Category: Stephens College

Dr. Rosanne Welch Speaks On “An Introduction to the Women of Early TV: There are More Women than Lucy to Love“ for the American Women Writers National Museum [Virtual via Zoom]

I’m thrilled to have been asked to make a presentation for the American Women Writers National Museum (AWWNM) on the topic of “An Introduction to the Women of Early TV: There are More Women than Lucy to Love“.  I’ll be discussing the groundbreaking work of women from Gertrude Berg (one of the first women to create, write, produce and star in a long-running hit — The Goldbergs) to D.C. Fontana (Star Trek).    — RMW Rosanne Signature for Web

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RSVP Today! 
Email AWWNM1@gmail.com

Wed Feb 10, 2021 noon-12:45 EDT

“An Introduction to the Women of Early TV: There are More Women than Lucy to Love“

Sponsored by: American Women Writers National Museum

Time & Place: noon-12:45 p.m. EDT / 9 AM PDT via Zoom

All AWWNM programs are now via Zoom until further notice. Invitations are sent via email to AWWNM’s mailing list. RSVPS are REQUIRED in order to receive a link to a specific program. If you would like an invitation, email request to AWWNM1@gmail.com.

Dr. Rosanne Welch, Executive Director of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting, Author, Historian and Book Reviews editor of the Journal of Screenwriting will profile pioneer women who created, produced and worked on many of America’s most wildly popular early TV Programs. 

“My goal is to rescue these talented women from historical oblivion”, she said.

Some of the women writers she will discuss are:

  • Lucille Ball (1911-1989) of “I Love Lucy” fame, who also ran Desilu production company and greenlighted the blockbuster Star Trek productions.
  • Treva Silverman (1936- ) winner of two Emmy awards for the brilliant comedy The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
  • D.C. Fontana (Dorothy Catherine) Fontana (1939-2019) a story editor of Star Trek
  • Leigh Brackett (1915-1878) known as “Queen of the Space Opera” who wrote on or worked on timeless films: The Big Sleep (1946), Rio Bravo (1959), The Long Goodbye (1973) and The Empire Strike Back (1980).
  • Peg Lynch (1915-2015) She wrote about 11,000 scripts for radio and TV

Related posts:

  1. Watch Dr. Rosanne Welch on What Is a Western? Interview Series: When Women Wrote Westerns from the Autry Museum of the American West [Video] (27 minutes)
  2. 40 Madelyn Pugh and I Love Lucy from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (54 seconds)
  3. 07 African-American Writers In History from When Women Write Horror with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (53 seconds)
  4. 01 Introduction from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American Television]: from Freelancing to Writers Rooms [Video] (1 minute)
  5. 01 Introduction from When Women Write Horror with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute 18 seconds)

Watch Dr. Rosanne Welch on What Is a Western? Interview Series: When Women Wrote Westerns from the Autry Museum of the American West [Video] (27 minutes)

The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting is building a relationship with the Autry Museum of the American West since both organizations are devoted to bringing out more diverse and untold stories.  Last year we were able to take our cohort of graduating MFA candidates to the museum’s theatre for a showing of Michael Wilson’s Salt of the Earth and we had plans to present a film of our choice this year – but of course the pandemic changed all that.  Instead, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis asked me if I would sit for an interview about female screenwriters in the western genre and so “When Women Wrote Westerns” came to be a part of their “What Is a Western? Interview Series”. 

I had a great time discussing so many wonderful women writers – from Jeanne MacPherson to D.C. Fontana to Edna Ferber to Emily Andras.  If you love westerns I suggest you watch Josh’s other interviews covering everything from the work of Native Americans in Western movies to films in the western-horror hybrid. — RMW Rosanne Signature for Web

Watch Dr. Rosanne Welch on What Is a Western? Interview Series: When Women Wrote Westerns from the Autry Museum of the American West [Video] (27 minutes)

As part of a series exploring the significance of the Western genre and the ways in which the movies shape our understanding of the American West, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis interviews Professor Rosanne Welch about the women screenwriters of Hollywood and their contributions to the Western genre.

