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TV writers from 'The Americans' and Bill Maher's show have plays on Philly stages

Two fascinating works now on Philly stages are the work of very accomplished TV writers. "Buzzer" at Theatre Exile is by Tracey Scott Wilson, a writer and co-producer for the FX smash "The Americans." And "The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens, and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord," opening June 1 at the Lantern Theater, is by Scott Carter, a longtime writer and producer for Bill Maher.

Tracey Scott Wilson (left), author of “Buzzer”; Scott Carter, author of “The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens, and Count Leo Tolstoy.”
Tracey Scott Wilson (left), author of “Buzzer”; Scott Carter, author of “The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens, and Count Leo Tolstoy.”Read moreCourtesy of the artists

When an actor from TV, film, or Broadway comes to the Philly stage, it's a big deal, as it should be. So it was, for instance, in 2015 when Mary McDonnell (Dances with Wolves, Major Crimes) and David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck; The Blacklist) joined forces for the People's Light production of Chekhov's Cherry Orchard.

And now we have two plays by writers for big TV shows that deserve that level of attention. Two fascinating plays now on the boards are the work of  accomplished TV writers, and they show off that accomplishment.

Buzzer, at Theatre Exile through Sunday, is by Tracey Scott Wilson, a writer and coproducer for the FX smash The Americans, often called the best show now on TV. And The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens, and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord, running Thursday through July 2 at the Lantern Theater, is by Scott Carter, a longtime writer and producer for Bill Maher, dating to when Maher's Politically Incorrect was being naughty on Comedy Central (1993-97).

Going from TV to theater makes sense; both are collaborative realms, with TV perhaps the ultimate in writerly teamwork. "I love writing as part of a team," says Wilson, with the Americans team since the show's second season, which ran in 2014. "Some of the best writing out there is team-written, as far as I'm concerned. I really enjoy the way we work together on how characters grow and develop, how we rewrite each other's work, and how you can see the results."

Likewise with theater, Wilson says: "You write by yourself, yes, but I like hearing from directors, actors, all the people around me. Like TV, it takes an open mind for change."

Buzzer made its debut at the Public Theater in New York in 2015; Theatre Exile's production is the Philadelphia premiere. Inquirer reviewer Julia M. Klein said Buzzer showcases "Wilson's gifts for creating lean dialogue and for stoking tension," qualities familiar from Wilson's work on The Americans. Klein also noted the twist in this "engrossing" play about gentrification — that the gentrifier is black.

How did Wilson hit on that? "It seems perfectly natural to me," she says. "I'm surprised people are surprised. I just got done selling the house I grew up in in Newark. And, of course, it sold for much less than it would have anywhere else. And I caught myself thinking, 'Should I stay and wait it out? Maybe I would have done better.' It's a perfectly natural thing to think, whoever you are."

Carter says he does very little writing now for Real Time with Bill Maher (where he's worked since 2003), concentrating on production. He says Gospel "has been a way of actually counterpointing the enforced collaboration of a high-stakes, finite deadline process like TV, a way to feed my other side that wishes to exactly define what is in my heart without a sense that it has to be negotiated by committee."

The germ of the play – the notion of Jefferson, Dickens, and Tolstoy together in the afterlife, comparing notes on Jesus – came "in 1987, after a near-death experience I had with asthma," he says. "It actually precedes by a year my starting to work in TV. I've been on this spiritual journey ever since. It has been this current through my life in the last 29-30 years."

Gospel had its debut in a small Southern California theater in 2014, and has spread its gospel all over, to the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, the Northlight Theatre in Chicago, and the Washington Stage Guild in D.C. Critics note the play's humor. These guys get on one another's nerves big-time. But there are roots in the Maher world, with hip, topical, often wicked, even collegiate barbs flying. There are also earnest examinations of belief, hypocrisy, and the meaning of what Jesus did and said. Each of these giants of history is brought to face his failings in life, Jefferson with slaves, Dickens with marriage, Tolstoy with money. "We start as deferential toward the great men," Carter says, "and in the course of the play we see how they are like us and we are like them."

Carter bridles a little at suggestions that Gospel is like Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit. "That's set specifically in hell, whereas these three are in a suspended state," he says, "not unlike the Buddhist bardo of [the George Saunders novel] Lincoln in the Bardo, where they know something more will be asked of them before their eternal fate is determined."

Clearly, Carter has enjoyed hanging out with these three stooges of history. "The connection between these three and a man all of them were drawn to, Jesus, that attraction, and how they, in a way, team-edit his story, really has been a pleasure," he says. "You're always running into them. Jefferson is in Hamilton, Tolstoy is in Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, and you have Dickens every Christmas. And, of course, there are always discussions about religion and its place in a democracy."

Carter ends with a nod toward the other theatrical arts that informed his playwriting: "I used to do stand-up, I was an actor and a director, and each of those different disciplines allows me to be more tolerant and understanding of the other. I've enjoyed that."