Bryan:
So it is great to be with you, Ava Coleman, Executive Story Editor for the Golden Globe Award-winning Abbott Elementary. Thanks for being back at Sidwell Friends School.
Ava Coleman:
Thanks for having me. I'm so happy to be here.
Bryan:
And you're here not just for this podcast, but you are here for Let Your Life Speak Day as well.
Ava Coleman:
Correct.
Bryan:
What are you thinking about telling the students tomorrow? We have this whole theme of carrying hope forward, what's on your mind about maybe sharing with our students?
Ava Coleman:
I think I've been thinking about this a lot and hoping that I have a good amount of wisdom to share. I think the main thing is how easy it is to carry hope forward, and how I didn't know that I did, but once this prompt was brought to my attention, I realized I do do that every day at my work. And through comedy and through writing and trying to just figure out life through stories that I tell.
Ava Coleman:
That's kind of what we do as writers, and you don't have to think about it too much. It kind of just happens naturally. And if you have a good outlook on life and just even a tiny bit of hope, that's usually pretty contagious.
Bryan:
What makes your work meaningful to you?
Ava Coleman:
I think it just helps me, I think I just said understand life. Everything that I write about is something that I'm confused about and I need help parsing, and so I'm taking all the things, things that happened to me at Sidwell, things in college, things in the working force, and I'm plugging that in to everything I work on. And just to understand why things happen, why people are the way that they are, and how to help people going through what we've all been through.
Bryan:
The show is very funny.
Ava Coleman:
Thank you.
Bryan:
And it demonstrates a lot of empathy.
Ava Coleman:
Yes.
Bryan:
The characters demonstrate a lot of empathy for each other. Is that part of what you're trying to get across?
Ava Coleman:
Definitely. I think that's really important. And I think in my previous career in the music industry, I didn't really have a lot of time for unpacking what other people might be going through and thinking. I tried with my artists and my coworkers, but I think as a writer, you have so much time just to think and to empathize and to imagine how people feel, and that helps you in the real world understand why things shake out the way they do.
Bryan:
So you're thinking about speaking to our students tomorrow, which means you must be thinking about your time at Sidwell to some extent. What stands out to you in your Sidwell Friends experiences?
Ava Coleman:
I think the main things, so many things have come up for me in the past couple of weeks thinking about it. I think the people that I often think about are my best friends and the teachers that really helped me. I went through a lot of hard things at Sidwell, very emotional child, definitely dealt with depression in middle school and high school.
Ava Coleman:
And so I have these teachers who really helped me through that before I really knew what it was. Teacher Anne Charney, she was my advisor and my English teacher, and she I think really understood that I was dealing with stuff that I couldn't really name. And she let me go talk to Ms. Carlen in the front office.
Bryan:
Carlen Jackson.
Ava Coleman:
Yeah, I would leave class, if I wasn't feeling well emotionally, I could just be like, "Can I be excused?" And I could go talk to her for 10 minutes and get my spirits back up and go back into class. And so I think about teachers like that. And Rachel Jackson in the upper school and Lauren Brownley.
Bryan:
Oh, sure.
Ava Coleman:
Miss Nick in middle school. I had the beginnings of a health issue that I deal with now called Ehlers-Danlos so I started experiencing that in middle school. So Nurse Jasmine, I was always in the nurse's office.
Bryan:
Amazing people.
Ava Coleman:
So I had these really special teachers that gave me a lot of grace. And then I had my two best friends, Lark Tony and Taylor Riley, who we were thick as thieves. And just celebrated Taylor's 30th birthday.
Bryan:
Oh, that's great. So you stay in touch regularly?
Ava Coleman:
Yeah. So yeah, I was in town in time for Taylor's birthday, and we talk all the time, and those were the relationships that kept me going through adolescent troubles.
Bryan:
You're living in California now?
Ava Coleman:
I am, in LA.
Bryan:
Yeah, in LA. And that's where you ended up after Sidwell Friends, USC.
Ava Coleman:
Yeah.
Bryan:
And what did you do at USC that maybe prepared you for what you're doing now?
Ava Coleman:
It's interesting, I was on a totally different path. Big part of my personality at Sidwell was that I wanted to manage boy bands. That was my very narrow dream, very specific. And it came from being a fan girl. So I was a massive fan of these pop punk bands and Justin Bieber and the Jonas Brothers. I had all these phases in every different grade, and I wanted to create bands like that and bring them to girls like me.
