Palm Royale creator Abe Sylvia
PLUS: Retrospecs + more
Bringing Specsy Back
I’ll admit that these headers have gotten out of control.
We had such a terrific time at last weekend’s first Retrospecs show! Such fun live reads of a Mad About You spec I wrote in 1997 (!):
And a terrific Girls spec written by Brigitte Muñoz-Liebowitz (Brooklyn 99) from 2013, which may be my all-time favorite Girls episode starring my all-time favorite Girls cast:
It was a really special afternoon, everyone had so much fun and got whiplash from the abrupt change in tones. I realized, watching the show, that Retrospecs is the equivalent of watching TV in a hotel room. You flip around, landing on random shows you like and kind of know, and wind up watching a couple.
For sure this will be the experience on April 21, 2-4pm, for our next show which features a West Wing spec by Marc Guggenheim (co-creator of Arrow) and a Big Bang Theory spec by Helen Shang (Hawaii 5-0; Rings of Power).
Listen Up
It’s the “MaxFun Drive” for my other podcast, Dead Pilots Society. If you’re unfamiliar with DPS, it’s got a great concept, conceived by my fellow producer Andrew Reich, who was a writer on Friends and other shows.
In Dead Pilots Society, comedy pilots that were bought and developed by networks and then passed over are given the table reads they so richly deserve. It’s a lot of fun, there are no notes, and no one gets fired.
Our casts for these are ridiculous. We’ve had everyone from Carey Mulligan and Richard E. Grant to Larry Wilmore, Laurie Metcalf, and hundreds more.
The show is on the Maximum Fun network, who are currently holding their annual pledge drive, which is how we pay for the show. Basically, you go and pledge $5-10/month, click the button that says you want to support Dead Pilots Society, and then you get a bunch of bonus material (including videos of the reads) and our eternal gratitude. Pledge here.
As part of the Drive, we’re releasing a bunch of fun bonus episodes, including one in which Andrew and I answer your questions about the business and process of writing pilots. We had a lot of fun with our moderator J. Keith van Straaten (host of Go Fact Yourself), and, as always occurs in these kinds of things, I was reminded of a lot of good practices and advice for writing, pitching, mistakes we make, and more.
You can listen to the episode here.
Royale Treatment
For today’s podcast, I had a lovely conversation with Abe Sylvia, the creator of the new show Palm Royale. Abe also created the George & Tammy (2022) mini-series and worked on such shows as Dead to Me, Nurse Jackie, and others. We discuss making discoveries on set, healthy debate vs story breaking, working with frequent collaborators, how not outlining "reintroduces writerly delight," and more.
Get the podcast via Apple or Spotify or Acast or your favorite podcast app.
The headers are incredible, I love them all. Absolutely do not attempt to control them.
I bought a ticket to this but got an email from the venue the day before the show saying the live stream was cancelled. Any idea what happened?