RespectAbility’s Entertainment Media Consulting Team

Gail Williamson

Gail Williamson is a talent agent and heads the Diversity Department at Kazarian/Measures/Ruskin & Assoc. working with talent with disabilities. Gail is also the mother of an adult son with Down syndrome and was the Executive Director of the Down Syndrome Association of Los Angeles for 8 years. Gail has consulted on many Down syndrome stories over the years, including several episodes on TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL, the Michael Patrick King pilot for Amazon, LOVE YOU MORE, some VO and animation for characters with DS for Disney, Nick and Amazon. She also gave notes on several films for the Disney Channel back in the day.
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RespectAbility’s Entertainment Media Consulting Team

Andrew Pilkington

Andrew Pilkington is a producer/writer living in Manhattan. He has worked for award winning directors such as: Alex Gibney and Morgan Spurlock. He is a graduate of the Harrington School of Communication and Media at the University of Rhode Island where he won the Film Excellence Award in 2014. He produced and co wrote the movie Best Summer Ever which is a feature musical staring actors with disabilities It was selected into the SXSW Film Festival 2020. It was awarded the Final Draft Screenwriter Award prize. He was one of five writers selected by SXSW Series Fest Pitch a thon. [continue reading…]

RespectAbility’s Entertainment Media Consulting Team

Emily Kranking

Emily Kranking is an upcoming actress and writer with cerebral palsy. Her first feature film Best Summer Ever, in which she stars as the bubbly cheerleader Nancy, was released in April 2021. She also wrote, directed and starred in the children’s short Saylor & Selena for Easterseals Disability Film Festival 2019. Last year, she was a participant in RespectAbility’s Hollywood Lab program as an emerging professional. She previously worked at RespectAbility for a year as a fellow for Employment & Policy and Hollywood Communications. Kranking holds her BA in Media and Communications Studies from University of Maryland, Baltimore County. During her time, she held internships in script coverage, comedy television writing, and television development. [continue reading…]

RespectAbility’s Entertainment Media Consulting Team

Rachel Handler

Rachel Handler is a writer, producer and actor focused on single-cam comedy and dramedy, and disability inclusive ALWAYS. She has written/produced 8 award-winning short films screening at Slamdance, Hollyshorts, and Heartland. She won the AT&T Underrepresented Filmmaker Award. She’s a self-professed Broadway nerd, with co-stars and guest stars on NCIS: NOLA, Law & Order: SVU, Interview With the Vampire, and New Amsterdam. Rachel is currently pitching her feature script “Hope for the Holidays” and comedy pilot “LAME.”
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RespectAbility’s Entertainment Media Consulting Team

Leah Romond

Leah Romond is an attorney, producer and advocate for full disability inclusion in film and television production. Romond’s recent project, Best Summer Ever, is a feature-length original musical created entirely by an integrated cast and crew of talent with and without disabilities. It was an Official Selection for SXSW 2020, won the SXSW 2020 Final Draft Screen Writers Award, and premiered at SXSW 2021. In addition to her lived experience as someone who experienced a brain injury as an adult, Ms. Romond is also a RespectAbility Senior Production Advisor. Ms. Romond has provided training to studios on full disability inclusion throughout the production process and is available to conduct trainings and consult on scripts. [continue reading…]

Proposed Civil Rights Bill prohibits discrimination and advances equality for millions of Americans.

Washington, D.C., April 12– On February 25, the Equality Act was passed by the House of Representatives. The Act includes a major overhaul of civil rights protections for many Americans, including millions of people with disabilities. Now, it waits for further action by the United States Senate.

The Equality Act specifically identifies sex, gender and sexual orientation as prohibited categories of discrimination or segregation. As a result, discrimination in areas such as public accommodations and facilities, the criminal justice system, federal funding, employment, housing, credit and education would be prohibited on the basis of sex, gender, or sexual orientation. This would be a major change and significant expansion of civil rights. In 2020, the Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County expanded employment protections against discrimination for gay and transgender people. [continue reading…]

Sixteen-part short video series explores the intersection of disability and prayer in the Jewish community

Ben Rosloff

Los Angeles, CA, April 9 – Ben Rosloff, a talented emerging filmmaker on the Autism spectrum who serves as a Jewish Inclusion Fellow in RespectAbility’s National Leadership Program, has created an unprecedented mini-series of one-on-one interviews with Jews with disabilities. The series features deep insights and fabulous emotion as people answer the very personal question, “What do you pray for?”

“What Do You Pray For?” is a series of short interviews of Jews with disabilities who tell viewers in their own words what they pray for and what prayer means to them. The project features Jews with various disabilities from across the United States, with a myriad of different connections to their Jewish identity. [continue reading…]

Short film series explores the intersection of disability and prayer in the Jewish community

Los Angeles, April 9, 2021 – Rachel Rothstein, a fourth year rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College who is hard of hearing, stars in her own segment of “What Do You Pray For?” The film was made by Ben Rosloff, a talented emerging filmmaker on the Autism spectrum who serves as a Jewish Inclusion Fellow in RespectAbility’s National Leadership Program. [continue reading…]

Short film series explores the intersection of disability and prayer in the Jewish community

Los Angeles, April 9, 2021 – Rabbi Lauren Tuchman, a sought-after speaker, spiritual leader and educator who lives with blindness, stars in her own segment of “What Do You Pray For?” The film was made by Ben Rosloff, a talented emerging filmmaker on the Autism spectrum who serves as a Jewish Inclusion Fellow in RespectAbility’s National Leadership Program. [continue reading…]