Ava Coleman:
So that's what got me to LA. I became obsessed with Scooter Braun. I really found him through being a Bieber fan and being a fan of this rapper, Asher Roth, realized they had the same manager and said, "Great, I'm going to do that."
Ava Coleman:
Ended up meeting Scooter while I was still in high school, Sidwell, and he told me, "You're a kid, but if you ever grow up and move to LA, you should apply for an internship." So that's what got me to apply to USC. That's what got me to LA.
Bryan:
I see.
Ava Coleman:
And by the end of my freshman year, I started working for him, basically full-time throughout school while majoring in comm and minoring in music industry. So screenwriting was not on the radar at all. And I went through a whole seven-year career that actually started at Sidwell with my senior project at 930 Club.
Bryan:
Oh, wow. My daughter did a project at 930 Club also.
Ava Coleman:
Really?
Bryan:
Yeah.
Ava Coleman:
So that was my first job, first thing in the music industry. And then I went off to work for Scooter and went in a totally different direction.
Bryan:
Yeah, but your family was in entertainment. And your mom who's got a new book out, it must have been an influence on you.
Ava Coleman:
Yeah, she was. I think that was part of what made me feel a little bit different than the other students at Sidwell. I didn't ever feel like I had similar dreams to the people around me, because I do think my exposure to the entertainment industry from a young age was just very different from the typical Sidwell student.
Bryan:
And groundbreaking entertainment too, really.
Ava Coleman:
Yeah, really cool stuff. I got to see a lot of really interesting things for a young girl living in D.C. And I looked up to my mom and still do in a lot of ways. And also she set the bar very high for me.
Ava Coleman:
So I always felt like if I became a music manager, I had to be the best one in the world ever so that I could at least get close to the levels of success my mom reached, which I've kind of let that competition part of it go and now can focus on my creative pursuits. But her and my dad, my dad's a successful lawyer, really were great examples for me and my brother.
Bryan:
So you came into this thinking at first you were going to be managing musicians, and then you make this transition to writing.
Ava Coleman:
Yes.
Bryan:
Talk to us about how that came about. What was that process and how you discovered it?
Ava Coleman:
It was very slow and then very fast. So I did spend about seven years I think at Scooter Braun projects and did all the different roles at that company. And while I was an executive assistant and still a senior at USC, I came up with the idea for the Bieber Comedy Central Roast, which was a way for the world to be reintroduced to Justin Bieber, but also to show him being able to poke fun at his past and take responsibility.
Ava Coleman:
I had always seen him as a very funny, charismatic kid, which was not really what was being talked about. And so I thought a roast would be a fun way to bring that to the forefront. And through that process, Scooter and my boss, Allison Kaye at the time, they let me be involved on all the calls and listen in, and help pick people for the [inaudible 00:08:42], the people that would roast and be roasted.
Ava Coleman:
And that was my first inkling, and that was 2015 that, oh, I might prefer the comedy and the writing and the television aspect of this industry, but I'm already starting to get my own clients as a manager. And so I wasn't quite sure how to detangle myself from the music industry.
Ava Coleman:
So I just kept going in it for four more years. Until 2019, my cousin Cara turned 30 and threw herself a birthday roast, asked me to write and perform a five-minute set. And I wrote it, had the most fun I'd had in years. Performed, I killed, and I quit my music job the next month to focus on writing full-time.
Bryan:
So that the transition was through comedy specifically?
Ava Coleman:
Specifically, yeah. Which surprised me.
Bryan:
Do you have influences, comedic influences that stand out to you?
Ava Coleman:
I do, but it's funny because I didn't know that they were influences until 2019 when I started writing. I just thought they were things that I liked. But I really grew up. My time at Sidwell, I was very into late night television. Huge Conan O'Brien fan. Always loved SNL.
Ava Coleman:
But all the late nights, Fallon and Seth Myers. And I really enjoyed just watching funny people talk. It wasn't necessarily that I was watching sitcoms thinking, oh, I can do that. Or, oh, I want to make one of these. It was more just I was fascinated by funny conversations and interactions, sketches. And then as I got older, people like Michaela Cole and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and I love British anything.
Ava Coleman:
I think British comedy is right up my alley. So there have always been great shows from overseas that have really inspired me. So it's a wide-ranging group.
