Anyone who says Rayfield was better than Culliton sure has selective memory. I don't care if you don't like Culliton, but ranking him lower than Rayfield is just absurd/crazy/stupid/ridiculous. Rayfield's "achievements" - the intro. of Fusion and What Women Want, Maria and Aidan in the Bahamas being chased after Julian and Morgan (who? exactly), Jake turning into an insta-adulter and sleeping with Alison the slut and then breaking up with Mia via note, JR and Laurie's lame Romeo and Juliet story and Laurie's drunken father, Greenlee's secret admirer in the form of Carlos and we can go on. It was just lame, putrid and awful. Neverending newbies and absolutely no vets. The show went on an upswing the second Anna Cascio arrived, so I will not give Rayfield an ounce of credit for the show the last few months of their reign.

That's great. Bottom line is Culliton sucked.

I don't see how Reyfield can be so liked. Didn't he like flood the show with a bunch of new characters, i.e. Laurie and her father? I remember tuning out so much around this time until Cascio joined. During the end of Reyfield and Cascio's reign they were pretty good. The death of David and Anna's child and affects of it was classic soap opera material.

I'm not saying Culliton is the best writer in the world, but compared to Reyfield, he was a million miles better IMO. Culliton was at least trying to make AMC better, all Reyfield tried to do was make the show into "All My Newbies". Culliton's stories had great premise, but wandered off the path almost everytime. Plus at least his new characters, to me, were intreguing and had somewhat of depth and a backstory (interesting to say the least). I mean introducing Richard Field's son onto the canvas, genius. However the way that it played out on screen sucked. I hated that he was a spy. Despite that I loved Simone's premise also. The Smythe's were also good. I don't really remember one single good thing to point out from Reyfield's reign.

Bottom line is Rayfield was only by himself for six weeks, so I don't understand how that makes him worse than Culliton, who had horrible storyline after storyline play out on the air for 14 months.

I think RC is a good writer. He got good reviws over at ATWT. He wrote the GH spinoff nd maintain its highest ratings. No other writer since he left that show pulled in the numbers he did. Didnt he also write AW in the late 90's?

Anyone who says Rayfield was better than Culliton sure has selective memory. I don't care if you don't like Culliton, but ranking him lower than Rayfield is just absurd/crazy/stupid/ridiculous. Rayfield's "achievements" - the intro. of Fusion and What Women Want, Maria and Aidan in the Bahamas being chased after Julian and Morgan (who? exactly), Jake turning into an insta-adulter and sleeping with Alison the slut and then breaking up with Mia via note, JR and Laurie's lame Romeo and Juliet story and Laurie's drunken father, Greenlee's secret admirer in the form of Carlos and we can go on. It was just lame, putrid and awful. Neverending newbies and absolutely no vets. The show went on an upswing the second Anna Cascio arrived, so I will not give Rayfield an ounce of credit for the show the last few months of their reign.

I agree. I love Cwickly. I lovd when she wrote Days. I also think Boof is a good writer and should be given a chance to write.-->

I don't think picking up DAYS writer is a bad thing it itself. Look at Paula Cwikly, Hogan picked her up and she won an Emmy while she was on his show. Just because someone is on DAYS doesn't mean they suck.

I just wish [s.W.S.N.B.N.] would become official, I do believe she's a strong writer and I'd love to see what she could do with more power.

Never!!!I dont think Jean has EVER gotten a good review. Why is she still writing?

I wish Hogan would take Jean P. with him to Days.

A new Associate HW/BDW listed on ATWT today.

Gary Sunshine.

Yes.I said Sunshine.

Anybody heard of him?

Gary was born in Brooklyn, New York and raised on Long Island, where his father was a self-employed plastic slipcover cutter and his mother tried to program computers. Gary started writing plays a year after graduating from Princeton University, where he majored in English with a concentration in Theater. He received an MFA from NYU's Dramatic Writing Program. In 2005, he received the Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights. His work has been published in The Best American Short Plays of 2001 (Applause) and Monologues for Men by Men (Heinemann). In December 2004, Gary was in residence at the Royal National Theatre Studio in London. He is a NYTW Usual Suspect and a member of the MCC Playwrights Coalition. He wrote, co-created, and co-produced the documentary What I Want My Words To Do To You (Freedom of Expression Award, Sundance Film Festival; Audience Award, Lake Placid Film Festival; Crystal Award, Heartland Film Festival; HBO Audience Award for Top Documentary, Provincetown International Film Festival), which premiered nationwide on PBS’s P.O.V.

http://www.newdramatists.org/gary_sunshine.htm

I hope he's a good addition, but with Pasanante at the helm, who knows?

Thank you Chris for that information.

People say that soaps should reach outside the soap community and get new talent. That is an example of that.

ITA with your Jean P. comment.

Just speculating here---wouldn't it be interesting that they do the same thing for him the way they did with Hogan? They added Hogan to Leah Laiman's staff and before you know it -he was HW!

A new Associate HW/BDW listed on ATWT today.

Gary Sunshine.

Hmmm..sounds interesting. I have seen only a bit of today's ATWT. I havent gotten to the credits.

Just speculating here---wouldn't it be interesting that they do the same thing for him the way they did with Hogan? They added Hogan to Leah Laiman's staff and before you know it -he was HW!

It sure sounds like redux Sheffer. I am thinking they are grooming him to take over. Hopefully, that is what will happen. And then they can drop Jean. I would be interested in seeing Gary as HW at ATWT. Maybe there is still hope for ATWT.

