Will Scheffer is an American playwright, and was co-creator and executive producer of the television series ''

Big Love ''Big Love'' is an American drama television series that aired on HBO from March 12, 2006 to March 20, 2011. It stars Bill Paxton as the patriarch of a fundamentalist Mormon family in contemporary Utah that practices polygamy, with Jeanne Tri ...

'' and the American remake of Getting On with longtime

life partner The term significant other (SO) has different uses in psychology and in colloquial language. Colloquially, "significant other" is used as a gender-neutral term for a person's partner in an intimate relationship without disclosing or presuming ...

Mark V. Olsen. He is President and CEO of Anima Sola Productions, which he founded with Olsen in 1992 to create television and film content. His writing credits include ''Big Love: In the Beginning'', ''Ellis Island'', '' Duck Town'', ''

Easter Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the '' Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samuel ...

'', '' In the Gloaming'', '' The Pact'', ''

Citizen Baines ''Citizen Baines'' is an American drama series television series created by Emmy Award-winning producer Lydia Woodward, that stars James Cromwell. The series premiered on CBS September 29, 2001 and ended on November 3, 2001. Synopsis Cromwell s ...

'', and '' Getting On''.

Life

Family

Scheffer's father, Ben, was a

Holocaust survivor Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universally accep ...

, who

emigrated Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

from

the Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

through

Ellis Island Ellis Island is a federally owned island in New York Harbor, situated within the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, that was the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United States. From 1892 to 1954, nearly 12 mil ...

in 1941. His mother, Sandra, was the daughter of Jews who fled Russia in 1916.

Education

Scheffer attended State University of New York at Purchase where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honors in

Theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

Career

In 1997, Scheffer was honored with the ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' magazine "One of the Rising Writers to Watch" award. He has also taught and lectured at Bernard M. Baruch College,

Lewis and Clark College Lewis & Clark College is a private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. Originally chartered in 1867 as the Albany Collegiate Institute in Albany, Oregon, the college was relocated to Portland in 1938 and in 1942 adopted the name Lewis & C ...

and

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

Personal life

Scheffer is openly

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

; he and Olsen have been married to each other since the early 1990s. About their collaborative process, Scheffer said: "Mark and I talk everything through but don't actually write together. We take turns on drafts, passing them back and forth for multiple revisions. Sometimes I'll write the first draft and he'll revise and sometimes he'll write the first draft. On set it's looser and we'll have to revise together but we prefer to actually write in our own space. The 'fantasy' image of having desks facing each other and tossing lines back and forth doesn't work for us."

Works

* *

References

External links

* * Place of birth missing (living people) Living people American people of Dutch-Jewish descent American people of Russian-Jewish descent American dramatists and playwrights American male dramatists and playwrights American male screenwriters Jewish American dramatists and playwrights American male television writers American soap opera writers Television producers from New York (state) Showrunners LGBT producers American gay writers State University of New York at Purchase alumni Baruch College faculty Lewis & Clark College faculty School of Visual Arts faculty Writers Guild of America Award winners 1969 births Screenwriters from New York (state) Screenwriters from Oregon 21st-century American Jews {{US-screen-writer-stub