Bryan:
And what do you best about writing for television?
Ava Coleman:
Actually, I've never thought about it. I think it's just it's really nice to work with other people, to work in that collaborative writer's room is a really good brain exercise. And even on days where you feel like you maybe didn't contribute that much, the people around you are still brilliant and smart.
Ava Coleman:
We all are allowed to have our off days and our good days, because it is a team effort. So getting to create with other people and then have a broad audience for it, and people actually see it and actually interact with it, I never expected that to be my life. So it's been really fun to be able to think of issues we want to share with the world and talk about, and then actually have the world participate has been really nice.
Bryan:
And love it.
Ava Coleman:
And love it.
Bryan:
Yeah, what's that process look like when you sit down and you're trying to come up with the next episode? Walk us through what that one of those discussions might look like, if you like.
Ava Coleman:
Yeah, so we're led by Quinta Brunson, and then we have two showrunners, Justin and Pat, and they will guide us on all the planning and logistics and what we need to get done. They will lay that out very clearly for us, so that as the writers, we can come with just the creative ideas, just the spit balling. We call it blue skying at the beginning of the season where we just are throwing anything out.
Ava Coleman:
And if it sticks, then we double down on that idea, see if we can put it into beats, into a three act structure. Is there enough in this idea or problem to fill out an episode? But we also talk about it from the angle of what does this character know? What do we want them to learn? What do we want to see them learn and experience? Where do we think they should go?
Ava Coleman:
And so we treat these characters like real people, and they feel very real to us. So each episode and each topic comes about a little bit differently, but I think we always start from that very human place of what's real, and then how can we make it a little silly?
Bryan:
And it sounds like you spend a lot of time on character development.
Ava Coleman:
That's my personal favorite part of the process, I think, is thinking about voice and character development. That's the part that comes naturally to me. I'd say I lean more on my coworkers for the plot. Sometimes that comes with the character development. You just have a feeling of what someone would do. But for me, it's much more interesting doing the character study aspect of it. And so that is what I tend to think about the most.
Bryan:
You can feel that in the episodes that you've written.
Ava Coleman:
Oh, thank you.
Bryan:
So we were talking a little bit about Barbara and the way she's developed. You said you liked her. What is it that you like about Barbara?
Ava Coleman:
I love her. I love Barbara because she's lived a lot of life. She's very comfortable with who she is, but she's pushed by the young people around her to re-examine that. And she's very stubborn in a lot of ways. But she's actually a lot more open, I think, than it seems at first glance. And she does learn a lot. And she does admit to her mistakes, though it takes some time.
Bryan:
In a very sophisticated way.
Ava Coleman:
Yes, it's very interesting for me to write for someone of her generation, because that's my parents' generation. So there are a lot of things that I work out through the character of Barbara. And then there's a lot of things that I've just seen, not even just from my parents, but their friends and other people in my life of that age.
Ava Coleman:
There's so many differences between them and my generation, how we handle emotional issues. And so it's been really fun to step into those shoes, because in some ways I feel like a very old soul. And then other ways I feel like I haven't changed at all since I was at Sidwell. So it's nice to be able to go back and forth between all those personalities, I guess.
Bryan:
So she's the mentor teacher?
Ava Coleman:
Yes.
Bryan:
She's very successful. And in fire, the great character development I thought was her admitting the worries she had about her spouse and the way she shared those, especially with the little boy. It's a very moving scene, you came up with that? That's your writing and your character development for her?
Ava Coleman:
We all came up with it together as a group, but I definitely honed in on it and wrote it out from the outline stage into an actual script. And that moment with the little boy was really nice for me, because what I felt was Barbara, she'll open up to her friend Melissa and tell her, this is what's going on within my family. But she's not going to go around and explain that to everybody, because it's not really everybody's business.
Ava Coleman:
And she hasn't done anything so wrong that she has to beg for forgiveness and explain everything. But when she sees that little boy, and I think that was largely Quinta's idea, was to have her see a student still afraid. And then that be the awakening moment for her.
Ava Coleman:
I like the way she spoke in code to him of saying, "We all get scared." Not telling too much, and obviously nothing that a small child wouldn't understand. But I thought it was very in her character, the way she broke it down for him. And you see it in Shirley Ralph's amazing performance. You see it in her face and her eyes, how big it really is. But to this kid, it's just helping him get through the moment.
