CANTON − Add Malone University alumnus Erin Brown Thomas to the list of Ohioans who have won Academy Awards.
Brown Thomas, a filmmaker, was an associate producer on “The Singers,” which drew a tie in the Best Live Action Short Film category this year.
It marked the seventh tie in Oscar history, and the first since 2012. The other winner was “Two People Exchanging Saliva.”
Based on a short story, “The Singers” captures a night in a dive bar where down-on-their-luck patrons compete in a singing contest for a $100 prize.
Brown Thomas, who graduated from Malone in 2007, said her primary task was to ensure that Academy voters and industry peers were aware of the film, directed and edited by Sam A. Davis, and produced by Davis, Charlie Cohen, David Breschel and Jack Piatt, who is from Eaton, Ohio.
“I believed in the film,” she said. “I became friends with the filmmaker and the producers over the course of last year, and kind of stressed to them that I thought that it was the kind of film that could win an Oscar. I started brainstorming with them and thinking of ways to help them with their run. When I say ‘their run,’ I mean like a ‘for your consideration’ run.”
Previous Ohioans who have won Oscars include Clark Gable, Halle Berry, Trent Reznor, Lillian Gish and Paul Newman. British-born, Cleveland-raised Bob Hope tops the number of Academy Awards at five, followed by fellow Clevelander Henry Mancini, and Cincinnati native Steven Spielberg at four each.
Making connections pays off for film
Brown Thomas, who graduated from Revere High School in Bath Township, said she set to work, making connections for the film.
“I started connecting them with resources and also using my network to spread awareness about the film because I have a pretty good network,” she said. “My (social media) followers are very specifically the type of people who can have influence over a campaign like this. But I want to be clear: You can’t ask people to vote, directly. You can’t be like, ‘I’m a producer on this film and I’m asking you to vote for it.’
“But what you can do is ask people to watch it. But I want to make that clear because when I was being asked to help, I wasn’t being asked to call people up and say, ‘Can I get a vote from you?’ I just made sure people knew that I was part of the film, which would mean that they’re in my network so they would want to be like, ‘Oh, I should look at that,’ because they might not have time to watch everything.”
Brown Thomas did not receive an actual statuette, but she does have an official winner’s credit.
“I was just truly helping out of the goodness of my heart, and I would have continued to do so,” she said. “But as the ways that I was contributing were starting to have a meaningful impact, the filmmakers were like, ‘We want you to be officially on the team. We want to reward the fact that you’re having impact here,’ and so they brought me on the business end. … I thought that was really great because I’ve done this kind of thing for free for other people before.
“When I believe in something, I try put my weight behind it. But it was really nice to have someone look at me and say, ‘What you’re doing is making a difference,’ and offer me a credit. That hadn’t happened before. And how lucky am I that the first time it happened, it happened to be an Academy Award winner?”
In 2025, Brown Thomas’ own film “Chasers” was one of 150 selected to be shown at the Sundance Film Festival out of 16,000 entries. She’s also had films shown at festivals in Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
Universal appeal
She said many factors can go into what attracts an Academy voter’s attention.
“You’re really looking for something that has universal appeal,” she said. “And I think it also depends on what year things are released in.”
Davis, she said, captured something special.
“The theme of male vulnerabilities is really powerful, but he did it in a way that felt universal,” she said. “It didn’t feel politicized; it didn’t feel divisive in any way. It just felt like, you know, human. Sam did something really unique where he found all these regular people and kind of used a documentary film (style) to get a kind of improvisation out of them. I knew it would resonate with a lot of people, but I also knew that the filmmaking was really exquisite.’
Brown Thomas, who currently is directing a film, said she was inspired by the experience.
“I’m getting more and more excited about producing and supporting other people’s visions, but at the end of the day, my main passion in this industry is writing and directing,” she said. “And so now that I have (an Oscar) as an associate producer, I’m like, ‘OK, now I want the trophy for having directed one.’ I learned so much about what a four-year consideration campaign looks like, and the kind of capital you have to raise in order to get a contender. Now I know all that and I take it all with me. “
Brown Thomas is married to filmmaker Jake Thomas of Canton. They met as students on a film set in Sugarcreek.
