The MET Team
Annette E Alvarez
Multi-Ethnic Talent & Promotion Inc.
Co-Founder
As a kid, Annette would see The Daily News presses roll every night from her Brooklyn apartment kitchen window on Dean Street. Specifically 527 Dean Street. She and the press operators became friends, waving at each other every night before she went to sleep. During her summer break from school -- when she had time -- she would "steal" her dad"s paper, The Daily News of course and read it cover to cover. In 1972 her family moved to 305 ...Miami, Florida.
No doubt she would go on to be a journalist. At the University of Miami School of Law she became the paper"s editor during her second semester of her first year ... a first for the School, where the editors were normally in their last year of Law School. As the editor of Res Ipsa Loquitur — Latin for THE THINGS SPEAKS FOR ITSELF — her law school tuition was paid for.
In between Dean Street and South Miami -- she produced plays, edited films, shot videos, ran a TV station, and was an award winning commercial producer finally became something she always wanted to be: a business owner.
They say that at one point everything one does culminates into an all-encompassing range of knowledge that lends itself to "a calling."
For Annette it was to change the acting landscape. Having grown up in a world of MUST SEE TV . . . she wondered why those actors she loved and looked up to, didn’t look like her. So she threw her knowledge of all things MEDIA and in 1994 along with Joan C Silverman — who she met in law school — started Multi-Ethnic Talent & Production, Inc.
To show the work ethnic of this first generation Cuban-American, in order to “pay the bills” while The M.E.T. Group she worked the overnight shift at WNBC. For five years she worked 18 hour days in order to make her dream come true.
When Joan and Annette reminisce about the last 30 years they acknowledge their company has changed the landscape. If your favorite TV show is diverse . . . somehow Multi-Ethnic Talent had a hand in that.
Joan C. Silverman
Multi-Ethnic Talent & Promotion Inc.
Co-Founder
Joan Silverman is described as a “go-to” person. She has amassed, over her varied career and life, a wide variety of information and knows how to use it to, if not to solve most problems herself, know where to go the get the problems solved.
She considers her life as being broken into Acts. Act 1 encompasses her early years, through college and her beginning work in New York City in the 1970s. She was in the second wave of women in New York radio advertising sales (the only woman salesperson on a staff of 8), worked in the garment business for a shirt manufacturer; in the travel business and in barter and mail order advertising. A scant 10 years after her first advertising job, she moved to Miami and went to work for the Hotel and Travel Index, on a sales staff of predominantly women!
After 2 years of extensive travel and many fond memories, she was ready for Act 2… which began with law school at the University of Miami. It was during the first month that she met Annette. They became study group friends and Annette even drafted her to write a column in the law school newspaper that she edited. And it was here that she learned to “think like a lawyer”, a skill that has held her in good stead. After graduating, both Annette and Joan moved to New York where they stayed in touch and in 1994, founded Multi-Ethnic Talent, dedicated to promoting and supporting underserved actors. They remain true to that mandate today.
In Act 3, Joan continues building on Act 2, with the addition of her embarking on more legal pursuits and becoming a mother. She is proud of MET’s contributions to the increased diversity in the acting landscape. And how did Annette and Joan survive a 30+ partnership? They agreed early on never to both be angry at the same time!
Alexandra Clark Williams
Multi-Ethnic Talent & Promotion Inc.
Assistant
Alexandra Clark Williams was helping out at Multi-Ethnic Talent at the ripe old age of 8. Ten years later, she is an assistant.
Alexandra has a rich and diverse background in the arts, education, and social justice. She was a museum apprentice at the Brooklyn Museum, where she learned about art and museum collections, discussed critical topics in the field of museum education, and developed and taught tours and programs for different audiences. She was also a teen chaplain at Jack and Jill of America, Inc., where she used words to inspire and uplift the people of the Metropolitan Chapter. Alexandra has multiple presidential awards and recognition from President Obama for her extraordinary talents and contributions. She is a prodigious talent in photography and martial arts, a registered screenplay contributor, and a champion of inclusivity and empowerment.