Class starts on Saturday, June 7th, 2025

The class will meet on Saturdays via Zoom (2:00PM ET - 4:00PM ET).

Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button (lower left) to talk with us.

Instructor Dan Robert is an Emmy Award-winning writer/director/actor who grew up in western Massachusetts “where the coffee is strong, the women are stronger, and the first hour of parking is always free.” He started his career as a child actor in local professional theater, for which therapy has been very helpful. After graduating from Emerson College, he began working at Shondaland, where he served as the executive assistant to Debbie Allen on “Grey’s Anatomy” before becoming the creative assistant to Shonda Rhimes. With his high school best friend and writing partner, Lisha Brooks, he wrote on both seasons of “The Baby-Sitter’s Club” for Netflix, which won the 2022 Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Live Action Preschool or Children’s Program. They were co-producers and writers on the forthcoming second installment of “Nine Perfect Strangers” starring Nicole Kidman for Hulu. Dan is the creator and director of the Broadway Video (SNL) produced Audible original scripted podcast “Excessive” starring Chloe Fineman and Joshua Jackson. With Lisha, he co-created and stars in the web series “Beards” which has played in festivals around the world and the short film “I Love Lisha” which was optioned by 20th Television. They have various forthcoming projects in development in both television and film with studios like Fifth Season and production companies like Playtone. As an actor, Dan has appeared on “Search Party” and “Made for Love.” He is repped by 3Arts. 

What if I told you that you already had everything you needed to start writing your dream TV pilot or feature film? What if I dared you as a prose writer to take the plunge and bet on yourself, adapting your own original masterpiece for the big or small screen? 

Join instructor Dan Robert (The Baby-sitters Club, Nine Perfect Strangers) for a supportive, fun, generative film and television writing workshop with a special focus on adaptation. In this course, writers will use outside source material as a jumping off point to crack a compelling film or TV project and start adapting it: this could be using their own original materials (novel, memoir, short story, or personal essay), myths or fairy tales, titles in public domain (that’s anything written before 1929, which is a lot!), headlines, historical figures, and other sources of unlikely inspiration. 

This is a course designed to get writers unstuck and unburdened by the pressure of generating new ideas and the tyranny of “originality” by guiding them to start writing with what’s already at their fingertips: works or stories that already exist and are ripe and ready to be given new life. Writers in this course will work at both a bird’s eye view and up close and personal with materials they wish to adapt, learning a balance of craft, story, and the basics of TV and film writing and development that get projects sold and made. 

STUDENT TAKEAWAYS:

All students should walk away from the workshop with:

• One-pagers that lay out a passionate pitch and plan for adapting an existing work for film or television.
• A broken story that takes an existing work from page to screen.
• An opening scene or sequence that puts to work elements of screenwriting craft: basic formatting, visual language, dialogue, and action lines.

Students should have the opportunity to workshop their story shapes and/or first scenes in class. They will receive specific feedback from me on these assets, leaving with a plan to keep writing and an opportunity to submit outlines or drafts for a round of feedback after class. 

ONE-ON-ONE: Students may contact me during office hours with questions and troubleshooting help as they tackle their weekly work. There will also be an opportunity to schedule a one-on-one session with me after class ends to review additional materials written after our workshop ends. (This is limited to the year 2025.) 

ASSIGNED/SUGGESTED READING: Students will be reading scripts tailored to their medium (feature film scripts or TV pilots) within their adaptation source material area (book, historical figure, true crime, etc.) as well as genre-matched. 

BEFORE WE GET STARTED: It's strongly encouraged that students come into the course with an idea of what material they'd like to adapt (though this can shift or change if need be) It would be helpful, though is not mandatory, for participants to send any relevant source materials in advance so we can hit the ground running. (Note: Given time constraints, I won't be able to read full novels, but summaries/outlines/first 20 pages should work well.)

COURSE OUTLINE: WEEK BY WEEK

WEEK 1: What is the heart of our adaptation? Here writers will share their areas of interest (source material) and workshop what medium might be the best fit for it (film/TV/limited series), delving into the "why" and "how" of our adaptation projects.  

WEEK 2: What is the shape of our adaptation? Here we’ll deal in matters of scale and shape. Writers will consider structural questions for their adaptation project, and we’ll workshop creative solutions and opportunities with reverse outlining and story surgery.

WEEK 3: How do we break and (re-)build our story? Here writers will come in with the beginnings of written documents that aim to capture the shape of their adaptation, and/or plans for moving forward with their outlines and scripts as we start to tackle craft. 

WEEK 4: How do we craft it? This week we will dive deeper into craft, looking at tools to write compelling and propulsive scenes while continuing to troubleshoot story shapes and workshop our adaptations-in-progress. 

BEYOND: How do we finish it? One-on-one, we’ll look at all the assets we've generated for targeted feedback, honing in on what challenges and opportunities might lie ahead as we keep writing and adapting. 

TEACHING/WORKSHOP TESTIMONIALS: 

"I knew I wanted to take this workshop with Dan but I didn't even realize how much I NEEDED to. Not only did he break down the elements of script writing for me in such an un-intimidating way, he fostered my confidence, assisted in nurturing the story I had been trying to birth for years, and gave me every ounce of motivation I needed to complete this pilot. I would take this workshop a hundred times, and never stop learning something new. Dan is the perfect teacher because he feels like your writing partner, it's quite a brilliant trick."

“Dan’s demeanor as a teacher is warm and personable, and he presents TV structure in a clear and understandable manner, while citing a wide array of different types of television across multiple platforms, so that you don't feel heavily boxed in by structure. Each one of us wrote a unique pilot in Dan's class, and his notes were thorough, encouraging and helpful!”

"I couldn't have written a pilot, let alone one I'm so happy about, without this workshop with Dan. He is so thoughtful, thorough, smart and considerate, I felt so taken care of throughout! This is such a valuable workshop for a writer, particularly if you could use amazingly positive encouragement alongside your script work."

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

This class meets on Saturdays via Zoom. Come prepared for a super fun class with live interaction on Zoom each weekend and plenty of writing, reading, and talking!

• Instructor: Dan Robert

• Class starts on Saturday, June 7th, 2025

• The class will meet on Saturdays via Zoom (2:00PM ET - 4:00PM ET).

• Tuition is $399.