Sarah Ann Masse Accepts PAVE’s Shattering The Silence Award

Hire Survivors Hollywood founder Sarah Ann Masse accepts PAVE’s Shattering The Silence Award. Hire Survivors Hollywood is working to end retaliation against survivors in the entertainment industry.

After coming forward, Masse experienced career retaliation, and recognizing that this is a barrier for many survivors, she sought to create change. Hire Survivors Hollywood works with production teams to hire survivors and give them an equal and fair chance in the hiring process.

About Sarah Ann Masse

“Sarah (she/her) is an LA-based, queer, invisibly disabled actor, writer, singer, producer, filmmaker, and comedian who was one of the first people to come forward about being abused by Weinstein. Since facing career retaliation due to speaking up about abuse, she launched Hire Survivors Hollywood® – an organization that works to end retaliation against survivors of sexual violence within the entertainment industry. 

Sarah believes we must use our position as entertainers and creators to change the culture we live in to be more inclusive, representative, respectful, and dynamic for people of all ages, genders, races, nationalities, abilities, sexualities, and creeds. A Forbes profile details Sarah’s work as an artist using positive comedy to advocate for fellow survivors of sexual violence and also focuses on the realities of being an artist with several invisible disabilities; and a recent Variety feature discusses the importance of her initiative – Hire Survivors Hollywood – and their success in creating safer and more equitable working environments. Sarah’s writing on such topics has been featured in The Independent and The WRAP.

She also works with many organizations and individuals such as: Equal Rights Advocates (as a Hollywood Ambassador she helped pass AB9 into law in CA in 2019); ECHO Training; Time’s Up (member of the Time’s Up Entertainment Safety Working group); The Wrap Women; Women in Film; The Hollywood Commission; ReFrame; elected as a SAG-AFTRA Convention Delegate and member of the LA Government Affairs and Public Policy Committee, the LA Sexual Harassment Committee, the National Sexual Harassment Committee, the National Performers with Disabilities Committee, and the LA NextGen Committee; Senator Brad Hoylman and Safe Horizon (she helped pass The Adult Survivors Act in NY in 2022); and Lucy Lang (former Manhattan DA candidate and current NY State Inspector General) to codify consent and reform the criminal justice system to be trauma informed and survivor focused.

She has also recently been awarded the inaugural “Global Impact Award” by Diversity MBA at their 17th annual conference for the work she does with her art and advocacy to improve equity, safety, and DEIA practices for all historically marginalized folks, especially those from the survivor, disabled, and LGBTQIA+ communities and the PAVE “Shattering The Silence Award” for her work as the Founder and President of Hire Survivors Hollywood.

Sarah has been an outspoken advocate for positive change in the arts industry for decades and ran a successful non profit theater company in New York for several years. It was called the Vagabond Theatre Ensemble and operated as a non-profit through fiscal sponsorship from Fractured Atlas. And, as the Founder and face of Hire Survivors Hollywood, Sarah works directly with survivors, is constantly educating herself to become a better advocate, and centers inclusion, intersectionality, and equity in all of her efforts.”

-Sarah Ann Masse’s Official Bio