News Release

CHAPEL HILL – Another prominent Hollywood figure will join the Writing for the Screen and Stage Program as a visiting professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Writer-director Joan Tewkesbury will teach during the spring semester as the Evan Frankel Visiting Professor, a new visiting professorship created by a gift from the Evan Frankel Foundation, a New York-based charitable organization for programs in higher education, the humanities and the environment.

Tewkesbury launched her career 30 years ago by writing for the critically acclaimed Robert Altman films "Thieves Like Us" and "Nashville," the latter of which received an Academy Award nomination for best picture and earned Tewkesbury a Golden Globe nomination for best screenplay.

She wrote and directed several films for television including "The Acorn People," "Elysian Fields" and "Scattering Dad." She also has direction credits for many major television series, including "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," "Northern Exposure," "Picket Fences," "Doogie Howser," "Chicago Hope," "Felicity" and "The Guardian."

Launched last fall, the Writing for the Screen and Stage Program in the College of Arts and Sciences invites guest lecturers from the entertainment industry and draws on the creative strengths of faculty members in the departments of English, communication studies and dramatic art, who have extensive experience in film, television and theater.

Award-winning writer Tom Whedon was a visiting professor during last school year. Writer, producer and creative consultant Stephen Neigher taught for the program last spring. Hollywood notables Joan Darling, a two-time Emmy award-winning director and her husband, screenwriter and playwright Bill Svanoe, have joined the faculty as adjunct professors.

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Writing for the Screen and Stage Program contact: David Sontag, (919) 843-6035
College of Arts and Sciences contact: Dee Reid, (919) 843-6339.