SYNOPSIS
As the television landscape continues to expand and evolve, fresh writing talent is being mined from all kinds of sources. One of those sources is the Theatre.
Comprised of playwrights who have successfully made a career of TV writing, this panel will explore how storytelling for the small screen has shifted in recent years making it a space more apt for playwrights to explore and contribute to. Panelists will address the process of transitioning from stage to screen, the ways in which the mediums differ, and techniques that are either carried over, discarded, or morphed altogether.
PANELIST BIOS
Bekah Brunstetter, American Gods, This is Us
Plays include The Cake (The Echo, Summer 2017) Going to a Place where you already are (South Coast Repertory), The Oregon Trail (Portland Center Stage Fall 2016, O’Neill Playwrights Conference; Flying V) Cutie and Bear (Roundabout commission) A Long and Happy life (Naked Angels Commission), Be A Good Little Widow (Ars Nova, Collaboraction, The Old Globe), Oohrah! (The Atlantic Theater, Steppenwolf Garage, the Finborough Theater / London), Nothing is the end of the World (except for the end of the world) (Waterwell productions), House of Home (Williamstown Theater festival) and Miss Lilly Gets Boned (Ice Factory Festival.). She has previously written for MTV's Underemployed and I Just want my Pants Back, ABC Family’s Switched at Birth, Starz’s upcoming series American Gods. She is currently a Producer on NBC’s This is Us. She is an alumni of the CTG Writers Group, Primary Stages writes group, Ars Nova Play Group, The Playwright’s Realm, and the Women’s Project Lab. She is currently a member of the Echo Theater’s Playwright’s group. BA UNC Chapel Hill; MFA in Dramatic Writing from the New School for Drama.
Nick Jones, Orange is the New Black
Nick is a writer and producer for the critically-acclaimed Netflix series Orange is the New Black, as well as the upcoming series GLOW, created by Carly Mensch and Elizabeth Flahive. He is also a performer and playwright, whose theatrical works include Trevor (4 Ovation Awards), The Coward (2 Lortel Awards) Important Hats of the Twentieth Century, Verité, and Jollyship the Whiz-Bang, the critically acclaimed puppet rock musical, in which he also starred. He earned his Literature/Creative Writing BA from Bard College and a Lila Acheson Wallace Playwriting degree from Juilliard, where he was a two-time winner of the Lecomte du Nouy Prize. Honors shared for OITNB include Writer’s Guild Award and Emmy nominations. Nick was raised in Anchorage, Alaska, and currently lives in Los Angeles.
Molly Smith Metzler, Shameless
Molly is a Los Angeles-based playwright, TV writer, and screenwriter. Her plays -- which include Cry it Out, Elemeno Pea, The May Queen, Carve, Training Wisteria and Close Up Space -- have been produced Off-Broadway and across the country, at theaters such as Manhattan Theatre Club, Actors Theatre of Louisville/Humana Festival, South Coast Repertory, The Kennedy Center, The O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Chautauqua Theater Company, Play Makers Rep, Geva Theatre Center, and many more. Metzler’s awards include the Lecomte du Nouy Prize from Lincoln Center, the National Student Playwriting Award from The Kennedy Center, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education's David Mark Cohen Award, the Mark Twain Comedy Prize, and a finalist nod for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She is currently under commission at Manhattan Theatre Club and South Coast Repertory. In television, Metzler has written for Casual (Hulu), Orange Is the New Black (Netflix), Codes of Conduct (HBO), and is currently a writer/co-producer on Shameless (Showtime). She is also a screenwriter, currently adapting Ali Benjamin’s award-winning novel The Thing About Jellyfish into a film for OddLot and Pacific Standard (Reese Witherspoon's company). Metzler was educated at SUNY Geneseo, Boston University, New York University’s Tisch School for the Arts, and The Juilliard School.
Steve Yockey, Supernatural
Steve is a Los Angeles based writer with work produced throughout the US, Europe, and Asia. His plays Bellwether, Pluto, Afterlife, Octopus, Large Animal Games, CARTOON, Subculture, Very Still & Hard to See, The Fisherman’s Wife, Wolves, Disassembly, and Niagara Falls & Other Plays are published and available from Samuel French. Additionally, his play Joshua Consumed an Unfortunate Pear (originally commissioned by Miami’s City Theatre) was included in the 2015 Humana Festival of New American Plays and the subsequent published anthology. In addition to currently serving on the board of the National New Play Network, Steve has participated in multiple NNPN programs, several rolling world premiers, and was one of two writers selected for the first US/Australia playwrights exchange. He also contributes issues to the Zenescope Comics series Grimm Tales of Terror. Steve has written for Awkward (MTV), Scream (MTV), The Brink (HBO), and is currently a Co-Producer on Supernatural (CW). He holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Moderator - Brian James Polak
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