This went out to everyone on the TVWriter™ email list yesterday. But since a few of you don’t subscribe (you can fix that HERE), I’m posting it here as well.
And in this version I actually get the year right.
Month: January 2015
Why So Many Writers are Working in Both TV and Theater
Hint: It’s the money in one of those media and the freedom in the other. Can you guess which is which?
by Michele Willens
Aaron Sorkin is reportedly preparing to do his play A Few Good Men, live on NBC. Larry David is curbing his TV enthusiasm and is in rehearsals for his first Broadway show. Tina Fey honed her skills on Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock,but is now creating a stage musical. The director of Birdman is working on his first American TV series—and has hired a room full of playwrights. Never have writers moved between television and the stage so fluidly. The reasons? For hungry playwrights, TV presents financial offers difficult to refuse, and the medium grows more prestigious and creative every year. And for TV writers used to the difficulties of collaborating on a script, the theater offers them a chance to have the final say on their own words.
The list of those going back and forth between mediums is long and growing. Ken Levine (Cheers,M*A*S*H) just had a run of his play A or B at the Falcon Theatre in Toluca Lake. Joel Fields, an executive producer of The Americans, co-wrote the revival of Can Can for the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey. Sarah Treem, one of the creators of The Affair on Showtime, wrote the recent off-Broadway play When We Were Young and Unafraid. Warren Leight, a producer on Law and Order, writes plays on hiatus. Scott Carter, executive producer of Bill Maher’s talkfest on HBO, wrote Discord: The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy, which was a hit at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.
Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 1/7/14
That’s it for now, munchaladas. Don’t forget to write in and tell yers truly what you’ve sold when you sell it. Cuz TVWriter™ can’t wait to brag to all your friends. (And, more importantly, enemies. Hehehe….)
Cara Winter: Anglo Files 10
On Bond
by Cara Winter
When the Sony hack revealed that Idris Elba was being bandied around to take on the role of James Bond… first I screamed, “They stole my idea!” …and then (naturally) I realized that this is just a good idea, an idea whose time has come. And Elba happens to be the right actor at the right time, with the right emotional, physical and psychological makeup to play the role. (So… Sony, if you’re downloading my thoughts, which it appears you are… download my inner “Bravo!” and continue to run with it…)
After I read this very cool (if, ah-hem, obtained illegally) “news”, I started wondering what the “reaction” from “ordinary people” would be, on the internet. Overwhelmingly, from what I’ve read, people are enthusiastic. People are psyched. They are totally ready for a black James Bond.
