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April 26, 2005
Native son forges 'West Wing'-Constitution Center ties
By Gail Shister
Philadelphia Inquirer
When Philly-born Josh Singer studied constitutional law at Harvard, he never figured he'd be writing about it for NBC's The West Wing.
"It blows my mind all the time," says Singer, 33, in his second season as a West Wing staff writer. "I'm incredibly lucky. To be able to write for this show is just crazy."
Singer, Penn grad Melissa Fitzgerald (she plays C.J. Cregg's assistant, Carol), and supervising producer John Sacret Young will be here May 5 for a panel at the National Constitution Center.
The back story: On a Singer-written episode Nov. 30, President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) donated to the center the letter in which he had invoked the 25th Amendment.
For the constitutionally impaired, that one concerns presidential disability. In the season-four cliffhanger in '03, Bartlet stepped down when his daughter was kidnapped.
Through Singer, West Wing gave the letter, the pen Sheen used to sign it, and the script from the Nov. 30 episode to the center. It's part of a special exhibition that will open May 5.
To put it mildly, Singer (Upper Dublin High Class of '90) took a circuitous route to his dream job.
After graduation from Yale and a brief stint at Children's Television Workshop, he earned law and business degrees at Harvard. ("I didn't want to practice law. I just wanted to be able to play with legal concepts.")
Internships at Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel followed. Deciding his destiny was as a writer, Singer penned mock scripts for HBO's Six Feet Under and West Wing.
Normally, the odds of such scripts reaching the top are minuscule. For Singer, however, fortune intervened.
He sublet an apartment in L.A. from a woman whose boyfriend happened to be Lew Wells, a West Wing producer and brother of series honcho John Wells. Lew got the script to John, who offered Singer his first writing job.
"People spend years trying to get their stuff into the right hands," Singer says. Wells "is the best in the business, an unbelievable storyteller."
In the fall, West Wing's Sen. Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda), a progressive Republican from California, and Rep. Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits), a liberal Democrat from Texas, will battle for the White House.
Singer, who returns to work in June, says he doesn't know which candidate will succeed Bartlet. As a writer, it's thrilling either way.
"I focus on how much story there is to be told, not so much on who wins. We've got two great guys you'd want to vote for, as opposed to the lesser of two evils."
Sheen will stick around next season as Bartlet makes the transition from president to former president. That, too, makes Singer sing.
"Before, I only had one president to write for. Now I can write for three."
Posted by Jo at April 26, 2005 10:23 AM