Back to American drama: Regina Taylor (right) has the title role in an adaptation of Langston Hughes' "Cora Unashamed," Oct. 25 on Masterpiece Theatre. (Photo: Bob Greene for WGBH.)

Several chefs prepare PBS's new drama menu

Published in Current, July 31, 2000

By Stephanie Lash

After years of charges that PBS has ignored American drama in favor of British imports, the tides are turning. This fall will bring a host of dramatic works, from televised stage productions to cinematic interpretations of literature to short new plays filmed in high-definition video. What ties them together is their renewed focus on literature and theater that is distinctly red, white and blue. Send a transatlantic wire: American drama is back.

Instead of entrusting the genre to a single production unit, as it did with American Playhouse in 1982-94, PBS is now buying dramas from several production units, each with its own approach.

ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theater's American Collection is dramatizing classic literature, and Kentucky ETV's American Shorts will focus on new works presented in the nation's regional theaters. While WNET's Stage on Screen will offer an array of plays from Broadway and beyond, KCET's PBS Hollywood Television will feature television movies filmed on L.A. sound stages.

First of the Kentucky ETV dramas adapted from regional theaters is "The Ryan Interview," based on a production by the Actors Theater of Louisville. Pictured: 1940s comic actor Eddie Bracken (left) stars with Ashley Judd.

KET drama goes high-def

Famed American playwright Arthur Miller will kick off the season on Aug. 25, when KET presents "The Ryan Interview," an adaptation of Miller's newest short play. The piece, commissioned by the Actors Theater of Louisville four years ago, tells the story of a young big-city journalist (played by Ashley Judd) assigned to interview Bob Ryan (Eddie Bracken) on the eve of his 100th birthday. Instead of filming the play on stage, KET shot in high-definition video on a local farm where producer Guy Mendes used to live.

"People may disagree with this, but realistic drama doesn't work very well . . . when it's obviously a taped play," said Ira Simmons, who adapted the script for television. "Opera works, dance works, concerts work, but realistic drama, it doesn't work. I don't know if it's because the audience has been conditioned to a certain amount of cinematic realism over the years . . . but that's part of making it accessible; taking it off the stage and shooting it on location."

And accessibility is one of the main goals of American Shorts, which will focus on televising new plays culled from the nation's regional theaters. With those scripts already in development by the theaters, KET can keep costs low, Simmons said. KET has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and will use it to produce three dramas, with pieces by such authors as Joyce Carol Oates, Tony Kushner and Lanford Wilson under consideration.

"With Broadway being dominated by musicals and becoming less of a place for straight drama, it seems the regional theaters are taking up that slack," Mendes said.

By filming in high-definition, Simmons said he is convinced that not only will the works be better appreciated for their aesthetics and attention to detail, but will be saved for posterity.

"It can be said this is the first primetime drama series originated from the grassroots, not from a New York or Los Angeles, and I don't think that's happened before," Simmons said. "I think it's wonderful to have more drama and I think there's a lot of ways to get there."

Bringing Broadway to the tube

WNET is taking a different route, and will premiere its season of Stage on Screen Oct. 7 with a live performance of "The Man Who Came to Dinner" from Roundabout Theater Company. The classic Moss Hart/George S. Kaufman comedy stars Tony Award-winner Nathan Lane and Jean Smart, best known for her role on TV's Designing Women.

Shooting the play on stage was a departure from producer Jac Venza's usual preference. Only in rare cases should television drama be filmed on stage in front of an audience, Venza says, but it's effective for a riotous comedy. And by exposing the true nature of theater to the public, the actors said they are hopeful they can attract a new crop of theatergoers.

"Somehow there's still an attitude in this country, at least compared to other countries, that theater is somehow an intellectual experience," Smart said at the recent TV critics press tour in Pasadena. "It's like going to the theater is like going to a college lecture or something--that it's going to be sort of high brow and hard to understand and kind of long and dull and boring. It's going to be 'good for you.'"

Venza said he thinks the broadcast will create more interest in the play, which is running as part of Roundabout's subscription series. The run was extended two weeks beyond the subscribed time so that WNET could choose its camera positions and not cut into seats offered to Roundabout's 46,000 subscribers.

