Has the peak TV era sparked a new love affair between playwrights and the small screen…? Shameless” writer Molly Smith Metzler calls theater her “secret lover.”
“I always want to be with her the most,” she says, “and when I’m doing anything else, I’m thinking about her.”
In this era of so-called peak TV, the demand for strong storytellers on the small screen has sparked a new love affair between playwrights and the small screen: Television adores playwrights, and the feeling is mutual. In unprecedented numbers, playwrights are essentially answering an industry personal ad that might as well read: Seeking skilled writers with a keen grasp of character development, nuanced dialogue, narrative structure and emotional realism. You love Ibsen, Camus, Alan Ball and Mary Tyler Moore. Ribald humor and existential angst a plus.
In years past, this relationship was an illicit tryst, a badge of shame. Today, it is an artistic triumph. Many writers head to theater school with dramatic polygamy in mind, and those already established in theater actively pursue meetings with TV executives.
Showrunners in turn are eager to recruit playwrights, and it’s now common practice for them to read plays in addition to the spec scripts that aspiring television writers crank out upon graduation. Read the article at The Los Angeles Times.
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Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium used for transmitting moving images in monochrome (black and white), or in colour, and in two or three dimensions and sound. The term can refer to a television set, a television program (“TV show”), or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for entertainment, education, news, politics, gossip and advertising.
Television became available in crude experimental forms in the late 1920s, but it would still be several years before the new technology was marketed to consumers. After World War II, an improved form of black-and-white TV broadcasting became popular in the United States and Britain, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses, and institutions. During the 1950s, television was the primary medium for influencing public opinion. Read more at Wikipedia.
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