[lounge music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [Narrator] "On Story" is brought to you in part by the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation, a Texas family providing innovative funding since 1979.

[waves] [kids screaming] [wind] [witch cackling] [sirens wail] [gunshots] [dripping] [suspenseful music] [telegraph beeping, typing] [piano gliss] From Austin Film Festival, this is "On Story," a look inside the creative process from today's leading writers, creators and filmmakers.

This week on "On Story," we're joined by accomplished television writer and producer, Yvette Lee Bowser, for a conversation on her trailblazing career, from becoming the first Black woman to create and run a prime time series with "Living Single," to showrunning "Dear White People" and "UnPrisoned."

- I went back to Warner Brothers, which is the studio I was working for, and I said, "You know how we had those conversations back in April?"

And I said, "You know, maybe after a year or two working on this other show, I'll be ready to develop.

It was August.

I'm ready now.

I'm ready right now."

And the head of development said, "Well, we actually happened to have just made a talent holding deal with Queen Latifah and Kim Coles, and they have asked that a Black writer get the opportunity to create a show for them."

And I said, "Well, here I am.

Let's go."

[laughs] Let's go.

[paper crumples] [typing] [carriage returns, ding] [typewriter dings] - When we chatted in advance of this panel, just hearing you talk and hearing so much about your career was just so inspirational.

You had to create your own path and pave the way for everybody.

- Absolutely.

- You were born in Philadelphia, but then as a child- - Go Eagles.

[laughs] - But then as a child, you moved to Los Angeles with your family.

I'm so curious for you growing up there, how that shaped you.

- Well, I think one thing we all know is that the streets of Hollywood sparkle with the dust of broken dreams, right?

So you know, growing up in Hollywood doesn't mean that you are of Hollywood or from Hollywood.

And while I grew up with proximity to the glitz and glamour, that was very much not my life at all.

As a latchkey kid, I grew up on television.

I was raised by my mother and television, and so I saw images that reflected the human experience, but were not in hues of brown, so they didn't seem to completely be reflecting my existence.

And I wanted to make sure that I was seen.

I mean, I think that's what we all want.

We want to be seen, we want to be heard, we want our stories to be felt by other people.

That's what it is to be human, so that's one of the reasons I got into storytelling, but it wasn't because I had some "in" in Hollywood.

It was because I loved this thing that was telling our story, but it wasn't really telling my story.

- So when did writing specifically enter the picture for you?

- When I was five.

I was that nerd who, for show and tell, would write puppet shows.

And people thought I was really weird, but they were entertained, and that was affirmation.

I'm like, oh, they get my story.

They're feeling what I want them to feel, and art when done right is transformative.

And so people came to understand me, even though I was an oddball, bringing puppets to school instead of just some new toy or something to share.

I was telling stories at that age, and so I just continued to do that.

I became a journalist in high school and college.

I knew I was a storyteller, but I also knew that I should pursue a career that I could make money because I didn't know that I could make money, make a living with art.

So basically, I was a college senior at Stanford University, and it was spring quarter of my senior year, and I was watching "The Cosby Show" on a Thursday night, which we did as a ritual.

And for the first time after watching the show for three years, I noticed the name of someone that I knew in the credits, who also happened to be one of my neighbors in one of those many buildings that I lived in in Hollywood and he was the composer for the show.

His name was Stu Gardner.

And I basically decided in that moment, I was going to track him down and see if there was any way that he could connect me with anyone who might be able to provide some information and/or access to Hollywood and storytelling because I just knew in my gut that that was where I was supposed to be.

So I tracked him down.

I called NBC in Los Angeles.

They gave me the number to NBC in New York.

They gave me the number to the Kaufman Astoria Studios where they shot "The Cosby Show."

And I left a message for Stu Gardner and he remembered me and he called me back.

I didn't even know he'd remember me from, you know, nine years old.

And now I was, you know, 21, turning 22.

And so then he introduced me to Dr.

Cosby, and I had a chance meeting with him in Oakland, California.

