2009: The Directors and Writers Thread

[RavenWhitney]

Melissa Salmons, Penelope Koechl or Susan Kirshenbaum to OLTL?

[Khan]

Oh, I'd love it if it were Susan Kirshenbaum!

Then again, I'm partial to just about every AMC writer from that era.

Except McTavish.

[SouthOfSoap]

I still think Days could use a 5th SW. Culliton is good, but he will get burnout soon - he wrote 3 scripts last week, and they were all below par - especially Tuesday's episode.

I checked your awesome history links, and I found this:

Sunset Beach Days of Our Lives

Executive Producer

Gary Tomlin

Head-Writers

Margaret De Priest Dena Hackley & Christopher Whitesell

Producer

Mary-Kelly Weir

Written By

Jane Atkins Jeanne Marie Ford

Paula Cwickly Fran Myers

Rick Draughon

Christopher Dunn John Newman

Cydney Kelley

David Cherrill

Lisa Seidman

Michelle Poteet Lisanti

&

Janet Iacobuzio Richard Culliton

De Priest, Atkins and Cwikly all have DAYS experience and Iacobuzio and Tomlin were on OLTL together.

For the record I loved Sunset Beach in its last year. It could explain my refound love for DAYS.

[Toups]

Correct!

I was so surprised when she showed up at DAYS a few years ago. She had no connections to Reilly or DAYS before and was out of the biz for years.

[Khan]

Same here (and before then, ATWT). What can I say? Some writers are just that good (that they don't need connections).

So, Melissa Salmons to OLTL (good move); Michelle Poteet Lisanti back to DAYS (another good move, even if it's to write breakdowns this time); and Mike Cohen (Y&R) and Renee Godelia (DAYS) out (good move for DAYS, good move for Y&R). All in all, a pretty sluggish May so far, lol.

[SouthOfSoap]

I thought Kirshenbaum was awful at DAYS - I put her on the same level as Bruce Neckels and Michael Slade. Of course JER told them them how to write scripts ("What? Maggie's been killed? Would you like some tea?" or something along those lines...). When Sheffer came on board, I don't really think she raised her game that much - and I felt even Neckels and Slade improved their scripts before they were let go.

I liked Mike Cohen on DAYS, but admit I never saw his work on Y&R.

[Khan]

[Sylph]

Has Salmons worked with Johnson?

[Khan]

I don't believe Melissa Salmons has worked with Frederick Johnson before, Sylph.

Here's my question: is "Frederick Johnson" the same as "Fred Johnson," who's worked on "227" and "Moesha"?

[R Sinclair]

No. One's black, the other's white. My cousin used to write under him at Moesha.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Good for Melissa Salmons, she's a fantastic scriptwriter that Y&R was foolish to let go. I'll be watching her scripts on OLTL closely, they really needed someone like her.

I couldn't care any less about Cohen's trial expiring at Y&R, and I guess it was predictable that Godelia would be let go at DAYS.

All and all, pretty predictable that Lisanti would go back to DAYS under Tomlin.

[Sylph]

Thanks, Khan.

Good grief, no!

[Toups]

We all know JER soaps don't have the best dialogue (I still love my Passions writers though ) but was Neckels was the worst.

At ATWT in 2004, 2005.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

JER must have been pretty precise as to what he wanted out of his SW's. All I know is Nancy Williams Watt, Peggy Schibi, and Roger Newman wrote wonderful scripts at GL during the early 90's, but the dialogue on Passions was utterly atrocious, but it wasn't standard soap opera, so I guess it gets a pass. But I guess Nancy Curlee and Stephen Demorest really had a good ear for crisp dialogue.

[Toups]

JER wanted a specific kind of dialogue - lots of recapping, false tags, etc. It was very deliberate. But I still thought they were brilliant because they were really good with humour and had awesome one-liners and on occasion they would get the chance to write really good romantic dialogue. I will forever love my Passions writers.