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Columbia Screenwriter’s Works Play on TV, at the Kennedy Center, and Off -Broadway.
Columbia Screenwriter’s Works Play on TV,
at the Kennedy Center, and Off -Broadway.
Author: Adam Tobin Genre: TV Show
“A script is like a party invitation to all the other artists who can work on the project.” – Adam Tobin
Adam Tobin is a screenwriter, TV writer, playwright, and improvisor born in Columbia, Maryland and based in Menlo Park, California. He is a Senior Lecturer teaching screenwriting in Stanford University’s film & media studies program.
Tobin participated heavily in theater growing up, including with Betty May’s Onstage Productions. He attended Howard High School. In his sophomore year, he completed a “mentorship” program with horror writer Thomas F. Monteleone, composing a series of short stories with fantastical themes.
Tobin received an English degree from Stanford and then moved to Los Angeles, where he performed with Los Angeles Theatresports, attended
USC School of Cinematic Arts for an MFA in screenwriting and worked as a story analyst at Jim Henson Pictures. An avid Muppet fan, Tobin helped in the development of Muppets in Space and Elmo in Grouchland.
In 1999, Tobin moved to New York and found work on gameshows including ESPN’s 2-Minute Drill and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, where he once wrote a $10-million-dollar trivia question.
His inclusion as a finalist in HBO’s Project Greenlight in 2003 put his romantic comedy Odd Jobs on display and led to him create the reality show Best Friend’s Date and the scripted comedy About a Girl for Nickelodeon’s The-N Network (now rebranded as TeenNick.) “I’ve gotta be the only instructor at Stanford who’s been a contestant on and created a reality show,” Tobin says.
In 2008, after writing About a Girl in Los Angeles and filming it in Vancouver, Tobin was hired to teach screenwriting at his alma mater, where he “happily offers the course material I had to go to grad school to get.” While there, he reconnected with classmate Deborah Wicks La Puma, a prominent composer of musicals for young audiences. Together they conceived of a new show based on Chelsea Clinton’s children’s book, She Persisted.
She Persisted: the Musical opened in 2019 and was nominated for a Theatre Bay Area award for Outstanding World Premiere Musical. In 2020, it debuted off-Broadway where it was a New York Times “Critic’s Pick” and won an Off-Broadway Alliance award for Best Family Show.
Tobin and La Puma’s next adapted the bestseller What Do You Do With an Idea? for stage and saw it selected by the Kennedy Center for its New Visions/New Voices workshop in 2020. “The pandemic interrupted children’s theater across the country,” Tobin said, “But it’s starting to come back. We’re hoping the show will open in spring of 2022.”
Tobin continues to write stories, screenplays, tv scripts, and musicals, and consults on story and pitching with clients including animation studios (Blue Sky Studios, Dreamworks, Aardman) and documentary films. He loves teaching at Stanford. “It’s a great gig. I get smart students who want to tell important stories. I don’t have to worry about budget or what sold recently, I just have to guide them in how to make their stories better.” Learn more at https://art.stanford.edu/people/adam-tobin
Genre: TV Show – Television programming, either drama or comedy, written for audience entertainment with plot and characters that develop over a season of episodes.
Sample Viewing List: Odd Jobs, About a Girl, She Persisted: the Musical, Best Friend’s Date, What Do You Do With an Idea?
Fun With Words - Maryland Writers ’Association (MWA) invites you to have fun writing TV screenplay like Adam Tobin. With just 100 words, weave two characters into a TV Show of your own making. Title your TV Show response and submit to: https://marylandwriters.org/Notable_Maryland_Authors by the 22nd of the month and receive an MWA Fun With Words submission certificate. Selected responses will be published with next month’s article as well as posted on the MWA website.
The MWA is a 33-year-old state-wide association (501c3) dedicated to encouraging and mentoring Maryland writers, poets, playwrights, and authors. Go to: www.MarylandWriters.org for more info.
Reader Responses: Last month readers were asked to write children’s literature like Mary Amato. With just 100 words they were to weave twins into a humorous childhood or early teen situation. Here are their responses:
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