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2006: The Directors and Writers Thread


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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.B)-->

QUOTE(Chris B @ Dec 6 2006, 11:23 AM)
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.

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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?

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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!

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

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.

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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.

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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.

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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 (:D): Douglas Marland, Harding Lemay...

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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).

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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!

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