Hobart and William Smith Colleges

5 October 2011 Falchuk's American Horror Story Premieres

An article in The New York Times features Brad Falchuk 93, the recipient of multiple Emmys as Glee co-creator, executive producer and director. American Horror Story, a new television program by Falchuk and fellow Glee co-creator Ryan Murphy, premiered on Wednesday, Oct. 5, on the FX Network.

The highly anticipated drama follows a small family as it relocates from Boston to Los Angeles to reconcile past anguish. Dylan McDermott, of the hit television show The Practice, Connie Britton of Friday Night Lights and Oscar-winner Jessica Lange star in the series.

In the pilot episode of American Horror Story a therapist (Dylan McDermott of The Practice) and his wife (Connie Britton of Friday Night Lights) move with their teenage daughter (Taissa Farmiga) to an eerie, Gothic-style mansion in Los Angeles. While mom and dad deal with a past act of infidelity, the family unfolds the houses murderous history; encounters neighbors and hangers-on played by Jessica Lange, Frances Conroy and Denis OHare (as a man who has had half his face scarred in a fire); and finds something not quite human residing in the basement, the article says.

Falchuk and Murphy discuss their partnership and their shows in the article.
Falchuk received his B.A. in English from Hobart in 1993. He began his career as a screenwriter on science fiction shows such as Mutant X, Earth: Final Conflict and Veritas: The Quest. Falchuk went on to write for the award-winning FX series Nip/Tuck, where he also served as a director and executive producer. Falchuk continues to write and serve as executive producer for Fox hit series Glee.

The full article follows.

---

The New York Times
The Songs of Glee Give Way to Terror
Dave Itzkoff October 2, 2011

LOS ANGELES Growing up, the television producer Brad Falchuk said, he practiced to see if he was prepared for a possible home invasion by wriggling on the ground, as if he were hogtied, from his bedroom to the kitchen and extracting a knife from a drawer with his mouth. Youre 8 or 9, this is what you do, Mr. Falchuk explained. Could I escape?

From left, Connie Britton, Dylan McDermott and Taissa Farmiga in a scene from the new series, which will begin on Wednesday night on FX.

Asked if he similarly tested himself in his youth, Ryan Murphy, Mr. Falchuks creative partner, dryly replied: No, but when I was a child there was an instance where someone did break into our house, and my mother pulled a gun on them. So I grew up with that.

This collaboration between two men who see the world very differently from each other and from anyone else for that matter has yielded Glee, the Fox pop phenomenon about the travails of an upbeat student choir.

Now Mr. Murphy and Mr. Falchuk have turned 180 degrees to create American Horror Story, a new FX series (making its debut on Wednesday) whose dark atmosphere, creepy fixations and frequent bloodshed would have those irrepressible Glee kids belting out shrieks instead of high Cs.

In the pilot episode of American Horror Story a therapist (Dylan McDermott of The Practice) and his wife (Connie Britton of Friday Night Lights) move with their teenage daughter (Taissa Farmiga) to an eerie, Gothic-style mansion in Los Angeles. While mom and dad deal with a past act of infidelity, the family unfolds the houses murderous history; encounters neighbors and hangers-on played by Jessica Lange, Frances Conroy and Denis OHare (as a man who has had half his face scarred in a fire); and finds something not quite human residing in the basement.

Also, Ms. Brittons character has a sexual encounter with a man dressed in a head-to-toe rubber S&M costume who may or may not be her husband.

We both know, Mr. Murphy said with audible understatement, that this is a very polarizing show.

American Horror Story is a window onto the Murphy-Falchuk partnership, their psyches and their vocal affection for the smart and seemingly bygone chills of films like Rosemarys Baby and The Shining.

That such a deliberately divisive and potentially off-putting show could get on the air, and onto the ascendant FX network, is also a sign of the clout Mr. Murphy, 45, wields in the television industry and at that cable channel.

Starting at Mr. Murphys hit FX series Nip/Tuck, a sometimes garish, sometimes gory drama about a plastic surgery practice that ran from 2003 to 2010, he and Mr. Falchuk, 40, have had a mentor-disciple relationship. Mr. Falchuk, who nearly became a staff writer on a WB television adaptation of Tarzan, bonded with Mr. Murphy as Hollywood outsiders who worked their way in, and over a shared love of most pop-cultural genres except for musicals, which Mr. Falchuk, surprisingly does not generally enjoy. (He and Mr. Murphy nonetheless work side by side as they move between the writers rooms of American Horror Story and Glee, which they created with Ian Brennan.)

