This is a low-residency program where most of the work is done online but each cohort (1st year and 2nd year) comes to LA twice each year and meets for 10 days of intense workshops and research at the Jim Henson Studio (originally the Chaplin Studio) in the heart of Hollywood.
This week is the first workshop for our new class of 2020.
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Early 1960s television characters came in a one-size-fits-all, squeaky-clean-cut style, from Dr. Kildare in his white lab coat, to Hoss Cartwright in his white Stetson, to Sr. Bertrille in her white habit. That lasted until 7:30 p.m. Monday, September 12, 1966 when four long-haired teenagers began dancing a Monkeewalk while singing, “Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkees.”
Though it looked simple enough, the comedy was about more than four struggling musicians living in a beach house they couldn’t afford, without adult supervision, and hoping for success while engaging in Marx(Bros)ian humor. According to star Micky Dolenz, the only actor with previous television series experience: “It brought long hair into the living room and changed the way teenagers were portrayed on television.”
Dolenz’s opinion is backed up by psychologist and author Timothy Leary in The Politics of Ecstasy: “While it lasted, it was a classic Sufi[ism] put-on. An early-Christian electronic satire. A mystic magic show. A jolly Buddha laugh at hypocrisy. And woven into the fast-moving psychedelic stream of action were the prophetic, holy, challenging words. Micky was rapping quickly, dropping literary names, making scholarly references.”
* 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
All of the callers shared Filippo’s enthusiasm for the making – and drinking – of wine, knowing that in 1768, Virginians exported from Britain a little more than thirteen tons of wine from overseas, and another 78,264 from other North American colonies. But a few warned him that Virginia soil had been tried and so far unproven to be suitable.
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:
Sarah Jane is one of my favorite companions. She’s come from the old Who to new Who and then she even had her own program The Sarah Jane Adventures. So what happened was she came into the Third Doctor’s life. She was an investigative reporter so she wasn’t some girl who did nothing and she wasn’t just reporting on fashion and/or celebrities. She was an investigative reporter. She looked for things that were wrong in her society and she highlighted that with being her newspaper writer. So that’s how she came to meet The Doctor. She traveled with him through Tom Baker obviously. Then she left and returned in an episode called School Reunion with David Tennant. So in the new Who era and at that time, of course, time had passed and she was invited to continue traveling and she had the strength and the intelligence to say No. I need to move on with my life. I’ve been thinking of you for too long. I need to have my own life.
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.
Michael Nesmith of The Monkees isn’t exactly known for being a road warrior. With the exception of a few tours with his past and present Monkee bandmates (Davy Jones died in 2012), the last two years have brought Nesmith back to the road for his first official solo dates since 1992.
But don’t mistake this for indifference or laziness. Nesmith is more than just a musician. He’s an innovator (after all, he IS partially responsible for the beginning stages of MTV), thespian, Liquid Paper heir, novelist, entrepreneur and producer. Yes, Michael Nesmith never seems to have a problem staying occupied.
Over the last year Nesmith has cited several reasons for his long awaited return to the stage, but don’t expect a greatest hits package if he decides to stop by a venue near you.
* 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
To highlight the wonderful yet largely forgotten work of a collection of female screenwriters from the early years of Hollywood (and as a companion to the book, When Women Wrote Hollywood) we will be posting quick bits about the many films they wrote along with links to further information and clips from their works which are still accessible online. Take a few moments once or twice a week to become familiar with their names and their stories. I think you’ll be surprised at how much bold material these writers tackled at the birth of this new medium. — Rosanne Welch
“It” is a 1927 silent romantic comedy film that tells the story of a shop girl who sets her sights on the handsome, wealthy boss of the department store where she works. It is based on a novella by Elinor Glyn that was originally serialized in Cosmopolitan magazine.
This film turned actress Clara Bow into a major star, and led people to label her the It girl.
The film had its world premiere in Los Angeles on January 14, 1927, followed by a New York showing on February 5, 1927. “It” was released to the general public on February 19, 1927.
The picture was considered lost for many years, but a Nitrate-copy was found in Prague in the 1960s.[1] In 2001, “It” was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. — Wikipedia
* 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
To highlight the wonderful yet largely forgotten work of a collection of female screenwriters from the early years of Hollywood (and as a companion to the book, When Women Wrote Hollywood) we will be posting quick bits about the many films they wrote along with links to further information and clips from their works which are still accessible online. Take a few moments once or twice a week to become familiar with their names and their stories. I think you’ll be surprised at how much bold material these writers tackled at the birth of this new medium. — Rosanne Welch
Elinor Glyn (née Sutherland; 17 October 1864 – 23 September 1943) was a British novelist and scriptwriter who specialised in romantic fiction that was considered scandalous for its time. She popularized the concept of It. Although her works are relatively tame by modern standards, she had tremendous influence on early 20th-century popular culture and perhaps on the careers of notable Hollywood stars such as Rudolph Valentino, Gloria Swanson and Clara Bow in particular.
Glyn pioneered risqué, and sometimes erotic, romantic fiction aimed at a female readership, a radical idea for its time—though her writing is not scandalous by modern standards. She coined the use of the word it to mean a human characteristic that “…draws all others with magnetic force. With ‘IT’ you win all men if you are a woman–and all women if you are a man. ‘IT’ can be a quality of the mind as well as a physical attraction.” [13] Her use of the word is often erroneously[citation needed]taken to be a euphemism for sexuality or sex appeal. — Wikipedia
Elinor Glyn (a/w/d/p/o), Beyond the Rocks (1922). PC
* 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
In late November the Triumph docked at Trebell’s Landing & Burwell’s Ferry, on the James River about four miles from Williamsburg. Filippo and his party, which the Captain had dubbed Filippo’s ark as it included such a combination of people, animals and plants as to constitute the beginning of a new Eden, disembarked.
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:
…and I also just jokingly have to say, from a strength standpoint Jean Marsh, the actress who played that character (Sara Kingdom) ended up writing the miniseries “Upstairs, Downstairs” which was the “Downton Abbey” of your parent’s generation. Huge PBS show about the maids and the rich people living in a house. So literally it was a copy — or the predecessor I should say — of “Downton Abbey.” So she moved her career, using this acting career into a writing career where she could write the kind of representations she felt that the world needed. So that is pretty cool. Liz Shaw came up in the John Pertwee era, The third Doctor Who and she was a scientist so she was the equal to any of the men she worked with and sometimes she was smarter than they were, because she had a Ph.D. and she could do science and these guys sometimes weren’t — sometimes just military dudes. So Liz Shaw is a pretty good example of a strong woman we’ve met along the way.
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.
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