Bryan:
It's very sweet, very sweet. And so is the relationship between Barbara and Janine, which by the time you get to mom, the most recent episode, it seems to have changed quite a bit. How have you conceived of that, you and your peers, in terms of the arc of that relationship?
Ava Coleman:
Yeah, I think it's a very real thing that a lot of us have felt, is you have these members of your family that are not related to you by blood. And you meet them, you meet them in many different ways and places. And oftentimes it's not a perfect relationship. And I think that that's what pulls me in towards Janine and Barbara so much, is that they do butt heads a lot, but they care about each other.
Ava Coleman:
And you don't really butt heads with people like that when you don't care about them, that's part of the bond. And you can only get annoyed with someone that much when you love them, and you really want to see them do better.
Ava Coleman:
So I think that relationship has taken a lot of different turns, but the truth of it is that they are there for each other and they need each other, which I think is fun to see a character like Barbara realize this is a person who I didn't know three years ago, but now I'm sure she can't imagine her life without her. So it's been really nice to follow that.
Bryan:
So why do you think this show is resonating so deeply with people right now? What is it? Speaking to our moment in some way, or some concern of our moment or some joy in our moment, what do you make of the success?
Ava Coleman:
I'll be honest, I don't make that much of it. I try to stay out of it. I love that people love it, and I loved it. I joined in the second season, so I wasn't a part of the first season. And I watched it as a fan, and I felt how grounded it was. So I think that's part of what attracted me to it, is that it's silly, but again, it's real.
Ava Coleman:
And it's heartwarming, but it's not spoonfeeding you. And lessons are learned. I love lessons. I love people hopefully being able to walk away having learned something or felt a new feeling, or put the pieces to some puzzle together. But it's always a fine line of you never want to be too heavy-handed with that. And I think that the bosses at Abbott are great at managing that. And I think it comes through.
Ava Coleman:
But I also think it's funny, and people want to laugh. And it's a wide-ranging level of comedies and humors and different types of jokes. There are jokes in there for my mom. There are jokes in there for me, and there are jokes in there for hopefully Sidwell students. So I think that there's a little something for everybody, which is really nice.
Bryan:
It's very inviting.
Ava Coleman:
Thank you.
Bryan:
And what about the lessons, you mentioned lessons that are learned from it. What are some of the most important lessons that you want to convey through it? Not that it's didactic necessarily, but there are these little gems in it that make each episode? And in part wanting you to come back for more. That's part of what makes you come back, is there are these little lessons. What have been some of the most successful lessons you've conveyed?
Ava Coleman:
I have the things that I hope people gather from my episodes, and we've touched on those a little bit. But I think the main thing that we've done, and Quinta's done so well, is show how important teachers are. And that's been really amazing for me to be a part of, because some of the writers have parents that were teachers or still are teachers, but where I'm coming from is I was a student.
Ava Coleman:
And so it's realizing in retrospect, how important those figures are and how much they deserve. And obviously they deserve to be paid and to live comfortably, but also that these are like, they're not your parents, but they do a lot of parenting. And they're incredibly important figures with rich inner lives.
Ava Coleman:
They bring a lot of stuff to school with them and still do their jobs. So I think that's the big lesson that we carry through every episode, and that's part of the show's DNA. And then as far as other lessons, I think it's just what people take from it. You try not to control the reaction, but just make sure that they end up feeling something. And that's the most important thing.
Bryan:
How does the principal end up being named Ava Coleman?
Ava Coleman:
It's funny, no, it's a coincidence. So basically, I knew Quinta socially before the show, but not super well. Well enough that the name Ava Coleman sounded like a good name to her. And then when I ended up going out for the job season one, I read the script as you do before you go on these staffing meetings in this business.
Ava Coleman:
And I'm reading the script at 6:00 AM with a cup of coffee and almost spit my coffee out, because I'm like, okay, that's not just my first or my last name. That's the whole thing.
Ava Coleman:
So basically, she liked the name Ava, wanted to name the character Ava. And then Coleman fits. That sounds nice too. And it was just a big mistake that ended up being very silly and funny, especially when I joined. And the crew was like, excuse me.
Bryan:
What do you make of her character? How do you think of her in the show, in her relationships with others?
Bryan:
My wife said, "Well, she's the character who has the most growth to do, the one with the most growing to do." How do you think of her?
