Guy We Heart: Dave Holstein

The Weeds writer speaks about adapting Hans Christian Andersen for the stage.

By Sarah Beardsley
Published: July 21st, 2010 | 2:45pm

How does a guy who has a day job writing for Weeds wrap his mind around writing an original children's musical based upon a Hans Christian Andersen fable? Dave Holstein somehow figured it out. Holstein talked with us just before "The Emperor's New Clothes" premiered at Chicago's Shakespeare Theater.

How is writing for a weekly comedy-drama distinct from the more leisurely pace of writing for a musical?

I second guess myself less writing for TV. There's just not enough time for that. Often you're making changes on set as they're shooting your scene and you don't have time to think about the many different implications of what you're about to write. You're writing on gut instinct. There's a lot of stewing when you're writing a musical. I find that you sit with ideas longer, which leads to those ideas constantly shifting and marinating and changing colors, then finally setting into its mold after a year and a half of work. In other words, TV is instant pudding and theater is Jell-O.

Do you change your mindset when writing for an audience made up mostly of children?

Actually, I don't. I mean, not really. I still think the goal is to tell the best possible story. I would never want to "dumb down" anything for a family audience. I try to make sure both the children and adults in the audience have a clear entry point into the story. That's why in this version, the Emperor has a daughter. We knew that if we wanted to tell a more complex story then we'd have to give the younger audience members someone to really identify with.

How does the process go when you are collaborating with two other writers on music and lyrics?

When you're collaborating you want to be able to be honest and frank and harsh and you don't want the other person to take anything too personally. It helps that Alan (Schmuckler, music and lyrics) is one of my best friends. We respect one another's strengths: He handles the music and I handle the stuff between the music. We can get in heated debates over things, sometimes really little things, buy it's always those conversations that produce our best ideas.

Were you consciously adding in lines to reach the over-21 set that might accompany the kids in the audience?

Oh absolutely. It's hard to know what a 5-year-old is going to laugh at, but I know what makes me laugh, and I know what makes Alan laugh. We both try to write for the adults as well as the kids.

Do you have more or less creative control in theater versus TV?

Theater by a long shot. There's so much respect for the written word in stage work. I love it. Staff writing for television usually involves doing the best you can to make a lot different people happy. In theater, you're focused on the space between you and the audience. That said, TV is also a writers' medium. And especially on a show like Weeds, where after six seasons we don't really operate under the strict supervision of the network anymore. Now the writers have a lot of creative control over the final product.

Are there creative concessions you have to make when developing a character over the course of thirteen episodes rather than a live production?

I think you make more concessions over a live production (and "ENC" is 65 minutes) versus thirteen episodes. Your character may only have five or six scenes in a stage show. But on TV, with more than six hours' worth of time to fill, you can afford to take a more gradual approach.

What was your lucky break so far?

When this NBC sitcom I'd been working on as a production assistant got cancelled, another a production assistant job at Weeds opened up almost immediately. I hesitated to take another P.A. job—of course, I didn't know I'd be writing for the show two years later. In retrospect, my lucky break involved getting coffee for the people I now write with.

What part of your formal education do you lean on the most?

I really rely on the creative writing program I was involved with at Northwestern and writing sketch comedy for the Waa-Mu show, the school's revue written and produced entirely by students. Both taught me how to sit around a big table with lots of other writers around it. And that's essentially what working on a TV show is like.