Jac Venza (born 1926/1927) is an American

public television Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...

producer who is directly responsible for most of the theatre and music programs that have been seen on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

since its creation in 1970. From the early 1960s until his retirement in 2005, Venza brought such programs as ''

NET Playhouse ''NET Playhouse'' was an American dramatic television anthology series produced by National Educational Television. NET subsequently merged with WNDT Newark to form WNET, and was superseded by the Public Broadcasting Service, though the NET titl ...

'', ''

Live from Lincoln Center ''Live from Lincoln Center'' is a seventeen-time Emmy Award-winning series that has broadcast notable performances from the Lincoln Center in New York City on PBS since 1976. The program airs between six and nine times per season. Episodes of '' ...

'', ''

American Playhouse ''American Playhouse'' is an American anthology television series periodically broadcast by Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Overview It premiered on January 12, 1982, with ''The Shady Hill Kidnapping'', written and narrated by John Cheever an ...

'', ''

American Masters ''American Masters'' is a PBS television series which produces biographies on enduring writers, musicians, visual and performing artists, dramatists, filmmakers, and those who have left an indelible impression on the cultural landscape of the ...

'', and ''

Great Performances ''Great Performances'' is a television anthology series dedicated to the performing arts; the banner has been used to televise theatrical performances such as plays, musicals, opera, ballet, concerts, as well as occasional documentaries. It is p ...

'' to millions of viewers. He won a Personal Peabody Award in 1998.58th Annual Peabody Awards
May 1999. He began his career on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

in the 1950s, where he began to notice the scarcity of programming devoted to the fine arts on television. It was his dream to bring more of it to the home screen on a regular basis, but he did not receive a full opportunity to do so until the creation of

National Educational Television National Educational Television (NET) was an American educational broadcast television network owned by the Ford Foundation and later co-owned by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It operated from May 16, 1954 to October 4, 1970, and ...

, where it soon became possible, thanks largely to Venza, to see great dramatic literature regularly performed by some of the world's most renowned actors. A then-unknown

Dustin Hoffman Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. As one of the key actors in the formation of New Hollywood, Hoffman is known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable characters. He is ...

made his first major television appearance in a play— Ronald Ribman's ''The Journey of the Fifth Horse''—on NET in 1966. ''NET Playhouse'' was perhaps the first television anthology to present commercial-free, full-length productions (rather than one-hour or ninety-minute adaptations) of theatrical classics such as

Arthur Miller Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright, essayist and screenwriter in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are ''All My Sons'' (1947), '' Death of a Salesman'' (1 ...

's adaptation of Ibsen's '' An Enemy of the People''. When NET became PBS, Venza quickly launched ''Great Performances'', which is still running today. Upon his retirement from PBS, the

Corporation for Public Broadcasting The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is an American publicly funded non-profit corporation, created in 1967 to promote and help support public broadcasting. The corporation's mission is to ensure universal access to non-commercial, ...

awarded Venza the Ralph Lowell medal. He held the record for the most Emmy nominations for an individual—fifty-seven—until 2010.

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* Date of birth missing (living people) Living people PBS people American television producers Peabody Award winners International Emmy Founders Award winners Year of birth missing (living people) {{US-tv-producer-stub

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