We’re teaming up with Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting to pull the covers back on a topic that still makes viewers blush: sex. On this special evening, our panel of TV writers and producers share how they approach writing about sex, from intimate scenes to revealing dialogue, and the nuances they consider when crafting stories about sex and sexuality.
Panelists:
Michelle Ashford - Masters of Sex, The Pacific
Cindy Chupack - I’m Dying Up Here, Divorce, Sex and the City
Sahar Jahani - 13 Reasons Why, Ramy
Dayna Lynne North - Insecure, Single Ladies, Lincoln Heights
Gladys Rodriguez - Vida, Dynasty, Sons of Anarchy
Moderated by Dr. Rosanne Welch.
Doors open at 7:00pm. Event starts at 7:30pm.
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About the Panelists
Michelle Ashford is the creator and executive producer of the Showtime drama MASTERS OF SEX. She has written for the HBO miniseries JOHN ADAMS and THE PACIFIC. She adapted UNDAUNTED COURAGE, the Stephen Ambrose account of the Lewis and Clark expedition, also for HBO. Set to shoot at the end of 2019 and into 2020, Michelle wrote an adaptation of OPERATION MINCEMEAT, a non-fiction spy story set in WWII. In addition to adapting THE SKIES BELONG TO US, another non-fiction story about the golden age of hijacking, Michelle adapted CAT PERSON from the short-story, “Cat Person” found in The New Yorker. She has written numerous pilots, both network and cable, and her other series credits include BOOMTOWN, LA DOCTORS, and NEW YORK NEWS.
Photo credit Bradford Rogne
Cindy Chupack has won two Emmys and three Golden Globes as a TV writer/producer whose credits include “Sex and the City,” “Better Things,” “Divorce,” “Modern Family," “Everybody Loves Raymond,” “Love Bites” (an NBC hour-long romantic comedy anthology that she created), and most recently Showtime’s darkly comic hour “I’m Dying Up Here.” She is the author of two comic memoirs: the New York Times bestseller The Between Boyfriends Book: A Collection of Cautiously Hopeful Essays, and The Longest Date: Life as a Wife. Last year she directed her first episode of television for "I’m Dying Up Here," and her first feature, OTHERHOOD, starring Angela Bassett, Patricia Arquette, and Felicity Huffman which was one of the Top Ten Original Movies on Netflix this year.
Sahar Jahani is a first generation Iranian-American writer/director raised in Los Angeles. She earned a BA in Film & Media Studies and Literary Journalism from UC Irvine and received an MFA in Film and Television Screenwriting at Stephens College. Sahar worked in scripted development at YouTube Originals before transitioning to the writers room on the Hulu/A24 series RAMY, where she wrote her first episode of television.
In 2018, Sahar was selected to participate in the Film Independent Project Involve Program where she wrote and directed JUST ONE NIGHT, a short film that premiered at the LA Film Festival this past fall and has gone on to several other festivals. Her original pilot, UNCOVERED, was awarded the 2019 MACRO Episodic Lab Grant and is in development with Executive Producer Eva Longoria. Sahar is currently a writer on 13 REASONS WHY (S4, NETFLIX) and adapting the novel, AYESHA AT LAST, for Pascal Pictures.
Dayna Lynne North is an EP/Showrunner/writer, and a self-described “Delightful Disruptor of the status quo.” Dayna is a native of Kansas City, Missouri, and a graduate of the USC School of Cinematic Arts. She began her writing career on the critically acclaimed Lifetime drama, ANY DAY NOW, starring Annie Potts and Lorraine Toussaint. She was on the writing staff for the first two seasons of the pop culture phenom, VERONICA MARS, starring Kristen Bell. Dayna was Co-Executive Producer on the ABC-Family drama, LINCOLN HEIGHTS, which garnered the NAACP Image award for Best Drama, as well as the Gabriel Award for Best Entertainment. She was head writer and co-show-runner on the third season of SINGLE LADIES, on VH1. She also wrote the holiday-themed Lifetime biopic, AN EN VOGUE CHRISTMAS. Dayna was most recently a writer/Executive producer on HBO’s zeitgeist-shifting INSECURE, co-created by and starring Issa Rae. Dayna is committed to telling stories of characters whose POV has long been overlooked and undervalued, with an intention to raise the collective emotional intelligence through art. She recently joined founder Bridgid Coulter and an inspiring group of women on the founding advisory board of Blackbird, a private co-working space, centered on women of color and their allies.