Dressed in matching white shirts and khakis last week at their offices on the Paramount lot, a quiet and ascetic loft space that simultaneously evoked The Addams Family and a Banana Republic store, Mr. Falchuk said that Mr. Murphy was the genius of the big idea in their partnership.

When he has a big idea, Mr. Falchuk said, his brain tends to activate in a way thats like a disco floor. He added: Those lights will start flashing, and well both start dancing on it and see where it takes us.

(Great, Mr. Murphy said, chuckling at the image.)

When the inspiration struck for American Horror Story the show was rapidly embraced at FX, where Nip/ Tuck reigned as a top-rated basic-cable series, and the channel had no problem with the boundaries Mr. Murphy now wanted to push.
FX, which has ordered 13 one-hour episodes of American Horror Story, has lately found a successful formula in stylized shows like the dyspeptic comedy Louie, the motorcycle drama Sons of Anarchy and the crime series Justified, whose co-star Margo Martindale was a surprise Emmy Award winner in September.

John Landgraf, the president of FX, said that for all its challenging content, American Horror Story was quite a few paces back from the ledge as established by Nip/Tuck Seasons 4, 5 and 6.

Still, the pilot script for American Horror Story raised eyebrows. Ms. Britton, an Emmy nominee for Friday Night Lights, said she joined the show to work with Mr. Murphy and to go from one of the best marriages on TV to one of the worst marriages on TV.

But when Ms. Britton arrived at her sex scene with the fetishistically attired figure now known as Rubber Man, she said: I was convinced I was going to be able to talk Ryan out of that whole thing. Im like, Oh, thats not going to stay, no.

Mr. Landgraf said it was not his networks place to tinker with Mr. Murphy and Mr. Falchuks vision. You either sign on for it or you dont, he said. Were making small changes around the margins but this is the show that they wanted to make.

Mr. Murphy also enjoys wide latitude at 20th Century Fox Television, which produces Glee and American Horror Story, and Dana Walden, an executive in charge of the studio, said he was allowed as much carte blanche as anyone weve ever worked with.

With that arrangement, Ms. Walden said, comes the understanding that Mr. Murphy likes to take on as much work as he possibly can. We at the studio would be very content with Ryan focusing only on those two shows, she said, but Mr. Murphy has a very big appetite professionally.

Among the compelling arguments for Mr. Murphy to focus his energies: Glee lost more than three million viewers from its Season 2 premiere to its Season 3 debut, following a sophomore year in which the show perhaps tried to do too much at once.

Some of the criticism was not warranted, some of it was, he said. We listened, and I think that weve rejiggered the show in a great emotional way.

Mr. Landgraf would not specify a ratings target that would spell success for American Horror Story or a timetable to decide whether to order additional seasons. His network has lately shown no hesitation in dropping struggling series. It did not pick up second seasons of Terriers and Lights Out and let go of its critically acclaimed legal thriller Damages, which was picked up by DirecTV. Mr. Landgraf said those shows were creative successes but outright commercial failures.

If a show feels good creatively, he said, like theres a passionate core audience or theres room for growth, then we have a tendency to be very tolerant.

Mr. Murphy meanwhile is already thinking ahead to projects beyond this series, including a film adaptation of The Normal Heart, Larry Kramers drama about the birth of AIDS activism in 1980s New York, that he will direct.

Mr. Falchuk, who said he already doesnt sleep or see his family enough, seemed satisfied to be busy running two television shows simultaneously and to have a colleague who challenges his cultural tastes.

That balance works, Mr. Falchuk said. It lets neither of us go off into our easy places.

Mr. Murphy said, I am just thrilled that I live in a world where I get to introduce Brad to, like, Eyes of Laura Mars and Cabaret.

And, Mr. Falchuk added, I can sit Ryan down and we can watch a football game together.

For the first time in the conversation Mr. Murphy sounded genuinely horrified.

What? he exclaimed.

Mr. Falchuk laughed. You did it once, he said.