Ohio in film history
Molly Kreuzman, program director for Ohio Goes to the Movies, said the state’s film industry is thriving. Ohio Goes to the Movies is a signature event of America 250-Ohio, which operates in conjunction with the Ohio History Connection. It has created the first and only Ohio movie database, which is available for free at https://ohiogoestothemovies.org.
“I honestly think most everyone in the state is blown away by the sheer volume of influence Ohio has had on the film industry,” she said. “I am on record as saying, and I truly believe that after California, Ohio has more to do with movie making than any other state in the country. From the very beginning with Thomas Alva Edison creating the first early movie playback device, the Kinetoscope, to J.S. Zamecnik who created many of the original scores that accompanied silent film which starred people like Ohio’s Lillian Gish.”
Kreuzman noted that “Hollywood” was created by two Ohioans in 1888.
“Daeida Wilcox Beveridge of Hicksville, who with her husband, purchased a ranch in Southern California where they founded and created a town they named ‘Hollywood,'” she said.
Since the Ohio Film Office was launched in 2009, the local industry has generated nearly 16,000 jobs in film, TV, and related industries, and generated $1.9 billion in annual wages.
Major films made or partially made in Ohio in recent years include “Superman,” “The Avengers,” “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “Draft Day,” and “Judas and the Black Messiah.”
“I feel really good about my contribution because I think I did a really good job of getting the word out there about the film,” Brown Thomas said. “I can’t take credit for how beautiful the film is, or how it turned out. But I think I had at least a meaningful part in the push to make sure people saw it.”
“The Singers” is available on Netflix.
Reach Charita at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com. On Twitter: @cgoshayREP
Take a bow
Here is a list of some Ohioans who have won Academy Awards and their hometowns:
∎ Warner Baxter, Best Actor, 1930; Columbus
∎ Hannah Beachler, Best Production Design, 2019; Cincinnati
∎ Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar – Best Documentary Feature, 2020; Springfield
∎ Halle Berry – Best Actress, 2002; Cleveland
∎ George Chakiris – Best Actor, 1961; Norwood;
∎ Matthew Cherry – Best Animated Short Film, 2020; Akron
∎ George Clooney – Best Supporting Actor, 2005; coproducer, Best Picture, 2012; Worthington and Mason (born in Kentucky)
∎ Dorothy Dandridge, Lifetime Achievement, 1999; Cleveland
∎ Clark Gable – Best Actor, 1939; Cadiz
∎ Lillian Gish – Honorary Award, 1971; Springfield (who lived in Massillon)
∎ Bob Hope – Honorary Awards in 1945, 1953,1960 1966 and 1969; Cleveland (born in England)
∎ John Legend – Best Original Song, 2015; Springfield
∎ Henry Mancini – Best Original Song, 1961, 1962, Best Original Score, 1961, 1982; Cleveland
∎ Paul Newman – Best Actor, 1987; Lifetime Achievement, 1986; Jean Hersholt Award, 1994; Shaker Heights
∎ Dudley Nichols – Best Screenplay, 1935; Wapakoneta
∎ Jack Piatt – Producer, Best Live Action Short Film, 2026; Eaton
∎ Trent Reznor – Best Original Score, 2010; Cleveland
∎ Steven Spielberg – Best Director, 1993 and 1998; Best Picture, 1993; Irving Thalberg Award, 1987; Cincinnati
∎ Erin Brown Thomas – Associate producer, Best Live Action Short Film, 2026; Bath Township
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Malone University’s Erin Brown Thomas talks about Academy Award win | Exclusive
Reporting by Charita M. Goshay, Canton Repository / The Repository
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Charita M. Goshay, Canton Repository | USA TODAY Network
