PROF: A Pilot Script

My script is a pilot episode of a show named PROF which tells the story of Julie Fried, a thirty-something tenure-track professor of musicology who teaches at a liberal arts college in upstate New York. When Julie is accused by a student named Kayla Wallace of discrimination, a university tribunal is assembled to investigate the case. The events surrounding the case, however, are eclipsed by a text message that Campus Security sends out on the morning of Julie’s hearing notifying the campus community that a student named Andrew Fine, the only other student mentioned in Kayla’s discrimination complaint, has gone missing. Julie soon discovers that her problems are more complicated than she had previously thought – and the only way to exonerate herself is to locate Andrew Fine.The script that I have written explores questions related to Jewish liberal identity as they might play out on college campuses, where Jewish students have become lightning rods for bigger conversations that Americans are having about identity, race, and religion. I hope that this unfinished story communicates the complexity of contemporary Jewish identity in a compelling and entertaining way.