Shonda Rhimes is holding a masterclass so now you can write your own “Grey’s Anatomy”
Get your scalpels and white hats at the ready as Shonda Rhimes is hosting a writing masterclass and you’re all invited.
It’s no secret that Shonda Rhimes is THE greatest living TV writer. The 46-year-old is responsible for some of the most groundbreaking, exciting, and addictive television on the air at the moment, including shows like Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, and, of course, Grey’s Anatomy. And now that T.G.I.T. is returning in January (Eeeeek!), Shonda is giving YOU a chance to become the next master of TV with her own masterclass.
Writing, pitching, producing & showrunning – WELCOME to Shonda's @masterclass! More info: https://t.co/fB4cnOa0qz -Shonda's Squad pic.twitter.com/iJAdo1RfPK
— shonda rhimes (@shondarhimes) December 15, 2016
Revealed exclusively with our friends Entertainment Weekly, Shonda will host five hours worth of workshops in a MasterClass course. For the price of $90, Rhimes will be able to teach you how to write a script, sell a pilot, and run a writer’s room, three things she certainly has bags of experience doing.
“[T]eaching is something I always wanted to do. But more importantly, I thought this was something that seemed really cool because it was an equalizer,” Rhimes told EW. “You cannot just teach a classroom full of students, you can teach anyone who wants to learn, anywhere in the world. And I can sort of teach how I wanted to; I could talk about television as I knew it and teach what I knew versus somebody else’s curriculum or ideas. We call it Shondaland University here in our writers’ rooms, and it was kind of cool to bring that to other people.”
Rhimes went on to explain why she doesn’t believe in the term “aspiring writer.”
"[F]or me, a writer is somebody who writes every day. So to me, either you write or you don’t write, and if you don’t, then you’re not a writer, and if you do, then you are a writer. And I think it’s that simple, truly in that way," she said. "Give yourself that definition of yourself and then do it. And if you don’t do it, then you’re not a writer, and that’s okay. You’re either a working writer or a nonworking writer, but you’re not an aspiring writer."
While not wanting to reveal too many details about the course, Shonda did say that she sat down with some students and they “reverse-engineered the pilot of Scandal,” breaking it down and explaining how it was built. If you’re anything like us, this sort of behind the scenes stuff will get you seriously intrigued.
Shonda, who joins the likes of Christina Aguilera, Kevin Spacey, and Gordon Ramsey as a MasterClass professor, also opened up about why NOW is such an exciting time to be involved in TV.
“I mean, there’s so many people wanting to have stories and content on the air, and they are looking for it in so many ways: streaming, digital, cable,” she explained. “The opportunities feel a little bit endless in the best way possible, and I feel like there’s an open field out there for so many people. So to me, getting to teach people right now and getting people to get their chance out there, feels perfect.”
Read Shonda Rhimes’ full interview with Entertainment Weekly here. You can sign up for Rhimes’ course on the MasterClass website.
Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away With Murder (AKA T.G.I.T.) return to ABC on January 19th, 2017.
