Current.org | PBS announces American drama initiative, 1998

Masterpiece Theatre edges into American drama with BBC's The American, set in France. At left: Matthew Modine and Aisling O'Sullivan. (Photo: Pat Redmond, BBC.)

PBS looks to multiple sources for American works

Original American drama will return to PBS as Mobil Masterpiece Theatre's American Collection, a series of specials budgeted at roughly $40 million. The initiative will deliver nine films over three years, beginning sometime in 1999-2000.

When PBS unveiled its renewed commitment to American drama July 14, during the Television Critics Association press tour, programming chief Kathy Quattrone called MMT's American Collection the "centerpiece of our reinvigorated commitment to compelling American drama." Additional drama projects also are underway at New York's WNET and KCET in Los Angeles, awaiting funding commitments and/or additional planning.

"I personally never thought I would see the day that I'd be able to stand up here and actually have a positive answer to the perennial question, 'Why doesn't Mobil Masterpiece Theatre do more of our own American stories?,'" said Rebecca Eaton, executive producer of the series for WGBH, during a press conference announcing the initiative. "And now we will."

"To me, the spectacle of significant British money flowing into American drama is a sight for sore eyes," Eaton told TV critics.

A BBC coproduction of Henry James' "The American," adapted for television by British screenwriter Michael Hastings, is already in production, with the Beeb putting up more than one-third of the funding. WGBH also green-lighted "Mark and Livy," a biography of Mark Twain focusing on his marriage to Olivia Langdon. PBS funded research and development of this coproduction with Britain's Granada Television.

The nine films--four to be commissioned directly by Eaton and five in collaboration with acclaimed Hollywood producer Marian Rees--will benefit from Mobil Masterpiece Theatre's loyal audience, well-established time slot and broad recognition among viewers. "Folding it into our most recognized, most beloved drama strand can only give it great visibility and support," observed Phylis Geller, senior v.p. of cultural programming and new media for WETA in Washington.

As outlined in Pasadena, the drama initiative marks a major commitment for public television. CPB provided an unprecedented $15 million to literary adaptations to be produced for the American Collection by Rees's ALT Films--the acronymn stands for "American Literature on Television."

"We have put our money where our mouth is," said Peggy O'Brien, v.p. of education.

The corporation also put $2 million into the American dramas to be produced by WGBH. PBS's additional investment of $5 million brings the total contributed by public TV funders to $22 million. "It's a big commitment," acknowledged Quattrone.

Longtime corporate patron Mobil also backed the new venture of its namesake series, commiting an undisclosed amount to the American Collection in an underwriting renewal agreement for Mobil Masterpiece Theatre that extends to 2002.

New approach to drama

PBS's strategy to bring back American dramas is markedly different from American Playhouse, its signature series for original dramas between 1982 and 1994. Playhouse presented an arthouse-like mixture of original American dramas and adaptations of plays and literary works. "When we did all of that under one strand it meant, of course, that it was eclectic and the audience didn't necessarily know what it would get," commented Geller.

PBS contributed heavily to Playhouse during its 12-year run, spending $98.9 million on 218 programs. With other funding, the value of the programs came to $213.7 million, the producers estimated. Station execs complained that the series was too expensive for the size of its audience--and in the case of the mini-series Tales of the City, too controversial. After a failed bid for financial independence in 1994-95, Playhouse went out of business.

PBS's new plan is to buy dramas from several production units, trying out different styles and material, and scheduling the works as high-profile specials. MMT's American Collection will specialize in television adaptations of classic and modern American literature. WNET aims to bring the best plays of Broadway, off-Broadway, and regional theater to PBS with Stage on Screen; and KCET is finalizing a proposal for PBS Hollywood Television, a collection of character-driven and entertaining dramas shot on its soundstages.

Quattrone said she is "favorably disposed" to a proposal from Jac Venza, WNET's director of culture and arts programming, for a Challenge Fund grant to Stage on Screen, a series of four specials. "We have not finalized the dollar commitment."

Meanwhile, Mare Mazur, KCET's director of national dramatic programming, is putting together a "very detailed budget" and template business plan so she can begin pitching PBS Hollywood Television to public TV and Tinseltown funders. "It's an idea that has everyone very excited and they're willing to embrace it. It hasn't been a hard sell."

Mazur estimates the quarterly series will cost about $1 million per episode, and she aims to go into production next spring for a fall 1999 launch.

The primary advantage of funding several different series, according to Quattrone, is that PBS will "be able to distinguish very clearly to the audience what the programs are." She also believes separate drama strands will be easier to sustain financially because "partners will be brought in and built into the structure."

'Noble notion' from Reid-Wallace

MMT's American Collection incorporates a CPB plan for dramas based on American literature, originally dubbed the "American Literary Tradition." Carolynn Reid-Wallace, former CPB senior v.p. of education and programming, initiated the project in late 1996.

"It was a noble notion that she had," commented Rees, who acknowledged "real gratification that Carolynn's idea found its recognition in this unexpected way."

CPB hired ALT Films to develop its drama concept in May 1997, and later united it with WGBH's efforts to develop American dramas for Mobil Masterpiece Theatre, according to Stephen Kulczycki, a former KCET executive who introduced CPB executives to Rees, a frequent producer for Hallmark Hall of Fame. Kulczycki now is a principal in ALT Films along with Rees and her longtime partner, Anne Hopkins.

When he headed production for KCET, Kulczycki admired Rees's work for Hallmark, including a "beautiful, beautiful film," Miss Rose White. He tried unsuccessfully to bring Rees and Hopkins into public TV projects. "They do amazing stories about the human heart and the landscape of families," he said.

Shooting for the first ALT Films production, an adaptation of Willa Cather's partially autobiographical novel, The Song of the Lark, begins next May. The story follows a young woman's struggle to achieve her destiny from a small town in Colorado to the international opera stage. The second film will be based on a Langston Hughes novella, Cora Unashamed.

ALT Films will select additional titles with an eye toward creating "adaptations that have integrity," explained Rees. "Students who see the film will recognize the book, the literature from which it came." Most of the adaptations will be two-hour films, with a couple of mini-series as long as four hours.

Rees and her team are seeking literary works with "voices that tell us who we were, and who we are, and who we are becoming," and "describe in their own language the nature of the American character." Also, the producers agreed to choose works for which they all "share a passion."

"We have to care passionately so that it can be conveyed to everybody who comes into the process," added Rees. "The efficacy of that is that it gets to the audience."

ALT's films will be budgeted at roughly $3 million each, what Kulczycki called the "low end" of made-for-TV movies, in the range of what cable networks often spend on original films.

"They're modest--I will have to say they're modest," said Rees of the budgets for ALT's projects. "We will have to be careful in our selection of titles that we don't extend ourselves so that there is a visible lack of quality in the material."

She described how ALT worked around this constraint with Cora Unashamed. "It is a very short novella," allowing ALT to adapt it within its budget, "but enrich it by really creating the environment on which the story takes place."

To extend the educational value of the American Collection, CPB has formed a partnership with the National Council of Teachers of English. The resulting three-year project begins next January with an online discussion about teaching the novel and issues related to literary adaptations, according to O'Brien. As ALT shoots its films, the creative team will interact with teachers in discussions about how scenes are brought to life on film. Educators will be "into the process of making these films so that, by the time they come out, they will own them in an educationally rich way," she said.