Deadline: Warner Bros TV Workshop & Stage 13 Shut Down As Part Of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc Cuts

Story from Deadline:

Layoffs are underway at Warner Bros Television Group on Tuesday. The cuts include the closing of digital short-form programming division Stage 13 and the famous Warner Bros Television Workshop, which has been around for more than 40 years.

It comes after Deadline revealed yesterday that there would be staff and other reductions across the studio today.

Stage 13, founded in 2017 under the former Warner Bros Digital Networks division as a studio for original digital short-form programming, has produced past series such as Special and It’s Bruno! for Netflix, Two Sentence Horror Stories for the CW/Netflix, and more. The division was run by Diana Mogollon, SVP & General Manager.

Warner Bros Television has already been supervising Stage 13 development and programming since 2020. Any existing Stage 13 projects in development will be absorbed within WBTV.

The current 2022–23 edition of the Warner Bros Television Workshop will be its last for both the Writers’ Workshop and the Directors’ Workshop. Both have been a popular and sought-after avenue for training emerging writing and directing talent, with Regina King (directing) and LOTR: The Rings of Power executive producer Justin Doble among the alumni.

These schemes have been integral to bringing through new and diverse talent such as Lovecraft Country co-exec producers Jonathan I. Kidd & Sonya Winton-Odamtten, Animal Kingdom exec producer Etan Frankel and House of the Dragon writer Charmaine Degrate on the writers’ side; and The Witcher’s Bola Ogun, Queen Sugar’s Stacey Muhammad, and Gossip Girl’s Pamela Romanowsky on the directors’ side.

The hope is that while Warner Bros TV will no longer have formalized workshops in place, it will continue to develop and mentor new talent across its scripted teams.