Stage on Screen will continue its season with an adaptation of "Far East," by A.R. Gurney, which premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and was produced off-Broadway by New York's Lincoln Center Theater. Also scheduled is "Twilight: Los Angeles," a collection of stories about the riots following the Rodney King trial by Anna Deavere Smith, commissioned by the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. Venza said he is still in negotiations about the rest of the season, which will feature selected dramatic programs from WNET's "Treasures from the Archives."

Collecting American stories

ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theatre is concentrating on high-end film productions, collaborating with ALT Films to produce dramatic films based on American literature. The first in the American Collection sub-series is based on a 10-page Langston Hughes story, "Cora Unashamed," and will air Oct. 25.

Fueled by a $15 million grant from CPB, the American Collection will include Eudora Welty's "The Ponder Heart," Willa Cather's "The Song of the Lark," James Agee's "A Death in the Family" and Esmerelda Santiago's "Almost a Woman," all of which, along with "Cora," will be produced by ALT Films. Masterpiece Theatre will present Henry James' "The American," Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie" and "Mark and Livy," a story based on the life of Mark Twain and his wife Olivia. While the ALT Films productions have been fully funded, WGBH's projects are dependent on putting together funding from various partners, including the BBC.

Picking works to recreate for television was a challenge, ALT Films producer Marian Rees said, noting that the planners wanted them to reflect American voices and to be "relevant, because we knew people's attention span is limited and they're bombarded with options." Rees chose not to do re-makes but instead introduce audiences to works that might be unfamiliar.

"We didn't want to do dead old white men--that's turgid and boring," Rees said. "The one thing you don't want to do is be boring. Reading is not boring."

Entertainment is the goal, even though producers are working closely with the National Council of Teachers of English to create lesson plans and scholastic projects to coordinate with the films. A web site accompanying the series offers suggestions for teachers and a "Literary Map" of America that solicits schoolchildren for information about their regions' literary histories. But even with the educational focus, the producers are quick to point out that presenting dramatic works in an engaging manner is the primary goal.

"To my mind the most important thing is that these make good drama," said Rebecca Eaton, executive producer of the series. "That's the first step."

;It also helps when Eaton goes to the U.K. to secure funding. Instead of reacting to projects proposed by their British partners, Eaton's group is pitching and selling the stories to them. British television is filled with American drama, and Eaton said it's been difficult to convince them to contribute towards the productions.

"What they respond to, as any of us do, is a really good story," she said. "If it will make good TV, they are inclined to do it."

Sunset Boulevard

Mare Mazur has a first step of her own to take before November: find a script. That's when she heads into sound studios to begin shooting the first of four 90-minute dramas set to be presented by KCET under the working title PBS Hollywood Television.

Mazur, senior v.p. of programming and production at KCET, will co-executive produce the first film with Bruce Paltrow. Although she's not sure what the series will shoot, Mazur says that the productions will bring back "a genre of storytelling that isn't currently on television but certainly is one of the most fundamental forms of storytelling on television."

All four films will be shot in Los Angeles sound-stages, and Mazur said she is hoping to attract the area's film and television stars to the projects. Filmed, not taped, each project will have the "look" of television's most popular one-hour dramas, she said. The funding for the films, each budgeted at $1.5 million, comes from PBS, CPB and some private foundations, and KCET is looking to secure corporate underwriting.

KCET originally brought in Mazur as a consultant to revive dramatic production in its Sunset Boulevard sound stages, and PBS Hollywood Television has been her baby. She said that while she pitched a variety of projects to the station, this one made the most sense because it capitalized on an area lacking in commercial television and cable.

"The available resources in commercial television are so extraordinary that I thought it was important to create a model where actors and directors would have a safe harbor to do their work," she said.

The other drama production executives echo Mazur's enthusiasm. They talk at length of the grand vision of bringing quality drama programming to PBS, of the spirit of the projects, of the sense of history that will be attached to the new crop of work. And Mazur notes that not only is drama imaginative and fun, it is a niche that makes sense for public TV.

"I love this creatively, and business-wise I can hardly wait to do it," she says.

	.	To Current's home page
	.	Earlier news: American Playhouse was wounded by the withdrawal of PBS funding in 1994 and killed off by the failure of a studio deal in 1995.
	.	Earlier news: Masterpiece Theatre announces plans for American Collection, 1998.
	.	Outside link: Educators' site for American Collection plays, developed by CPB and National Council of Teachers of English.

Web page posted July 29, 2000
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