And I said, "I have this creative energy that has to be tapped."

And he said, "Go to law school.

There ain't nothing for you out here."

And I just said, "I know that this is where I'm supposed to be.

So if I get an opportunity to just be in that space, to be in that room to demonstrate what it is that I can provide, I would really appreciate it."

And I showed him some short stories that I'd written in college, and he chuckled a bit.

And then he said, "Are you sure?"

I said, "I'm certain."

And so then he set me up as a writer's apprentice on the spinoff of "The Cosby Show" called "A Different World."

[typewriter dings] So there I was fresh out of college, living with my mother and making no money, and basically just absorbing everything that I could in that environment.

You know, like I was like, oh, I'm going to be a writer's apprentice.

Well, I started out writing lunch orders and posters for the main character Whitley, when she was running for Dorm Monitor.

I just did whatever I could to kind of be in the process and learn how to, you know, develop characters and participate in that process.

And for those of you who saw the show, some people feel that the first season wasn't quite as reflective of the environment as it could have been.

And we were literally building the plane as we were flying it.

We absolutely were.

There was no one who had created the show who was involved in the show.

We had a showrunner who didn't quite understand the experience of college or being in an HBCU, which has its own specific flavor and, you know, social mores that are really, really important to that experience.

- You have worked too hard to just throw all of this away on some idealistic whim.

- Like protesting the fact that 28 million Black South Africans don't have the right to vote?

- So you think that the president of South Africa is going to hear this news flash and say, "Kim Reese is giving up her scholarship.

I feel terrible.

Let's let all the Black people go to the polls."

[audience laughs] - It's a gesture of solidarity, it's symbolic.

- It's dumb.

- If I don't keep this scholarship, I'm going to have to work two jobs next year.

With my dad's medical expenses, my parents are tapped out.

- Kim, I'm going to help you in any way that I can.

I can sell incense on the street.

- I'm sure that's how the surgeon general financed her education.

- Knock, knock.

Whitley, your date, he's downstairs and he is looking tasty.

- Julian?

He, he, he's early.

- Well girl, you better hurry up.

The sharks are already circling.

[audience laughs] - But there were a group of us Black writers who did know what it was supposed to be, and so we were kind of like trying to break through that barrier, that cultural barrier, while creating a show, while keeping our jobs, while, you know, maintaining our sanity and working insane hours.

You know, we would sometimes, you know, show up at 10:00 and not leave until 9:00 AM the next day because we were literally finding it as we went.

But there was a collective of us, myself, Thad Mumford and Susan Fales, who knew that there was another show, a richer show, a more authentic show, a more intentional show that we could write and produce.

So we got a chance to do that in the second season.

When I was still an apprentice, I got promoted to staff writer that second season, but I did a lot of exploring behind the scenes while I was an apprentice.

If the room wasn't working, I was on stage watching what the actors were doing, paying attention to what the director was doing, going into the editing bay and say, "Oh," realizing, "Oh, this is where the show really gets made."

So I learned a lot very, very quickly.

But also let me know that you belong in every space that you choose to occupy, and that you just need to show up, even if you don't feel that you even have the skill, if you don't feel that you have the finances, if you don't feel that you have the boldness, just show up.

Show up and do it, and fill the space up with your being and with your skill.

[typewriter dings] - You became the first and youngest Black woman to run her own prime time series with "Living Single."

[audience applauds] - Thank you.

- Tell us, you know, after "A Different World," you know, how that all came to be, the origin story of that.

- One of the first big bold booths that I made was to be a public school student applying to a school that seemed as unreachable as Stanford University and getting in, and then working on and speaking up on, you know, the number two show on television and developing that and then leaving at its peak because I felt it was time for me to go and seek greener pastures, only to discover that the grass was very brown.

[everyone laughs] But not in favor of Brownness.

So on my next job, [laughs] I experienced a great deal of racism and misogyny and oppression and it was out of that, that I just realized if I was going to be successful and flourish and really have a voice and make my mark in this world, and through this environment of writing and storytelling, I was going to need to create the environment that I was working in.

