The Queen of Comedy: Tina Fey
Tina Fey’s Production Company “Little Strangers”
“The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” is another score for the multi-talented, script writer, turned-actor, turned-producer….ok basically there is nothing Tina Fey can’t do in the comedy genre. Starting as a the first female head script writer for Saturday Night Live, Tina Fey has gone on to write and produce award-winning shows like 30 Rock and the cult-classic “Mean Girls” (which she adapted into a Tony-nominated Broadway musical). Fey’s writing style is unmistakable with its brash, bold and quick-witted humor. In the entertainment world mainly run by men, Fey is breaking down walls and pulling no punches.
Tina Fey uses her unapologizing, fearless spirit as the backbone of her writing for “Kimmy Schmidt” which is co-written with Robert Carlock. The surface of the show is outrageous, slapstick and completely random, but underneath that wild peacocking is expertly written comedic dialogue that is set at a pace where you sometimes wonder to yourself: Did she really just say that? The answer is always: yes she really did just say that! Fey includes brilliant social satire in her writing, making it multi-dimensional with depth and range. I usually put the subtitles on while watching “Kimmy” because I don’t want to miss any of the fast-paced jokes.
Winning 18 Primetime Emmy nominations, 3 Golden Globes, 5 Screen Actors Guild Award’s as well as being the youngest recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, Tina Fey is a writer you might want to study. In order to be the best writer, study the people who are succeeding at writing. This may sound overly simplistic, but just like anything else, practice makes perfect. If you threw a basketball into a hoop 100,000 times, you would end up being really good at making that shot. Write 10,000 pages of comedic dialogue, I assure you will become better at writing comedy.
We see a genius writer and have this delusional notion that they just sit at a computer and the words simply pour out into a fully formed, New York Times Best-selling novel. I believe there are a few prodigy writers where the gift of the written word has been bestowed upon them, but for the majority of writers, endless hours of writing and reading is the key to success. Tina Fey worked on SNL where she and a team of writers had to produce an hour and half sketch-show in one week. She did this for years and this is what created the foundation of her work ethic as a writer.
Ellie Kemper tackles the lead role in “Kimmy” with full commitment and an astounding amount of energy. The other core cast members are Tituss Burgess, Jane Karkowski, and the wonderfully eccentric Carol Kane. Each cast member adds another complex zany character to the show and each have the “acting chops” to keep up with a wordy script and the fast rhythm of dialogue. This is what I would call a true ensemble cast. If one of the characters was not as strong of an actor, the entire show would not work.
The fourth and final season wrapped up the show, yet it still remains high on the list of the top-rated and watched shows. Fey and Carlock decided to follow the trend of producing an Interactive Special. In the same vein as “choose your own adventure”, the audience gets to make choices of the direction for the show. Fey and Carlock decided to do something new and filmed three entire episodes. A usual 32-page script turned into a 150-page script. Unlike other Interactive Specials that have been streamed on Netflix, the show would not just end if you picked a bad choice. They had enough filmed to bump the viewer back in the show to choose many different endings.
When reality shows almost killed the sitcom and now streaming is taking the lead over cable, this riot of a sitcom is a hilarious breath of fresh air.