Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Just minutes before the Oscars were set to begin, the show’s producers realized they had a problem: Some of the year’s key A-listers and nominees weren’t inside the Dolby Theatre just yet. The perfect storm of traffic delays, pro-Palestine protests, the first day of daylight saving time and an earlier start time had contributed to the last-minute crunch. “We were definitely stressed out, because we had to have certain celebrities in their seats,” Oscars producer Molly McNearney — also an EP on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” — tells Variety on Monday morning.