On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch
Writing, Film, Television and More!
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Video coming soon!
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When Women Wrote Hollywood – Zoë Akins – 40 in a series
Her first major dramatic work was Papa, written in 1914. The comedy failed even though it greatly impressed both H.L. Menckenand George Jean Nathan,[3] and she continued to write.[4] She followed up with two other plays, The Magical City and Déclassée. The latter play, which starred Ethel Barrymore, was not only a great success but “something of a sensation, and her days of waiting were over.” [5] During this time several of her early plays were adapted for the screen. These adaptations were mostly failures, released as silent films in a time when the industry was transitioning to sound. While some “talkie” stars had notable roles in the films (Walter Pidgeon and a young Clark Gable), most of the films are now believed to be lost. In 1930, Akins had another great success with her play, The Greeks Had a Word For It, a comedy about three models in search of rich husbands [6]
In the early 1930s, Akins became more active in film, writing several screenplays as well as continuing to sell the rights to plays such as The Greeks Had a Word for It(1930), which was adapted for the movies three times, in 1932 (as The Greeks Had a Word for Them), 1938 (as Three Blind Mice), and 1953 (How to Marry a Millionaire). Two highlights of this period were the films Sarah and Son (1930) and Morning Glory (1933), the latter remade as Stage Struck. Both films earned their respective female leads (Ruth Chatterton and Katharine Hepburn) Academy Award nominations for Best Actress (Hepburn won).
In 1935, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her dramatization of Edith Wharton’s The Old Maid, a melodrama set in New York City and written in five episodes stretching across time from 1839 to 1854. The play was adapted for a 1939 film starring Bette Davis.
In 1936, Akins co-wrote the screenplay for Camille, adapted from Alexandre Dumas’s play and novel, La dame aux camélias The film starred Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor, and Lionel Barrymore, and earned Garbo her third Oscar nomination. — Wikipedia
More about Sarah Y. Mason and Victor Heerman
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“When Women Wrote Hollywood” Book Reading and Signing during Citizen Jane Film Festival 2018
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Video coming soon!
Buy a signed copy of when Women Wrote Hollywood
Paperback Edition | Kindle Edition | Google Play Edition
* 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
Watch this entire presentation: Gender Diversity in the Who-niverse: Paving the Way for a Lady Doctor with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (36:58)
![35 Danny Pink from Gender Diversity in the Who-niverse [Video] (1:07)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/gender-dw-35-danny.jpeg)
For her 5th Doctor Who lecture to the CPP community, Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses how society – and the show’s writing staff – prepared the audience for a major change in this 50-year franchise – the creation of the first Lady Doctor!
Transcript:
So I think that’s pretty cool. Then we had Danny Pink, a guy who’d been in the wars who’s now a math teacher right? He’s Clara’s boyfriend. So we have him as a soldier but we really see him as a man who protects children because he worked with middle school children. We don’t have a lot of middle school teachers who are male right? Because we don’t pay them enough and that’s bad because young men need to see that teaching is an excellent career — that caregiving and that nurturing the younger generation is a valuable thing to do with your life. So Danny Pink is really important in that respect and of course in the same way sadly Danny becomes a Cyberman and he makes this ultimate choice. The Doctor has one chance that you can come back alive from that and it gives it to Danny and instead of taking it for himself so he can come back and be with his girlfriend, he gives it to the little Afghan child that he accidentally shot when he was in the wars. He gives away his chance to live to a boy that was you know accidentally shot by him and I’m like what a powerful thing for a male character to choose to do. I think that makes Danny super super sensitive right and super strong!
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Rosanne Welch, PhD
Rosanne Welch PhD teaches the History of Screenwriting and One-Hour Drama for the Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting.
Writing/producing credits include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. In 2016 she published the book Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop; co-edited Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia; and placed “Transmitting Culture Transnationally Via the Characterization of Parents in Police Procedurals” in the New Review of Film and Television Studies. Essays appear in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television and Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology. Welch serves as Book Reviews editor for Journal of Screenwriting and on the Editorial Advisory Board for Written By magazine, the magazine of the Writers Guild.
Watch Dr. Welch’s talk “The Importance of Having a Female Voice in the Room” at the 2016 TEDxCPP.
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When Women Wrote Hollywood – 38 in a series – Sarah Y. Mason and Victor Heerman
Little Women is a 1933 American pre-Code drama film, directed by George Cukor and starring Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Frances Dee and Jean Parker. The screenplay, by Sarah Y. Mason and Victor Heerman, is based on the 1868 novel of the same name, by Louisa May Alcott. — Wikipedia
More information about Little Women (1933)
More about Sarah Y. Mason and Victor Heerman
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Watch this entire presentation: Gender Diversity in the Who-niverse: Paving the Way for a Lady Doctor with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (36:58)
![34 Rory Williams from Gender Diversity in the Who-niverse [Video] (0:56)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/gender-dw-34-rory.jpeg)
For her 5th Doctor Who lecture to the CPP community, Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses how society – and the show’s writing staff – prepared the audience for a major change in this 50-year franchise – the creation of the first Lady Doctor!
Transcript:
Rory is such a cool character. I know the joke has really died how many times almost as bad as South Park all right but think about what Rory did all right. First of all he willingly married somebody who was running around having these adventures right. When she was gone for a while he never lost faith that he would find her and that she would still love him. That nothing could happen that would make him stop loving her. He’s all about being a man in love with a woman. That is his definition in life right and usually that’s how we define women by the men in their life but Rory is defined by the woman in his life which is pretty cool and as we know when she was trapped in the Pandorica for a thousand years he willingly agreed to stay and guard her. That’s how much he loved her. So if I was thinking about sensitivity and emotions Rory is defined by his ability to love which again is generally gendered as a thing that women do best.
Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter and Instagram
https://twitter.com/rosannewelch – http://instagram.com/drrosannewelch
Rosanne Welch, PhD
Rosanne Welch PhD teaches the History of Screenwriting and One-Hour Drama for the Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting.
Writing/producing credits include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. In 2016 she published the book Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop; co-edited Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia; and placed “Transmitting Culture Transnationally Via the Characterization of Parents in Police Procedurals” in the New Review of Film and Television Studies. Essays appear in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television and Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology. Welch serves as Book Reviews editor for Journal of Screenwriting and on the Editorial Advisory Board for Written By magazine, the magazine of the Writers Guild.
Watch Dr. Welch’s talk “The Importance of Having a Female Voice in the Room” at the 2016 TEDxCPP.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Do you know about these women screenwriters? Many don’t. Learn more about them today!
“In London one of Eve Unsell’s first employees was a young Alfred Hitchcock who designed title cards presumably under Unsell’s tutelage on such films as The Call of Youth (1921). Unsell is credited with teaching Hitchcock ‘the ins and outs of story and screenplay mechanics as well as adapting novels for film.'”
Smart Girl In Charge: Eve Unsell
Laura Kirk
Buy a signed copy of when Women Write Hollywood
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** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
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