Ava Coleman:
I think she's very real, and I love writing for her because I get to share these parts of myself that I would maybe keep a little quieter. I get to put those words in her mouth. Just the things about enjoying the luxuries of life. And sometimes it goes way too far, but it's not necessarily wrong.
Ava Coleman:
There's just levels to extravagance, and I love how Janelle James plays her. But yeah, she's definitely a complicated figure, but she brings a lot of chaos but also joy to the school through her antics. And I tend to root for her. I think she's a really important presence.
Bryan:
I love this piece. I think it was in mom with Gregory and Shana and over bonding over the Orioles.
Bryan:
And it seems like Jacob plays that role a lot. He tries to create these situations where he brings out the best in people, where he tries to bring people together.
Ava Coleman:
That was a really fun story to write because it shows a lot of things, but what really I took away from it is you just can't force things. It's like, it's nice to connect with people, but it doesn't work when you're doing it just to connect. So that's where I feel that Gregory and Jacob learned a lesson in that. Because Jacob at the beginning is like, "Well, just fix it." And it's like, well, that's not really how life works. You can't just start getting along with somebody.
Ava Coleman:
And they all realize that this organic bonding experience of rooting for the Orioles is what's going to do it for them. But no one could have guessed that that would be the thing, or that that would wash away their previous beef. So I really enjoy Jacob's good intentions, and then realizing sometimes that's not all it takes.
Bryan:
Yeah, and so we're talking about Baltimore, but how did we end up in Philadelphia? What led to the setting of the show there?
Ava Coleman:
Quinta's background, she's from Philly. Her mom was a public school teacher in Philadelphia. And so that was really important for her to just show that specific part of her story and what she's seen, and what she knows those teachers deal with on a daily basis. So it was fun to have that proximity to DC obviously at different places. But I know enough about Philly and spend enough time in Philly to feel like I understood where we were coming from.
Bryan:
I've spent some time there too, and it does a great job of tapping into the Eagles and the Philly. There's an authenticity to it. There's the South Philly characters and characters from different neighborhoods, and it just seems that it has a real sense of place. Have all the writers spent time there, or is it just happenstance that you've been there?
Ava Coleman:
Yeah, most of the writers have spent a little bit of time there, and some of the other writers are from Philly area or Pennsylvania, and then others I think just know about it, just did the research and get it through osmosis from those who are from the area. So that's been really fun, I think, to have the different perspectives that can all be placed in Philadelphia.
Bryan:
TV has changed so much, not necessarily since you've been writing, but certainly since you experienced it. I read a piece that was in The Times recently that talked about how before the streaming era, we would all have watched the same show and would all come in and talk about it the next day.
Bryan:
So I can remember that with say Cosby, I can remember it with iconic shows like Friends. This particular article was talking about Seinfeld.
Bryan:
What has changed about the ability of television to create community? Or are we just creating in a different way now? I'd just be interested in your perspective on that and how it might affect your writing.
Ava Coleman:
I think we're creating it in a different way, and I think it's a lot more small communities that we're building around shows. So it isn't that same appointment television that I remember from a few years ago, but you can build deeper connections with people on more specific shows.
Ava Coleman:
And I'm into Korean dramas, which it's very different than what I do for my work, but I've been able to make friendships surrounding those shows that we all watch at different times, binge watch or however, but it's more of a common interest, but just with the smaller community. And I think it's good. It doesn't bother me. I think it's all positive if it's helping you connect with other people.
Bryan:
What are you watching? What's really good in your view, other than Abbott Elementary?
Ava Coleman:
That's a great question. I don't watch a ton of TV right now other than Korean dramas, because I do feel like it's so different from work that it takes my mind off it.
Bryan:
You need an escape.
Bryan:
I usually can't watch education shows, but I can watch Abbott Elementary.
Ava Coleman:
That's great, I like to hear that.
Bryan:
The only other show that I could watch it is an academic show, but that was hard to watch, but I thought it was very good was The Chair. Do you know that?
Ava Coleman:
Okay. No. Yeah, I remember on Netflix.
Bryan:
That was very good.
Ava Coleman:
Oh cool, yeah.
Ava Coleman:
I need to check that one out. I think the main thing I'm watching, which does still have that appointment television vibe, is Succession.
Bryan:
How can you not watch it? That last episode was killer.
