I wrote a sitcom starring indie musicians
Sufjan Stevens, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, and others live in the same apartment building in this 29-page script.
Having just come off the end of my third year at university, I needed something to pass the time during the long Australian summer. Watching cricket can only get you so far, so this situation resulted in the piece you are about to read (assuming you have the time for a 29-page speculative TV script).
The idea came from a few conversations with one of my roommates, where we essentially compared our own living situation to that of well-known indie musicians. We joked about how James Mercer could try to motivate Jeff Mangum to do something with his life and otherwise engage in other classic sitcom tropes. After a few of these silly hypothetical situations, I said, “I’m writing this, this could be something good.”
From those initial conversations, it took around a month to write the first episode — which features Mercer, Mangum, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, Sufjan Stevens, St. Vincent, and others I’ll let you discover for yourselves — from start to finish. I had a blast writing this thing (which you can read here), and after the positive reception from the very kind folks over at /r/indieheads, I decided to plot out a few more episodes and am currently in the process of breaking them down and writing a few scenes here and there.
Perhaps I’ll be able to share more of James Mercer and company in the future, so stay tuned.
