Different Voices on the Same Page

Some writers are lured to television by fame and fortune, others want to reach the masses-- those large audiences that only a prime-time network series can deliver. And then some simply want to work with Marshall and Ed.

That would be Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, creators and executive producers of the new ABC series, “Once and Again.” It stars Sela Ward (“Sisters”) as a woman going through a separation who begins dating a divorcedman, played by Billy Campbell (“The Rocketeer”); the series explores the ripple effect of that relationship on their respective children, former spouses and friends. The Bedford Falls Company, Zwick and Herskovitz’s production entity, produces the show in association with Touchstone Television.

The longtime partners have carved out a not-completely enviable niche within TV--critically acclaimed, literate shows that haven’t drawn big ratings. Their first and longest-running show was the groundbreaking “thirtysomething,” which debuted in 1987. They were also behind the short-lived but influential “My So-Called Life” (1994), and “Relativity” (1996), in addition to directing feature films.

In building a stable of writers for the new show, Herskovitz says that what unites the people they choose is talent: “They come from different walks of life and have different views of things, but talent is just so unmistakable.”

As writers--for this show they wrote the pilot and first few episodes--they have empathy for other writers’ voices. Once Zwick and Herskovitz have laid down a foundation for the stories and characters, it’s up to the writers they work with to surprise them.

The pair are working once again with Richard Kramer, who wrote for “thirtysomething” and “My So-Called Life,” as well as adapting Armistead Maupin’s “Tales of the City.”

Kramer, who’s known Zwick and Herskovitz for 20 years, says the team is dedicated to “selecting writers whose individual voices they find interesting and unique, and encouraging that writer to be most himself, even if it’s at the sacrifice of sounding less like them.”

“My So-Called Life” creator Winnie Holzman, whose collaboration goes back nearly a decade, is also writing for them again. Holzman got her start by penning a “thirtysomething” spec script that was more “inside and understanding of [the show’s] voice and intentions” than any he had seen, says Zwick.

Another “thirtysomething”/ “My So-Called Life” veteran who reenlisted to work on “Once and Again” is Liberty Godshall, Zwick’s wife. “I managed to browbeat or entice her into writing for us,” he says. “She knows where the bodies are buried.”

Jan Oxenberg, a Herskovitz-Zwick hire for “Relativity” who went on to write for “Chicago Hope,” also was brought in. Her combination of “acerbic” humor and “a very nonsaccharine view of life,” says Herskovitz, are what made them eager to bring her back to write for the new show.

Always interested in discovering new voices, Zwick is a voracious reader of screenplays, plays and short stories, he said. Other people, such as Kramer, also steer new talent their way.

For “Once and Again,” several writers have made the leap from writing half-hour comedy to the hourlong format. Alexa Junge, a writer and producer on “Friends,” and Dan and Sue Paige, who created “Zoe, Duncan, Jack & Jane,” which aired on the WB last season, have joined the series’ writing roster. The Paiges have found the move to dramatic writing fairly seamless. They felt a quick rapport with Zwick and Herskovitz and found the type of humor they used, drawn from the small details in life, was compatible to this show.

It is not uncommon in television to recruit from the theater. It is uncommon for that recruit to be as accomplished as Donald Margulies, an oft-produced playwright who has twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in drama (“Sight Unseen” and “Collected Stories”). Zwick and Herskovitz’s desire to work with him goes back to their “thirtysomething” years. Margulies, who deliberately steered clear of television for 11 years, has written a Thanksgiving episode for “Once and Again.”

Michael Weller is another playwright with whom they’ve long wanted to work. Zwick says that Weller, in plays such as “Moonchildren,” “was among the first to try to explore what this generation’s voice sounded like and how it distinguished itself from the generations preceding it.”

A relative newcomer to TV scripting is Pamela Gray, a screenwriter whose work includes the 1999 release “A Walk on the Moon” and the upcoming “Music of the Heart.” Gray’s initial aspirations were to write for a television series, but she found it very inaccessible. It was only after her feature writing career took off, and she happened to meet Zwick at an awards ceremony, that she wound up writing for “Once and Again.”

Zwick and Herskovitz’s ability in persuading such formidable talents to work with them lies in their reputations for fostering the work of other writers.

“They’ve been really honoring the craft by letting writers’ voices shine through,” says Margulies.

Kramer probably sums up their support of writers best in what he called the Emmy acceptance speech he never got to give for “thirtysomething.” He had planned to “thank Marshall and Ed for being both the arms to push me off the building and being the arms that were there to catch me.”

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“Once and Again” airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on ABC.