Ava Coleman:
So that show keeps me on my toes, and it keeps me very excited about what we do as [inaudible 00:29:17].
Bryan:
What do you like about it?
Ava Coleman:
It's so outlandish in the, I'm overusing the word real, but in the real stories it tells. I think a lot of people view the characters as all bad and no one to root for, but I find them all very intriguing and very complicated and deeply sad in a way that's also funny.
Ava Coleman:
And I love that. I love dark humor.
Bryan:
It's dark.
Ava Coleman:
I love the unexpected ways they make you laugh on that show, and the way they can release the tension through a laugh and the sharp turns that they take. And it's just a world that feels so far away from anything I've ever experienced.
Ava Coleman:
But again, you feel like even though you might not know this super rich New York type of family, you know people that act like parts of all of those characters. So it can be very cathartic in ways as well.
Bryan:
Yeah, it's interesting. You talk about dark humor, and I think about also White Lotus.
Ava Coleman:
I love White Lotus. Yeah, I really enjoyed that.
Bryan:
So your kind of humor is in that too. It is darker, but there's also something that comes from that dark humor. How would you see that as different from the type of humor that you're providing at Abbott Elementary, which is a kind of feel good humor.
Bryan:
Is there a different function that the dark humor serves?
Ava Coleman:
I think it can be, but I do think we actually can veer into that lane on Abbott as well. The way that we talk about certain teachers that aren't good, or the teachers that aren't putting their best foot forward. We can do a bit of satire as well. And I think that that's what the White Lotus and Succession teams do so well.
Ava Coleman:
But yeah, there's comedy that's supposed to make you feel good, and there's comedy that's supposed to make you think. I don't ever try to figure out what kind of comedy I'm writing when I'm writing it. I'm just whatever happens, and if it's the right fit for what we're working on, then we keep it in. And if not, we take it out.
Ava Coleman:
But yeah, I think shows White Lotus have been able to make you laugh through the pain of what you're watching and how upsetting it actually is. But it also shows you a whole different world that you didn't know existed or the underbelly of these different cultures. So yeah, it's really interesting.
Bryan:
Interesting episode on Abbott Elementary is when Jacob teaches Black History. How did that come about? That whole, the thinking about that? Because it's such a very timely topic and such an interesting one. How did that come to fruition in the episode, and what did you think was conveyed through that?
Ava Coleman:
I'd love to give the writer who came up with that idea of credit, but I don't remember. But I do remember talking about it, and my feeling about it was, it's all about, not all, but a lot about the intention behind what you're doing. And Jacob's intentions are very good. So I think to the naked eye, it's interesting to see a White teacher teach a room full of Black students about their history, but that's the reality of the situation. He's their teacher. That's what they need to learn.
Ava Coleman:
So I think it was really interesting to show his self-awareness about it. He knows who he is. He knows that it's kind of funny that he's the one teaching them this, but he also takes that responsibility very seriously and is a good teacher. And so that, I think being able to show he's a very funny character, and he takes a lot of jokes at his expense. But what we do know about him and what that episode was able to remind our audience of is that he's really good at this and that the school's very lucky to have him.
Ava Coleman:
So the parents can have some misconceptions, but the truth is he's making a difference.
Bryan:
One of the things that it seems to me that the show does is to just suspend judgment all the time also, and you've used the word real. There're beautiful little stories about how people relate to one another in very imperfect ways, but still in ways that are very meaningful. I think about, again, Jacob getting his co-teacher up on the fire engine.
Bryan:
That was a sweet moment. He engineers these, and it seems like the writers are trying to engineer these moments of interaction that provide a kind of insight to us in a, I don't know, a moment of happiness. And again, where we started the conversation of hope. The show is hopeful.
Ava Coleman:
I totally agree. And I think we're coming from a place of these teachers need much more than they have, but what can they give each other? And what can their students give to them that doesn't cost money? And that isn't about what the district has made available to them. It's just about those interpersonal connections that get you through hard times.
Bryan:
And there's plenty of need, but there's also plenty of vitality and creativity there. And good intentions and love actually for one another and for the students, which is a beautiful thing to see. You've also done some work with Tina Fey.
Ava Coleman:
I have.
Bryan:
What about that project? What stands out to you? What did you learn from it? What did you enjoy about it?
