‘Feels like a pipe dream.’ This CSU professor is writing for a Netflix show.
Natalia Temesgen got a big break.
The 33-year-old assistant professor of creative writing at Columbus State University is one of the writers for Netflix’s “Dear White People” during its fourth and final season.
The comedy-drama series, based on a film of the same name, follows several black college students at a predominately white Ivy League institution as they explore social and racial issues that affect them.
For Temesgen, who moved to Columbus at age 8 before going off to college and returning to the city as an adult, the job is a dream come true.
“It’s a very bizarre thing to think about breaking into Hollywood when you’re living in Columbus, Georgia,” she said. “And you know, you have two kids and a real job. ... It feels like a pipe dream almost.”
How’d she get here?
Temesgen said she’s thrilled she’s in this situation.
It began about two years ago when she adapted one of her plays into a television pilot. The play, “Electric, Alive,” has never been produced. It’s set in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1920 — the year leading up to the Tulsa Race Massacre where white rioters killed black residents and destroyed the prosperous Greenwood neighborhood, known as “Black Wall Street.”
The work follows a college-educated young black woman from a wealthy family living in Greenwood. She manipulates her identity — passing for white when it’s advantageous — without telling her family.
Toward the beginning of this summer, after revisions and edits, Temesgen submitted her pilot to a series of competitions. Under the title “Bea Rose,” Temesgen’s pilot placed in the Top 50 of the 2019 Launch Pad Pilot Competition. She began seeing if friends in Hollywood wanted to read copies of her script.
One of those friends interested was Jack Moore, a producer for “Dear White People.” Showrunners were looking at script samples to pick season-four writers. One Skype interview later, and she’d been selected.
“I completely freaked out, ” Temesgen said. “It was crazy. It was really very cool.”
She hopes her success provides an example for people looking to break into the industry, she said.
“Whenever you see people say ‘It worked out for me, and here’s a path,’” she said. “It’s like okay, that sounds very specific to you. … But I do feel like somehow it broke through. I would just want to let folks know there appear to be ways to get those national-type jobs.”
What’s it been like working on the show?
Temesgen began work on the show in mid-November. She splits time between Los Angeles and Columbus. Her husband, Pete, a medical malpractice defense attorney, has been very supportive. The couple has two children: 6-year-old Aria and 4-year-old Paul.
“He helped me prep for the interview,” she said. “He never had that feeling of like ‘Okay, you’re going to be gone for how long? And I’m going to be alone with the kids for how long?’”
Discussions are still taking place over how the series’ fourth and final season will play out. It’s set to air sometime in 2020.
Temesgen brings a unique perspective to the show. She teaches at a university, and she, like some of the main characters, is a black woman who has attended an Ivy League institution, having graduated from Princeton University.
“I have a unique vantage point,” she said. “I get to talk about what sorts of things I’ve observed that my students are preoccupied with or afraid of.”
Viewers, she said, should expect closure as many characters finish up their senior years and begin different chapters of their lives.
“Every season, these characters are doing something a little different,” she said. “They’re not like totally new characters, but they’re exploring a new thing or challenging some previously held sense of what they believe. ...That’s happening again. There’s a lot of other really cool stuff I don’t want to talk about.”
Her time in Hollywood will also give her new material for her screenwriting classes, she said.
“Having the experience of what it looks like in practice, I’m thrilled and excited to be able to bring that back to my students next year,” she said. “I feel like an ambassador for Columbus and Columbus State.”