Find more information at the Autry Museum of the American West

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Related posts:

  1. 07 African-American Writers In History from When Women Write Horror with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (53 seconds)
  2. 01 Introduction from When Women Write Horror with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute 18 seconds)
  3. 14 Beetlejuice from When Women Write Horror with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute 16 seconds)
  4. Listen to the latest “How I Wrote That” Podcast with Screenwriter Julie Hébert from ‘American Crime’ and ‘Man in the High Castle’
  5. “When Women Wrote Hollywood”, Dr. Rosanne Welch, Cal State University, Fullerton [Video] (53 minutes, 30 seconds)

07 The Monkees Writers Room from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (44 seconds)

07 The Monkees Writers Room from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (44 seconds)

Thanks to the gracious invitation from my Screenwriting Research Network colleague Paolo Russo – and a grant he was able to procure (and in the before-Covid time) I was able to spend a week at Oxford Brookes University working with the screenwriting masters students in Paolo’s course. At the culmination of the week, I gave this lecture on how writers rooms worked in the States.

Transcript:

Neil Simon actually wrote about writing for Sid Caesar in a play and that was all about glorifying what happened in the writer’s room. So it’s really a fun kind of play if you see it. I did some work on this tv show which is from the 60s. It’s also all on YouTube if you care to see it. It was a comedy about four guys who ran a rock and roll band. They’re literally still around and still touring. They’re in New Zealand right now. That’s how long-lasting the effect of the show was but these folks were all the writers of it including Treva Silverman — the woman up in the corner. She was the first woman to write alone on a series without a male partner — a husband or a guy who happened to work with her. That’s a big move. It seems ridiculous but that was a big moment in TV history.

Watch this entire presentation

Subscribe to Rosanne’s Channel and receive notice of each new video!

 


* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Related posts:

  1. 06 Inside The Writers Room from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (43 seconds)
  2. 05 Women Writers Matter from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (27 seconds)
  3. 03 Why Writers Matter from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (41 seconds)
  4. 02 Writers Matter from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (1 minute 3 seconds)
  5. 04 Down With The Auteur Theory from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (54 seconds)

A Woman Wrote That – 11 in a series – Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

This new “A Woman Wrote That” post is an echo of the Writers Guild campaign of a few years ago (“A Writer Wrote That”) where they noted famous movie quotes and credited the screenwriter rather than the director.  The difference here being that we will be posting lines from films written by female screenwriters.  Feel free to share! — Rosanne

A Woman Wrote That - 11 in a series - Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

ANNIE

You make a million decisions that mean nothing, and then one day you order take-out and it changes your life.

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Dr. Rosanne Welch Hosts “Act Two: Transitioning to TV Writing from Previous Careers” for the WGA Foundation [Video]

During every workshop intensive for the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting I have the privilege of creating and moderating a panel of female screenwriters discussing various topics. 

Our most recent panel focused on “Transitioning to Television” and included panelists who came to television from previous careers.  This allowed me to talk to women who came to TV whose first careers included being a doctor, lobbyist, college professor and, of especially pride for our MFA program, a former Senior Physical Security Analyst for federal agencies, U.S. Army Reserve veteran. 

All of them are now writing on major television shows and their advice and honesty was greatly appreciated. — Rosanne

Act Two: Transitioning to TV Writing from Previous Careers

For this session, we teamed up with Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting for a discussion on transitioning to TV writing from other careers. Learn how our panel of TV writers and producers made the jump to television, how their previous experiences inform their writing, and how that lens impacts their approach in the writers room.

Panelists are Zoanne Clack, M.D., MPH (Executive Producer, Grey’s Anatomy), Rashaan Dozier-Escalante (Staff Writer, SEAL Team), Akilah Green (Co-producer, Black Monday), and Calaya Michelle Stallworth, Ph.D (Executive Story Editor, Fear of the Walking Dead).
Moderated by Dr. Rosanne Welch, Director of Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting.

Filmed on January 13, 2021.

 

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  1. Panel Discussion: Act Two: Transitioning to TV Writing from Other Careers – Wed, January 13, 2021 – 4pm PST – RSVP Today!
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06 Inside The Writers Room from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (43 seconds)

06 Inside The Writers Room from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV

Thanks to the gracious invitation from my Screenwriting Research Network colleague Paolo Russo – and a grant he was able to procure (and in the before-Covid time) I was able to spend a week at Oxford Brookes University working with the screenwriting masters students in Paolo’s course. At the culmination of the week, I gave this lecture on how writers rooms worked in the States.

