The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has picked 50 cities, including Milwaukee, to host Oscar viewing parties featuring the live broadcast of ABC's airing of the awards ceremony.
The parties are designed to help local charities.
There aren't any details yet on the local party, but here's the complete announcement today from the academy:
Beverly Hills, CA (December 7, 2010) – Oscar Night America (ONA), the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' grassroots program that enables local charities to host glamorous Oscar® viewing parties and raise money for their organizations, kicks off its 18th year in 2011.
On Sunday, February 27, 50 cities will host official Oscar viewing parties during the 83rd Academy Awards® ceremony. All events will feature the live broadcast of the Awards presentation on the ABC Television Network.
"Oscar Night has long been an occasion for friends and families to gather and cheer for their favorite films and stars," said Academy Executive Director Bruce Davis. "This nationwide network of fundraising parties is a natural extension of that shared experience."
The ONA 2011 locations are Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Charlottesville, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Grand Rapids (MI), Greensboro/Winston-Salem, Greenville (S.C.), Hartford, Honolulu, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Little Rock, Los Angeles, Louisville, Memphis, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Orlando, Palm Beach, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Providence, Raleigh, Richmond, Sacramento, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Springfield (MO), Tampa, Tucson and Washington, D.C.
Most parties are black-tie affairs, though some are less formal. Some partygoers dress up as famous couples and some events feature limousine arrivals and red carpets complete with local celebrities, paparazzi and press interviews for arriving guests.
To set these parties apart from the thousands of other events taking place on Oscar Night, each ONA party receives from the Academy copies of the official commemorative poster and the official Oscar show program.
Only one charity party in a given media market may participate in ONA. Events are entirely produced by local nonprofit organizations, with the active participation of the local ABC-TV affiliate station.
Last year 51 charities hosted viewing parties for the 82nd Academy Awards, raising more than $3 million, all of it remaining in local communities. With a record 17,497 guests attending nationwide, ONA 2010 benefitted such charities as the American Red Cross, Ronald McDonald House, Special Olympics, the United Way, Starlight Children's Foundation and the Ellie Fund (breast cancer support services).
Since its inception in 1994, the program has generated nearly $30 million in funding for a wide spectrum of charitable organizations – every cent staying within the community where it was raised.
For the 18th consecutive year, Concept Marketing Development of Santa Barbara, California, will assist the Academy in coordinating the program.
Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2010 will be presented on Sunday, February 27, 2011, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live on the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
