I have, over the years brought an enormous number of plays to television starting obviously with Nicholas Nickelby and then things like Angels In America or in Wit with Emma Thompson and Mike Nichols. So, yes, I do find that very interesting and I'm sure that down the road there will be plays that I'll want to do that way.
Colin CallenderI think people want the intimacy in the engagement of sitting in a theater with people and seeing something happen live and engage in that. I think that could be a very powerful experience.
Colin CallenderThe play has to work for the super fans, and not speak down to them, and yet it had to play to those people who maybe had never read a Harry Potter book or seen the films.
Colin CallenderI've had a long association with the theater over the years but I had never produced a play and it was something that I'd always wanted to do.The movies moved away from dramas, and I think that I'm very excited by the opportunity to take smart writing that takes risks and see it on stage. It's exciting to see that engagement between the audience and the playwright.
Colin CallenderI think where Playground is heading is deeper into that marriage between stage, film and television, with the increasing number of people in the film business working in television, obviously something that we were very influential in starting and doing at HBO. And I think that that's the focus of where I see the company moving forward, continuing to explore that intersection of all that talent.
Colin CallenderThe White Queen in many ways it is representative of the sort of drama that I'm talking about. The books by Philippa Gregory were best sellers and they specifically told the story of history from the point of view of women.
Colin CallenderI think that's so particularly exciting about this moment in time is all the new platforms that are now existing, the Netflixes and the Hulus and Amazons and so and so forth; I mean they are really doing what pay TV was doing twenty years ago. So a show like Dancing On The Edge gets to have a digital life after it's playing on Starz. I think what's exciting is how these new platforms are providing more opportunities both for first-run programming on the one hand but also for second plays for shows that have appeared first either on traditional broadcast or on cable.
Colin Callender