So I went back to Warner Brothers, which is the studio I was working for, and I said, "You know how we had those conversations back in April?

And I said, you know, maybe after a year or two working on this other show, I'll be ready to develop?"

It was August, "I'm ready now.

I'm ready right now."

And the head of development said, "Well, we actually happen to have just made a talent holding deal with Queen Latifah and Kim Coles.

And they have asked that a Black writer get the opportunity to create a show for them."

And I said, "Well, here I am.

Let's go."

[laughs] Let's go.

So then I met with each of them and they had an idea to do a buddy comedy since, I guess the math was, oh, there's two of them, do a buddy comedy.

But I really wanted to do an ensemble for a few reasons.

One, that I had just come off of this beautifully executed ensemble, and I also wanted to make sure that there was room for me in the show.

So while I created two characters that also took the best of each of those performers and put them at the center of the show, I wanted to make sure that there was room for me.

And so there's actually a piece of me in each of those characters.

David Janollari, who's the development exec, he reminds me that I said to him, "I basically want all four parts of myself to be in the show."

And I realized later that actually, I was doing this thing called parts work, where you're actually in dialogue with yourself with the different parts of yourself.

And so there are scenes that I watch now and I'm like, "Oh wow, that's me talking to me, working it out."

- Look, Regine, it's simple.

You got to start taking care of yourself.

I mean, put Regine first.

Do what you need to do for you.

- You're absolutely right, Khadija.

- Mother always is.

[audience laughs] - You know, I think I'm going to go shopping tomorrow, get my hair done, maybe buy some hair.

[audience laughs] - Well, that's not exactly what I had in mind, but I guess you could start there.

- The bottom line is, [audience laughs] men are nothing but speed bumps on the road to happiness.

- Dang right.

- No, no.

I think they're more like cheap pantyhose.

At the worst possible moment, they run on you.

- Yes.

[everyone applauds] - You done hit it, you done hit it.

- Did you ever stop to think about what the world would be like without men?

- A bunch of fat, happy women and no crime.

[audience laughs] - I was learning and growing and just learning how to be more bold and more vulnerable in that process.

And so I just kind of took what I was doing for five years on "A Different World" and, you know, rinse, lather, repeat on "Living Single" and telling a story very intentionally this time from the beginning, because I knew I needed to be the North Star as the creator and the showrunner, and you know, just telling the truth.

And we all kind of just got on the same page and were really very cohesive and united in what it was that we set out to do.

And then there of course, were templates like the four women in "Waiting to Exhale," and the four women in "Golden Girls" and the four women in "Designing Women."

Those were, you know, predecessors.

Absolutely.

So you know, if any concepts paved the way for this show, it was those, but they didn't also have the balance of two very present and very strong men.

- How did you focus on that in the writer's room as this being your first showrunner experience?

How did you lead this mixed bag of writers, if you will, to find that authenticity in those distinct voices?

- When people ask me about, you know, how hard was it to create "Living Single," I'm like, it was actually easy because I wasn't creating anything.

I was literally just reflecting myself, my friends, my family, and the times.

You know, it's kind of like we don't have to make it complicated.

You know, the work is hard.

The work of kind of paring it down and deciding which stories to tell and deciding which turns to take in the plot.

That's the real toil.

But voicing yourself is just about summoning that which is already inside of you, you know?

I mean, it's a little magical, but it's really quite simple and I think anyone can do it.

Anyone can do it.

Some people will like to hoard it.

You can do it too.

If I can do it, you can do it.

I mean, that's really it.

And then making sure that I, from the very beginning, had a clear vision and that I articulated that vision to the staff, and that if I didn't like something or didn't accept something that they were pitching, I let them know why.

You know, there's not always time to do that in the process, but you don't want to just, you know, shoot people down and discourage them.

You want to encourage them, you want to welcome them into your vision so that you're not the only one who can tell the stories.

That's how you get to over 100 episodes, for sure, because there's no one person who can generate all of that material and all of that story and have all of that comedy and all of that resonance.

