Drama department lecturer Dan Klein interviewed “30 Rock” producer Kay Cannon Thursday in Roble Theater. The talk focused on Cannon’s writing style, her experiences on the award-winning show and trying to enter the entertainment industry right out of graduate school.
Although a she has been a writer for “30 Rock” since the show’s inception, Cannon had never written for a TV show before landing the “30 Rock” job.
“The beginning was scary and crazy, for me especially,” Cannon told an audience of about 50 people. “Every day it was like, ‘what are we doing today?’”
Originally an improviser, Cannon’s writing style differed from many of the writers on “30 Rock,” whom she referred to as “Harvard Lampoon guys.”
“There’s a very specific way they write, and it’s very different from mine as an improviser,” said Cannon. “Writers who sit down and write might judge what they’re putting down, but I always just try to barf it out. I’m writing crap, but I’ll put it down.”
Cannon mentioned funny incidents on set, goofs featuring Nerf rifles and Tina Fey improvising, but the focus of the presentation was on the amount of hard work that goes into writing for a weekly television show.
The hours and stress can be difficult, a fact that is sometimes reflected in “30 Rock,” which is itself a show about writing a comedy show. One episode features Liz Lemon, the head writer played by Tina Fey, being completely exhausted and overworked, an experience Cannon said was easy to relate to and write about.
“There’s a ton of re-writing on our show,” said Cannon. “Sometimes we’ll spend an hour or two on a joke, on one line.”
In addition to the long hours and multiple rewrites, Cannon admitted that putting a piece of her work out into the writing room is one of the few things that still makes her nervous.
One audience member asked about the offensive nature of some of the jokes on “30 Rock,” relating the question to the Gaieties controversy at Stanford earlier this year. Cannon objected to the idea of a “line” that can never be crossed, but she said that some topics — in her case, Sept. 11 and rape jokes — just don’t play well with audiences. She added that a show has to deal with topics in an intellectually profound way and earn the right to tell offensive jokes.
Cannon, who is teaching a class about sketch comedy writing in San Francisco this weekend, said it is extremely important to remember that your writing will be bad sometimes, but encouraged students to try new things.
“Getting into that community of people who are equally as passionate to do what you want to do is important,” said Cannon.
The audience seemed appreciative of the presentation, and multiple members approached Cannon afterward.
“It was nice to see someone who has actually succeeded in the professional dramatic arts,” said Kevin Hurlbutt ’14, “especially at a school where it’s not always prominent.”