All My Children AMC: The Prospect Park Era (old production thread)

[Vee]

I don't care if they wrote the plays while banging Thai child hookers two at a time! All I would care about, as the judges, is if they were any good. The background doesn't matter to me.

And quite frankly I wouldn't reach out to most fans, because I feel fans of any product are often the worst writers - myopic, slanted, with a very subjective experience that doesn't often take the larger product as a whole into account. I think the fan that turns out to be a solid professional writer is few and far between. There have some been noteworthy cases over the years, certainly, not just in soaps but all across television or comics or whatever else - but I think just saying "open it to the fans" would open the floodgates to a torrent of [!@#$%^&*]. The only way I personally would ever give any fan a shot for a soap is if they proved they could write for something else entirely, at least on spec, and do it well.

Because I don't want it. I have other work in my life right now that I'm more focused on. And because I'm not there, and that's fine. I don't get first serve just because I watch the shows.

We have no idea who's good or not good. We don't know what these kids have written. And many, many, many professional writers start out at that age.

[Khan]

Yeah, and guess who hired her? Not Agnes Nixon.

Damn, just one more reason I was too harsh on Bill Bell BITD.

[EricMontreal22]

I'd never heard of that contest--when was it and did the writer go on with the program? What was the prize? (I'm honestly curious.) Of course back then P&G had a writers program as well--something I don't think anywhere has now, certainly not PP.

This is conjecture, but to me it sounds like this prie was a last minute thing--I doubt the entries even knew about it until now. So it gets PP a tiny bit of press, etc. Maybe if it's deemed a success they can make it more broad next year? Still the festival is not just a general festival--it's very much connected to a school writing program (exactly like programs at Yale) with the three finalists presented as a festival--so a festival in name primarily only. And I can't really begrudge a festival/contest/award whatever that is in Nixon's name being connected to her soap. Sure it's favoritism, but frankly a lot of college writing awards, etc, are and are connected to one school and if you're not there, you're SOL. It sucks, but I wouldn't say it's better than not having it at all.

Getting more writer diversity is a different, but IMHO very important matter altogether. I think though it's at least as fair to give someone who wins because of the talent of one of their scripts the chance to experience what it's like to write for a TV show--that seems a worthy goal to me, frankly.

I'd actually be far far more worried about a fan driven contest--however I do think good material would come from it--or could anyway. But that would be a much greater endeavour and would cause more time and setup than PP can probably handle this Spring--they would have to devote time to a busy staff to read all the submissions, etc etc. By piggybacking on another contest it's an easy thing for them to do (again, maybe, and ideally this would change next year when the company's not new and has more time to consider such things.)

Meh many of my fave playwrights from Tennessee Williams to Stephen Sondheim did their best writing while under the influence. Let's not get into movie writers. What's your point?

The thing is the tone of your post really did begrudge any winner. It was a whole "Damn You!! Where were you when I could have used you!" rant.

[EricMontreal22]

Agnes Nixon has hired fans before, however--it's described in R Sinclair's favorite book, All Her Children. (Hell Wisner Washam was given his opportunity when he was working as a stage manager and she offered it--and you love his writing.) It's not like Bill Bell made a practice of hiring fans (and if we really are gonna get into nepotism...)

[EricMontreal22]

In theory I agree with you, but this is such a biased, bitter attitude (granted--when it comes to the state of soap opera writing--especially now but frankly in basically forever if you look at people like James Lipton who were endlessly hired despite failing at nearly every show). The college students could be very well in ANY age group--I know when I was an undergrad I had a few people in their fifties in my classes at McGill.

And a lot of people in their 20s can write fine, nuanced dialogue. As you mentioned, Agnes Nixon was very young when Irna hired her to do dialogue for Woman in White.

[marceline]

Which at this point feels like a curse. I say make Colby black, recast Liza with Tonya Lee Williams and let er rip.

[EricMontreal22]

HA so true! I didn't mind Hall (I know, I know) but really it just felt like they should give up on the character after all the castings up to a point.

[Vee]

That last Colby was a man and we all know it.

[AllMyDaysatGH]

Thanks for catching that alexisfan. I am so glad they didn't bring Natalie Hall back as ConstanceColby! Looking forward to seeing what Brooke Newton does w/the role - she has quite a bit of work under her belt!

[alexisfan07]

I'm not a fan of her look but it is definitely the Colby look. To be honest, I was more than fine with her being kept off screen.

[marceline]

I think Hall was perfectly...adequate. Especially after the mess that was Colby #2. Childers may've sucked at the beginning but by the end of her run I thought she did great work. I don't think they should give up on the character but at the same time, I don't envy the actress who takes on the role.

[AllMyDaysatGH]

I wonder if Colby's still singing and doing her lil vlogs?

I'll be very interested in seeing where her character is at in 5 years - I don't think it was ever quite clear what she wanted to do with herself career-wise! She was all over the place.

[Khan]

Of course, being Judith Barcroft's husband had nothing at all to do with his getting hired.

...And let's forget the rest of this post, shall we?

[EricMontreal22]

You didn't bring it up in the first place, and I don't want you to feel like a jackass. But I can't help posting my opinions when I strongly disagree with you. I think this contest is, at best, a pretty cool opportunity and at worse a fairly harmless lark. To then hear someone (whose opinions on the whole I have a lot of respect for) throw a fit and say they are done (with the reboots they already basically said they were done with anyway) and not argue why I think your reaction misses some key points would miss the point of having a forum.

And actually wasn't Judith hired because of Washam? She was at another soap and he suggested she audition for his? Anyway that just points out how this is common across the board--and Bill Bell soaps or Nixon soaps are no better or worse.

[cassadine1991]

you are just jealous that these kids won a contest.. don't have to punish the damn show for it... you see this is partly what gives soap fans a bad name, is this behavior