You can't do it by yourself.

So I've just continued to grow myself and grow my tribe and just grow the vision over time.

And then also, you know, mentor people along the way.

- I know that when you had "Living Single," you know, because you had this overall deal, you also were creating some other shows along the way.

What does that mean to have to, you know, have all these different pots on the stove, if you will?

- Right.

I was, you know, the first of my kind, if you will, to be running a show that turned out to be very successful and then also getting an overall deal.

The studio was paying me, you know, significant amounts of money to not only maintain "Living Single," but to create other valuable, you know, properties for them.

I didn't realize that I didn't have to say yes to every opportunity, and that I didn't have to like literally burn the candle on both ends by trying to crank out another show and another show and another show.

And I mean, literally after the first season of "Living Single," which was 27 episodes, by the way, which is a ton of episodes, I was planning my wedding in Philadelphia so many, many miles away.

I got called by the head of Warner Brothers to say, "Well, you know, your buddy Tom has been working on this pilot with the Wayans Brothers, and it isn't quite right, and we need you to come in and help Tom."

So of course I'm going to put down everything and I'm going to go help Tom.

But that was really, really hard to kind of squeeze that in and then go get married and then come back and launch a second season where we did another 27 shows and then also develop another series.

I was like, "Why am I doing all this?"

And then also, I'm trying to be a wife, you know, I'm trying to be a human.

You know, you have to live a life in order to write, you know, and reflect accuracy in your work.

And so, I mean, you know, I guess the beautiful thing looking back is that between '93 and '97, I had launched four series.

[audience applauds] And gave birth to my first child.

Yeah, yeah.

[typewriter dings] - I'd be remiss if we didn't touch on your time on "Dear White People."

And it's become a show that's resonated with so many people for, you know, its very powerful and raw, honest storytelling.

And I believe the incredible Justin Simeon was who approached you with this and that idea and your involvement.

- Basically, the meeting between Justin and I was brokered by our agents.

He's like, "I'm looking for someone who can help me make this show a success and, you know, keep it on the air."

And I said, "I think I know how to do that.

I've done it a few times.

I think I can, you know, share some wisdom and shed some light."

And then we started talking about the specifics of this bible, the show bible that he'd worked on.

And he had wanted to make some pretty, you know, big bold moves in the narrative.

But I disagreed with one of the things that he was thinking about doing, and he actually, because he was thinking of using some of the original cast members, and the actor who played Lionel wasn't going to be available, he had planned for the character of Lionel to be killed in like the third or fourth episode.

And I was like, "I don't understand this.

So we're going to work together because if I understand the movie correctly, you are Lionel, Lionel is you and Lionel's one of the like most interesting and fresh characters in the show."

- Sam White did it.

- Why would she do that?

- No one would've found out about what they were planning if she hadn't.

- This party wouldn't have happened at all if she hadn't thrown it.

- She didn't throw it.

She exposed it.

And if we print this, people will completely dismiss what she's been trying to say.

- We can't control what people do with the truth, Lionel.

We can only report it.

- They're going to hate me.

- Get used to it.

You think that stopped the guys who broke the Panama papers?

Or reported the abuse of the Catholic church?

Or the first person to tell that story about Richard Gere and the gerbil?

- We're on the wrong side here.

If you were at that party-- - This is a scoop no other paper on campus would even think about letting you print.

This could be a game changer for The Independent and a career maker for you.

I only want writers who have the guts to tell the truth.

Like Will Smith in that football movie everyone went to see.

That's why you write, isn't it?

- So why would you kill yourself off?

And he's like, "Oh, that's a good point."

I said, "I want to know more about Lionel.

I want to see more stories with Lionel."

And he said, "Well, ultimately, what I want to do is I want this really kind of impactful tonal shift."

And I was like, "Well, let's do that, but let's find another way to do it."

And so again, we continued to talk for a little bit, and then at the end I was like, "Well, I told you what I didn't like and I told you what I liked.

Let me know if you like me."

And he's like, "I'm picking up what you're putting down."

