Rick Cleveland - Writer's Room Simulation
by Kat Montague
Recently in Vancouver for a speaking engagement and two writers room simulations for the Praxis Centre for Screenwriters, Rick Cleveland brought to life his refreshingly varied experience writing for television in Hollywood. Having written for some of the best shows of the last ten years – Six Feet Under, The West Wing, Mad Men, and now Nurse Jackie – Cleveland was in an excellent position to discuss what makes a writers room work, and to tell a lively story into the bargain.
Cleveland started as a playwright. That, apparently, was what attracted showrunner (and playwright) Alan Ball to hire him and all of the other writers for that show. Cleveland’s experiences working on other shows with other brilliant and unconventional showrunners gave him a real appreciation for Alan Ball’s generous and collaborative style. Ultimately, that was the experience he shared with us on in a CBC boardroom on this particular Saturday, the second of the two writers room simulations.
I don’t know what the other six writers in the room were expecting, but what surprised me was how anecdotal Rick Cleveland was. For the first half of the session, Cleveland talked about his experiences and what he had learned from them. It was fascinating.
Working for Aaron Sorkin on The West Wing during Sorkin’s very public drug addiction and meltdown wasn’t so easy. Sorkin based an unpleasant character – Ricky Tahoe – on Rick Cleveland in his next quickly-cancelled series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Cleveland still thinks Sorkin’s a genius and clearly this dig did no damage to Cleveland’s career, as he went on to work for brilliant eccentrics Matt Weiner (Mad Men) and George Lucas (Star Wars) before his current gig on Nurse Jackie.
For the second half of the session – a fantastic mixed bag of Vancouver talent: some feature writers and story editors I knew already, a new Praxis fellow and a very experienced TV writer – were expecting to break down a reunion episode of Six Feet Under. “We did that yesterday,” said Cleveland. “Let’s do something different.”
We had all read his Six Feet Under script “Grinding the Corn” from season four in advance, so we watched that episode then planned the subsequent episode, with Cleveland standing at the white board, accepting, rejecting or adapting ideas and making sure that the story we were creating contained real storylines for each of the characters. Columns with the character’s names at the top were the starting point for a plot – with arrows – that connected and separated them. Apparently Ball never discusses theme (expecting it to flow naturally), so we didn’t, but our opening death, a signature of the series, connected obliquely to the Fishers’ story.
So fun!
Most of us felt empowered to speak up and make suggestions. Cleveland could shoot you down one minute, and then laud your idea the next. It was exhilarating and the plot that we created felt like a real episode of Six Feet Under (if a slightly comedic one).
We weren’t quite done, so a couple of us gave up the one-on-one meetings with Cleveland we’d booked to finish the room simulation. To be honest, I could have stayed all day. But according to Cleveland, Alan Ball himself often spends hours chatting, a few hours working, and then sends everyone home for the day, feeling that they’ve already done their best work. In the stereotypical TV writing world of slave-driving showrunners, long days and no home lives, that’s a refreshing attitude. Cleveland, who has children, clearly believes in mining the rich vein of his home life for his work.
What I took away from the experience of meeting with and “working with” Rick Cleveland was the conviction that this group of people in this room could create a television series… even a great television series. I’d become so focused in recent years on getting broadcasters or production companies or agents to say yes to pitches, I had forgotten that the real power to write something, or not write it, lies in the hands of writers. I had also forgotten how much fun it could be.
Thanks for the stories and the collaboration, Mr. Cleveland. Very inspiring!