Homeland: Getting Staffed on a TV Show with Jonathan Redding

Homeland: Getting Staffed on a TV Show with Jonathan Redding Jake: My guest today is Jonathan Redding. Jonathan is the newest faculty member at Jacob Krueger Studio.  Jonathan was a writer on Homeland, which, if you haven’t watched, is an extraordinary show. We’re going to be talking about how Homeland was built, and what was it like to be in that room, especially as your first staff gig as a staff writer.  Jonathan began as a playwright and a dramaturg. And we’ll talk a little bit about the journey from playwriting to TV drama writing and how those things are related and connected. Jonathan, why don’t you just start off by telling us a little bit about your journey. Jonathan: I shall, but first, just let me say thank you so much for having me on. I am a fan of this podcast. And I’m so excited to be here. I’m so excited to be working with you. This is really fun for me. The big thing for me, Homeland was when I first got staffed. That was really my introduction into the industry. I had been pursuing it for quite a while before that, but I had mainly been in the theater world. I had been a playwright and a dramaturg and an actor.  I had been resident playwright to a theater in Santa Monica called The Broad Stage Regional Theater for a number of years, and while I was there, I got to work alongside some incredible artists: Mikhail Baryshnikov, Shakespeare’s Globe of London and Anna Deavere Smith came, and did workshops with us. I was part of the early development process for Hadestown. Anaïs Mitchell still just had the concept album because Dale Franzen. who wound up being the executive producer of the Broadway run, was at the time, our artistic director.  That was back when it was just first being workshopped, with actors singing it live, and trying to put together some simple kind of movement and things to it.  Prior to that, I had my own company called the Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble, who are perennial Ovation Award nominees out here. And had a number of celebrated and award-winning plays, including The War Cycle, which was a trilogy of plays. Still, breaking in was a struggle for a long time. I had been writing specs and features for a long time. When I first came to town, I brought with me spec episodes of The Shield and Lost, they were in the middle of their runs. That is how long ago I started this march. Homeland was my first show. It took so long! So long to get to. Jake: I think it’s actually very heartening for students to understand that, yes, some people get lucky– and I always say, you never know when luck will come! Luck could happen tomorrow, luck could happen in 10 years. But I think, the people who are successful are often people for whom the luck doesn’t necessarily happen when they want it to, but they keep writing, they keep pushing, and pushing and pushing.  It’s very valuable to understand that it may take you a long time to build a career. And that’s not because you’re failing. That’s because you’re doing something really hard. Jonathan: Yeah. It’s like Theseus’ boat. You start out with your piece of material, your one or two scripts, and you think, this is the thing, and it’s going to get me there.  And then by the time you’ve actually reached a destination, or reached some far long part of your journey, every part of the boat underneath you has been replaced, patched over and become new. And you are the constant.  Jake: Yeah. I love that as a concept, especially because there’s so much bad advice out there. I get writers all the time, saying, well, this person told me I should write this script. And then I write that script. And then somebody else said, I should write something like this instead. So I wrote that. And then somebody else said I should write something like this other thing.