And then he asked me to be his partner, and we produced the show together.

- How did you all take, you know, that film, that finite world to then turn it into television?

- Well, one of the things that we were doing was we were extending the story.

We retold what happened next through everyone's perspective, which was a really interesting challenge that we had to, you know, really workshop in the room to figure out how we were going to tell the story of that same incident through all their different perspectives.

But again, that was a really brilliant idea that Justin had, that he wanted to execute.

But then it was like we had to figure out how to keep those other characters alive.

And that was a really beautiful challenge.

I mean, I really feel like my own storytelling and, you know, like filmmaking skills expanded on that show because Justin was, you know, he was very much a director.

He's an auteur, you know, it's like I'm giving him lessons in leadership and story development and character development and long form storytelling, and he's teaching me how to be more visual as an artist.

[typewrite dings] - What did you take from, you know, all those days as an intern to, you know, applying to being a showrunner now?

- Literally like if we were having a late night rewrite on "Living Single," we would joke and be like, "If the janitor came by with a joke right now, we would take it."

[everyone laughs] And we would, you know, we would.

Like just learn how to take the best idea.

That's what you ultimately want to do.

I mean, and also just really being open, you know, being open to different points of view, you know, there are always going to be charged conversations and out of those like charged conversations comes the very best stories, the best characters, the most layered characters, the best journey, honestly.

I mean, I feel like the things that excite me and frighten me in equal doses are usually the things I lean into and usually the things that resonate the most with the audience.

Absolutely.

- After "Dear White People," you had "UnPrisoned" and you had "Run the World."

When it comes to storytelling or when it comes to you being approached with a project, what are some kind of green flags, key things that you want to see in a project that will make you say like, "Okay, I'm going to stamp my name on this"?

- I don't want to necessarily produce stories that I don't feel I can personally tap into, that I don't have something creative to add to, you know?

"UnPrisoned," I got tapped to run that show because the head of the network knew that I had a father who's very much like the father in that show, who's kind of an absentee father, who's a career criminal, which isn't something that I talked about, you know, a lot in my life.

And I got to a place finally where I was like, "I just got to tell the truth."

And the truth is interesting and also it's not as filled with shame as I thought it was when I was younger.

You know, it's something very interesting to explore.

So here I had a chance to explore that experience and those feelings through someone else's characters and through their lens.

[Finn] Mom, mom.

- What?

Oh, I'm so sorry, baby.

I was supposed to-- - There's somebody at the door.

- Hey, baby girl.

- What are you doing here?

- I thought about it.

I really, really want things to be different.

So I'm being different.

- Hi, grandpa.

- Hey.

[dramatic music] - For those of you who haven't seen the show, it's a beautiful series about a fractured family.

The father had been in prison most of his daughter's life, and they were, you know, learning how to, you know, get to know each other and how to love each other and become a family.

And that was really the kind of the thread for the series.

And at the end of our second season, the main protagonist's mother showed up.

Who she was going to be, I can't tell you.

[everyone laughs] Because you never know, maybe someone will call us and say, "We're doing a season three."

But that was going to get really, really interesting.

- What is it that you seek out in storytelling or in your writing?

- Just richness.

Things that, you know, I believe are going to do what art should do, which is transform people, even though sometimes, you know, people think, "Oh, well you are a comedy writer, you're just telling jokes."

And I'm like, "I'm actually not just telling jokes.

I'm trying to reflect who we are and where we are with accuracy.

I'm trying to, you know, do what artists do, which is be visionary, which is have the ability to see the past, to also see the present, and then also reflect what the future could be.

To be aspirational, to sometimes depict the worst in us in order for us to tap into the best of us.

[typewriter dings] [Announcer] You've been watching a conversation with Yvette Lee Bowser on "On Story."

"On Story" is part of a growing number of programs in Austin Film Festival's On Story Project, that also includes the On Story radio program, podcast, book series, and the On Story archive, accessible through the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University.

To find out more about On Story and Austin Film Festival, visit onstory.tv or austinfilmfestival.com.

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