Transcript:

What happens with writers rooms because this is the place where work gets done. Where stories get told, created, honed, in a particular way. The very beginning, this is what everybody thought. This is a writer’s room because comedies did use them. Comedians, we’re used to having three or four guys — generally, always guys — who travel with them and help them make funnier jokes. In America that was best seen in the Dick Van Dyke Show which you can see on youtube in a million different ways and Sally Rogers was the only woman anybody ever saw who wrote television which was kind of shocking but many women who came later defined her as a role model because that told them they could get in a room someday right? If they found the right kind of guys who would let them in.

Watch this entire presentation

Subscribe to Rosanne’s Channel and receive notice of each new video!

 


* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Related posts:

  1. 03 Why Writers Matter from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (41 seconds)
  2. 05 Women Writers Matter from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (27 seconds)
  3. 02 Writers Matter from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (1 minute 3 seconds)
  4. 04 Down With The Auteur Theory from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (54 seconds)
  5. There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American Television]: from Freelancing to Writers Rooms [Video] (52 minutes)

A Woman Wrote That – 10 in a series – When Harry Met Sally (1989) by Nora Ephron

This new “A Woman Wrote That” post is an echo of the Writers Guild campaign of a few years ago (“A Writer Wrote That”) where they noted famous movie quotes and credited the screenwriter rather than the director.  The difference here being that we will be posting lines from films written by female screenwriters.  Feel free to share! — Rosanne

A Woman Wrote That - 10 in a series - When Harry Met Sally (1989) by Nora Ephron

HARRY

Men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.

Related posts:

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  3. A Woman Wrote That – 4 in a series – Thelma and Louise by Callie Khouri (1991)
  4. A Woman Wrote That – 2 in a series – Lady Sings The Blues, Screenplay by Suzanne De Passe, Chris Clark, and Terence McCloy
  5. A Woman Wrote That – 8 in a series – Something’s Gotta Give by Nancy Meyers (2003)

05 Women Writers Matter from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (27 seconds)

05 Women Writers Matter from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (27 seconds)

Thanks to the gracious invitation from my Screenwriting Research Network colleague Paolo Russo – and a grant he was able to procure (and in the before-Covid time) I was able to spend a week at Oxford Brookes University working with the screenwriting masters students in Paolo’s course. At the culmination of the week, I gave this lecture on how writers rooms worked in the States.

Transcript:

Women writers have always mattered. They certainly matter to me but we do not teach them very often and that’s a choice of the people who put classes together 50, 60, 80 years ago and didn’t mention the women. So I mention them a lot. These are women that you should know. These are women from American film history. There are women in English film history equally important. Hopefully, you’re having that covered in your classes.

Watch this entire presentation

Subscribe to Rosanne’s Channel and receive notice of each new video!

 


* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Related posts:

  1. 03 Why Writers Matter from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (41 seconds)
  2. 02 Writers Matter from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (1 minute 3 seconds)
  3. 04 Down With The Auteur Theory from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American TV [Video] (54 seconds)
  4. There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American Television]: from Freelancing to Writers Rooms [Video] (52 minutes)
  5. 01 Introduction from There And Back Again: Writing and Developing for American Television]: from Freelancing to Writers Rooms [Video] (1 minute)

A Woman Wrote That – 9 in a series – Klondike Annie by Mae West (1936)

This new “A Woman Wrote That” post is an echo of the Writers Guild campaign of a few years ago (“A Writer Wrote That”) where they noted famous movie quotes and credited the screenwriter rather than the director.  The difference here being that we will be posting lines from films written by female screenwriters.  Feel free to share! — Rosanne

A Woman Wrote That - 9 in a series - Klondike Annie by Mae West (1936)

ROSE “THE FRISCO DOLL”

When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I’ve never tried before.

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  2. A Woman Wrote That – 4 in a series – Thelma and Louise by Callie Khouri (1991)
  3. A Woman Wrote That – 2 in a series – Lady Sings The Blues, Screenplay by Suzanne De Passe, Chris Clark, and Terence McCloy
  4. A Woman Wrote That – 3 in a series – E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
  5. A Woman Wrote That – 8 in a series – Something’s Gotta Give by Nancy Meyers (2003)

Top On Screenwriting and Media Blog Posts for 2020

Top On Screenwriting and Media Blog Posts for 2020

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