Alan Ball: Conversations features interviews that span Alan Ball's entire career and include detailed observations and insights into his Academy Award-winning film American Beauty and Emmy Award-winning television shows Six Feet Under and True Blood. Ball began his career as a playwright in New York, and his work soon caught the attention of Hollywood television producers. After writing for the sitcoms Grace Under Fire and Cybill, Ball turned his attention to the screenplay that would become American Beauty. The critical success of this film opened up exciting possibilities for him in the realm of television. He created the critically acclaimed show Six Feet Under, and after the series finale, he decided to explore the issue of American bigotry toward the Middle East in his 2007 play All That I Will Ever Be and the film Towelhead, which he adapted and directed in the same year. Ball returned to television once again with the series True Blood--an adaptation of the humorous, entertaining, and erotic world of Charlaine Harris's vampire novels. In 2012 Ball announced that he would step down as executive producer of True Blood, in part, to produce both a new television series and his latest screenplay, What's the Matter with Margie?

About the Author
Thomas Fahy, New York, New York, is associate professor of English and director of American studies at Long Island University, C. W. Post Campus. He is the author of Staging Modern American Life: Popular Culture in the Experimental Theatre of Millay, Cummings, and Dos Passos and editor of Considering Alan Ball: Essays on Death, Sexuality, and the American Dream, as well as several other books.


Book Information
ISBN 9781617038778
Author Thomas Fahy
Format Hardback
Page Count 176
Imprint University Press of Mississippi
Publisher University Press of Mississippi