Ava Coleman:
Oh, I learned so much from, I was on Girls5eva for two seasons, the first two seasons of that show. The third season will actually be on Netflix. The first two were on Peacock. But that was my first job in a room. And so I learned everything there. I learned how to be in a room. I learned how to contribute. I learned when to speak up, when to listen.
Ava Coleman:
But I think the main thing I learned was just how to write jokes from some of the best in the business. And the way that that team Meredith Scardino and her team over at Little Stranger, the way they write jokes is fast and furious. Every line is funny on their shows.
Ava Coleman:
So I had to learn how to write just as funny as possible. And then everything that I do from that point on will just be scaled back. So I think I got the crash course in comedy writing at a very, very high level. And it was like I was thrown into the deep end, but with very supportive people. And so I just learned how to really, really write precisely and write funny. And I've taken those lessons with me over to Abbott. So that's been really great.
Bryan:
What other projects might be on the horizon for you? What are you thinking about? And anyone who's a writer always has a drawer full of projects. What are you thinking about?
Ava Coleman:
I'm really interested in movies. I like the fact that they have endings, unlike shows, which you kind of have to think very far into the future. But I've written a project that's based on my time at Sidwell, not necessarily about the academic part of Sidwell, but very much based on how I felt as a teenager.
Ava Coleman:
And I'm really interested in investigating those adolescent feelings, and anything coming of age is very interesting to me. So there are characters from my time at Sidwell that I haven't seen since I've been here, but are still very relevant to my life because of what we experienced together and what they taught me.
Bryan:
How they shape you.
Ava Coleman:
100%.
Ava Coleman:
So I'm very interested in those kind of teen comedies of just making funny situations out of growing pains. And then I love romantic comedies, and I'm working on some stuff in that arena that I think just answers a lot of questions or tries to answer a lot of questions about what it's like being a almost 30 year old woman at this time in the world.
Bryan:
And what films do you especially enjoy? What comedies have you found especially important to you?
Ava Coleman:
I think my favorite comedies would be 10 Things I Hate About You, Ladybird, those kinds of things. My favorite movie of all time is not a comedy, but it is a teen movie, which is A Walk to Remember, which is very high school and melodramatic.
Bryan:
There's a whole genre of those, so you're building into the genre, you've got an installment planned.
Ava Coleman:
Yes. So I like anything just with a cute love story and a coming of age story, and I'm like, why don't I know what my favorite movies are? There's this movie called The Duff, that's another high school movie. Just things that bring me back to that time. Because I do think high school was, I don't think I peaked in high school, but I enjoyed it a lot. I like going back. I like thinking about it.
Bryan:
Oh, that's great. What would you tell your 18 year old self? You'll be talking to our students tomorrow.
Ava Coleman:
I know.
Bryan:
What advice would you have for yourself?
Ava Coleman:
I would remind my 18 year old self that life is not a race. I would say definitely take time to be a kid. I think I started working at the end of my freshman year of college.
Bryan:
That was for Scooter Braun, you were working then. And it was, as you said, it was almost a full-time job.
Ava Coleman:
Yeah, I was interning for the first couple of years, but three to four days a week. And spending a lot more time there than at school. And I think that was all good for me, and I wouldn't change anything. But I do think that especially coming out of a place like Sidwell where success is a given, that's just what you're supposed to aim for. I think you can try to rush towards that.
Ava Coleman:
And I would tell myself, it'll come. It'll happen on its own time. Don't force it. You don't have to compete with other people. It's really your life and you're in control. I think that would've been a really good lesson. And I also probably would've told her, you can't really tell someone not to be insecure. But I'd be like, maybe don't be. Maybe try to be more confident.
Bryan:
Sometimes we need to need to grow up for that.
Ava Coleman:
Yeah, exactly. There was no reasoning with 18 year old me. The insecurity was there, and it's still there in many different ways, but I think I was very hard on myself, and I would suggest lightening up.
Bryan:
How did you work through that period of being so hard on yourself, and how have you been able to get perspective?
Ava Coleman:
Therapy, I think that's been the biggest thing. I've always been very reflective and I always wrote in high school, and that was the one thing I always knew I was good at. I didn't think about it as a career, but I knew that when I would write an essay, I was going to do well.
Ava Coleman:
It was the science and the math of it where I was like, yeah, right. But that has always helped me. I've always been very good at thinking about my feelings, but I think therapy, which I was in therapy throughout Sidwell, and then I've taken breaks and gone back.
