Interview with a Teen Drama Fan: "Bitter Script Reader" Adam Mallinger
“Crisis on Infinite Teen Dramas.”
It sounds like something out of a comic book, right?
Well, it is — sort of.
The year was 2020 and Adam Mallinger had an idea: What if the universes of various teen dramas crossed over a la the iconic comic book series “Crisis on Infinite Earths”?
The result was something tailor-made for TeenDramaWhores like you and me: A script featuring characters and easter eggs from “Dawson’s Creek,” “The O.C.,” “One Tree Hill,” “Gilmore Girls,” “Everwood,” “Veronica Mars,” “Riverdale,” “Pretty Little Liars,” and more.
It wouldn’t have worked if Mallinger himself wasn’t something of a TeenDramaWhore, as well as an astute TV watcher who found a career in reading and analyzing scripts before working on a CW television show. His fandom, combined with his script-writing knowledge, became a huge gift in the dark days of the pandemic.
Now, almost five years later, Mallinger and I hopped on a Zoom call to discuss…
-How “Dawson’s Creek” turned him on to the teen drama genre and the machinations of season 3
-How the star-studded dramatic reading of “Crisis on Infinite Teen Dramas” came to be
-How he got the nickname “The Bitter Script Reader”
-Becoming a staff writer on The CW’s “Superman & Lois”
-The biggest misconception about being a TV writer today
-His professional relationship with Greg Berlanti (executive producer, Dawson’s Creek) and what he’s learned from him
…and much more. Watch the full interview below!
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