Edited December 19, 200618 yr by Soapsuds

WRITER WHEREABOUTS

Dramatist writes below:

Could you please post something about the writing process for Procter & Gamble soaps? And tell us how to decifer from the day's credits who wrote the episodes's breakdown and who the script.

Writing duties at the P&G soaps are broken down into three parts:

Headwriter (sometimes there's a Co-Headwriter, as well)

Breakdown writers

Script writers

The Headwriter conceives the long-term story and writes the thrusts, outlining his/her tale approximately a week at a time. (Sometimes, there may be a story document for one particular plot, summarizing all of the major beats, but this isn't required for all stories).

The Headwriter and the Breakdown writers then divide the week's thrust into five episodes. The Breakdown writers outline an episode, breaking it down into acts and scenes, with a summary of the action. (Sometimes a Headwriter may choose to write a breakdown personally, as well).

Script writers take the breakdown and write dialogue for each scene.

Guiding Light does not make a distinction in the end credits of the show for Breakdown or Script writer. Both groups are listed alphabetically.

On As The World Turns, the Breakdown writers are listed as a group, but the Script writer for that day's episode is listed as the last writer on the list of writers.

Hope this helps!

Form PGP Classic Soaps.

I think RC is a good writer. He got good reviws over at ATWT. He wrote the GH spinoff nd maintain its highest ratings. No other writer since he left that show pulled in the numbers he did. Didnt he also write AW in the late 90's?

Yeah, I loved PC in the beginning and it was never the same afterward. Joe and Karen, the interns, the feeling of family from the Scanlons and the Baldwins -- all either became boring, formulaic, or disappeared after Culliton left.

About AW, yeah he headwrote AW for six compelling months in 1997-1998, but unfortunately he was overshadowed by the firings that the network was demanding at the time, most signficantly the firing of Charles Keating as Carl. Still, even TV Guide's Michael Logan, who kept bashing Culliton at GH as "Cullitoon", thought Culliton did great writing around the secrets and guilt immediately following Michael Hudson's death.

Earlier, Culliton's main work on AW was as headwriter in 1984-1985, some of the time along with Gary Tomlin, when the characters of Wallingford and Marley were created. He put together the "family not related by blood" (which is a recurring theme in his work -- the importance of friends) -- Cass, Felicia, Kathleen, and Wallingford.

In addition to what you've mentioned, it's also notable that he co-headwrote GL in 1983 with Pam Long, which included the early "Four Musketeers" stuff, the Bradley/Beth abuse story, and Phillip and Beth running away to New York for Christmas where they met "Nick" for the first time.

"Bottom line", Culliton is good enough to make me follow him from soap to soap, and I've done so since 1996. Because of him, I've fallen in love with characters from three soaps that I probably wouldn't have been exposed to otherwise.

Edited December 20, 200618 yr by jfung79

Thank you Chris for that information.

People say that soaps should reach outside the soap community and get new talent. That is an example of that.

ITA with your Jean P. comment.

Just speculating here---wouldn't it be interesting that they do the same thing for him the way they did with Hogan? They added Hogan to Leah Laiman's staff and before you know it -he was HW!

I like that this Gary Sunshine has a playwright background, which Harding Lemay also did. I'd be cool with giving him a shot in a few months if he seems to do good work.

However, given his writing background, which seems to have a fair bit of "socially relevant" stuff, as well as the rumors in SOD that Luke would meet someone soon, I'm thinking he might have been hired primarily to map out story for Luke, rather than to be groomed as a headwriter.

On the first day that he was credited, I didn't really notice a difference in terms of the writing being any better or worse. But, perhaps not coincidentally, Luke was on.

ATWT keeps adding writers. I wonder if anyone is leaving.

Edited December 20, 200618 yr by jfung79

I like that this Gary Sunshine has a playwright background, which Harding Lemay also did. I'd be cool with giving him a shot in a few months if he seems to do good work.

I’m beginning to think that’s a problem: there are good playwrights who came to soaps, but there are also mediocre or bad ones.

Charlotte Gibson, Anna Theresa Cascio, Hal Corley... all ex playwrights. Jean Passanante was something like theatre menager or...

I deduced that the best HWs are actors (): Douglas Marland, Harding Lemay...

Edited December 20, 200618 yr by Sylph

to map out story for Luke, rather than to be groomed as a headwriter.

On the first day that he was credited, I didn't really notice a difference in terms of the writing being any better or worse. But, perhaps not coincidentally, Luke was on.

ATWT keeps adding writers. I wonder if anyone is leaving.

I cannot believe how incompetent Jean Passanante is, first she needs a ghost consultant (if that was true, anyway), now she needs someone to map a story for her and so on... Why don’t they just fire her and rid us of all this nonsense.

Back in the days when Marland was HW, the show had seven writer (2 BDWs + 5 SWs), and now ATWT has 16 (those credited for WGAA).

I cannot believe how incompetent Jean Passanante is, first she needs a ghost consultant (if that was true, anyway), now she needs someone to map a story for her and so on... Why don’t they just fire her and rid us of all this nonsense.

Back in the days when Marland was HW, the show had seven writer (2 BDWs + 5 SWs), and now ATWT has 16 (those credited for WGAA).

To be fair, in her defense, we don't know that she needs someone to map out a story for her for Luke, it's just my speculation. As you point out, we also don't know if she ever had a ghost consultant.

Also, that's an interesting observation about playwrights!

Edited December 20, 200618 yr by jfung79