Ava Coleman:
And I think just having that person to give you perspective, and that person who's not fully engaged in your life to be able to point you in the right direction of how to work through these insecurities. And what's real and what's not, has been the biggest thing for me. And I definitely have gotten a lot better at utilizing that resource in my late 20s.
Bryan:
Well, and there's a lot of pressure when you come out of school too. You mentioned everybody thinks that you're going to succeed. There's a kind of pressure that comes along with that. How did you navigate all of that? Because it takes a certain amount of courage to step away from that in a way and say, "Well, I'm going to do this at my own pace."
Ava Coleman:
Yeah, I think I was forced to do it. I don't think I was handling the pressure well at all when I was in music. And I grew really unhappy just from not taking care of myself and never stopping.
Ava Coleman:
And so when I left to become a writer, I think a lot of people saw that as a brave leap of faith. And I can see that, but what it really was I was burnt out and I had to stop. And I knew what I wanted to do instead, so I just said, "Fine, I'll do it."
Ava Coleman:
But it wasn't like, I'm going to take this big leap. It was really like, there's no other option. I have to stop doing what I'm doing, and so that means I have to pivot.
Bryan:
Yeah, it takes a lot of courage to do that though.
Ava Coleman:
Thank you.
Bryan:
And to immerse yourself into something in the way that you have, and then to achieve the kind of success that you've been able to find as a result of it.
Ava Coleman:
Thank you.
Bryan:
How do you feel about that? Did you ever think that you'd be working on a Golden Globe winning sitcom?
Ava Coleman:
No, it feels very separate from me. I feel like I'm very connected to Abbott and I'm very proud of the show's success, but I tend to put it on the table next to me. And I learned the hard way that your job cannot be all of who you are. It cannot be your entire personality or the only thing that you have going on.
Ava Coleman:
I still am not great with hobbies and things like that, but I try to not engage too much in the positive discourse around the show, because then to me, I would have to also engage in anything negative that comes up. And I don't want to do that, so I just try to stay out of it. But also, I want to make the best stuff that I can.
Ava Coleman:
So I work really hard, and I enjoy going to the parties and going to the award shows, that's very exciting to me and very fun. But it feels like maybe there're two versions of me, and there's the work version that gets to experience all that, and then I go home and just feel like regular.
Bryan:
That seems pretty healthy to me.
Ava Coleman:
Thank you.
Ava Coleman:
Yeah, it feels good. I think sometimes people think I'm not celebrating wins, but I do. I feel very excited for everything, but I also know that that's not everything that there is in life.
Bryan:
And you've achieved an awful lot in the time since you've left here. Do you have any dreams that you'd plan to pursue other than the screenwriting?
Ava Coleman:
That's a good question. I think the main thing for me right now is just taking it one day at a time. I guess my dream would be to be open to anything and go whatever ways life takes me. I like being flexible. I think switching careers in my mid 20s taught me that you can change your life whenever you want.
Bryan:
You can do it again if you want to.
Ava Coleman:
Yeah, exactly. And I'm not opposed to that. I think I love writing and I'll write for my whole life no matter what, but I don't know what I'll be writing or if that'll be all I'm doing. But yeah, I really just want to have a good, happy life. So whatever I can do to achieve that.
Bryan:
That's a good goal.
Bryan:
It's such a great piece of wisdom to offer our students too, because you can come out and think that you want to do a particular thing, come out of the school, or you might want to be an attorney, you might want to be a doctor, you might want to be an engineer, you might want to be a teacher. But to remain open to other possibilities that may not have occurred to you.
Ava Coleman:
Yeah, I think DC can be tough on that. I think it can be a very, you pick a thing and you go for it forever. And that's good if you love it, but a lot of the times people pick something that they don't love. And my vote would be stop doing that if you can. Obviously, not everyone has the ability, but if that's an option or if you can make it an option, I would always vote for that.
Bryan:
This has been so nice to talk with you.
Ava Coleman:
Thank you.
Bryan:
Thank you for making time to be with us.
Ava Coleman:
Oh, thank you.
Bryan:
Thank you for coming back, for Let Your Life Speak Day. You clearly have a lot to share with our students. We're very fortunate to have you back, and we're also very proud of everything you've accomplished.
Bryan:
Thank you.
Ava Coleman:
Thank you so much, that was so fun.
Bryan:
Yeah, it was fun.