advent of AI and artificial intelligence. It’s about how we lean into it, because it’s here. And I think it’s going to affect every single one of us and how we do our jobs and what we see as creativity and what we see as excellence. And the idea of getting on a pedestal and spouting moral kind of horror is just — we’re in that moment where the temptation is to do that, but fight the temptation. It’s here.

Monica Holt: Couldn’t agree more. David Jammy, thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you for all that you have given and will continue to give in this space, and just great to see you. Thanks for the conversation.

David Jammy: Well, I — Wait, I didn’t say it. Certainly not expressly enough, but I think that you and the staff of the Kennedy Center are extraordinary human beings and built an extraordinary institution and acted with grace and dignity, and I can’t thank you enough for the experience that all of you created for us in the arts. So thank you.

Monica Holt: Thank you, David. That means the world. Thank you for listening to CI to Eye with Monica Holt. If you enjoyed today’s conversation, please take a moment to rate us or leave a review. A nice comment goes a long way in helping other people discover the show and hear from leaders in the arts and beyond. If you haven’t already, please click the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. We’ve got some pretty incredible episodes coming your way, and I wouldn’t want you to miss them. This episode was edited and produced by Karen McConarty and co-written by Karen McConarty and myself, Monica Holt. Stephanie Medina and Jess Berube are our incredible designers and video editors. Our music is by whoisuzo. Don’t forget to follow CI on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok for regular content to help you market smarter. You can also sign up for CI’s newsletter at capacityinteractive.com and you’ll never miss an update. And you can always reach out to let us know who you’d like to hear next from on CI to Eye.