News and Events
FTT Talks Presents
Jeffrey Stepakoff
“The Rise of the Writer in Hollywood”
Tuesday, February 19, 7pm
Browning Cinema
DeBartolo Performing Arts Center
FREE but ticketed event (631-2800 for tickets)
“The Rise of the Writer in Hollywood”
From a first-person perspective covering his two decades in Hollywood, Jeffrey Stepakoff will trace the rise, fall, and rebirth of scripted entertainment during the era of media consolidation. He will discuss how entertainment became this country’s great commodity, where the business is going and what the WGA strike means for all of us.
After graduating in 1988 with an MFA in Playwriting from Carnegie Mellon, Jeffrey Stepakoff spent the next eighteen years as a television writer and producer in Hollywood, during which he wrote for fourteen different television series, including the Emmy-winning Wonder Years (ABC, 1988-93), and Dawson’s Creek (WB, 1998-2003), where he was also a co-executive producer; worked on seven primetime staffs, producing hundreds of hours of internationally-recognized television; developed pilots for many of the major studios and networks, such as 20th Century Fox, Paramount, and ABC; and developed and wrote major motion pictures, including Tarzan (1999) and Brother Bear (2003) for Disney. Stepakoff recently left Hollywood to pursue teaching, and he now has a professorship in Film & Television Writing at Kennesaw State University. He has also published Billion-Dollar Kiss: The Kiss That Saved Dawson’s Creek and Other Adventures in TV Writing (Gotham Books, 2007), a revealing account of his experiences in the television industry. The book has been exceptionally well-received: reviewer Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called it “the most complete exploration of the business of TV writing that I’ve ever encountered,” CSI executive producer Naren Shankar commented, “The only way you could learn more about the business of writing for TV would be by writing for TV,” and Six Feet Under co-executive producer Jill Soloway touts, “Everything, everything, everything I would tell someone who wants to be a TV writer is in this book.” Stepakoff is a member of the Writers Guild of America, the Writers Guild of Canada, the Screen Actors Guild, and IATSE, and is a voting member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He currently resides with his wife and two young daughters in Dunwoody, Georgia. In his spare time he collects wine and builds forts in the living room with blankets and sofa pillows.
This talk is sponsored by The DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts, the Browning Cinema, and the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre, and it is underwritten by a Learning Beyond the Classroom Grant from the College of Arts and Letters.