Socialfly, a female-founded and led digital marketing agency, has hired Maria Sparling as VP of strategy and client services. Sparling is the first person to step into this position, which Socialfly created to help improve and streamline internal processes, provide support to teams across the agency, and develop new initiatives that ultimately lead to company growth.
Sparling will work alongside the management team on these fronts. She will also play a key role in business development by building relationships with new and existing clients and developing service offerings that expand Socialfly’s portfolio. Sparling will additionally be responsible for enhancing the agency’s culture, acting as a leader and mentor to the entire Socialfly team and developing new internal programs that promote a collaborative, positive, and forward-thinking workplace.
Sparling has more than 17 years of experience overseeing digital strategy on both the agency and client sides. She has managed every aspect of social media including strategy development, content creation, production, media execution, and influencer programs. As an expert in planning and executing data-led, cross channel marketing programs, Sparling has previously worked with brands such as Hawaiian Tropic, Schick, Playtex, Guess, Timex, General Mills, L’Oreal, Dr. Scholl’s, Reckitt Benckiser and more.
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More