By Christina Ligi, News and Media Studies major, Class of 2019
Schieffer College students, mark your calendars: The School of Interdisciplinary Studies’ Department of Women & Gender Studies is hosting Dorothy Fortenberry, screenwriter for the Hulu series, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” March 26 at 5:30 p.m. in the BLUU Auditorium. The Bob Schieffer College of Communication’s Department of Film, Television and Digital Media is a co-sponsor of the event.
Richard Allen, a FTDM professor who teaches the course “Topics in Production – Writing the 21stCentury TV Series,” encourages all FTDM students to attend this event particularly because Fortenberry plays an active role with the creation of a hit show that is streamed rather than broadcast. Because the rules of TV creation and distribution are constantly changing, Allen says Fortenberry can speak specifically to this process in the most current way possible.
Along with the series familiarity, “The Handmaid’s Tale” is also highly acclaimed for its writing quality. Professor Allen says Fortenberry’s wisdom will be especially valuable to Schieffer College students who are interested in writing careers.
Fortenberry has been on the writing staff for “The Handmaid’s Tale” for the past two years. She is also an acclaimed playwright, with plays produced at Arena Stage, Actors Theatre of Louisville and Center Rep, and an essayist as well, having written for “Los Angeles Review of Books.”
This is a two-part event, so students can catch Fortenberry either at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 26, 2019 in the BLUU Auditorium or at 7 p.m. March 27, when she will also perform a Live Oak reading of her work followed by a discussion in Moudy North 141.
For more information about these events, contact Matthew Pitts, associate professor of English, at m.pitts@tcu.edu or Richard Allen at r.allen@tcu.edu.