This is one writer who’s about to find out. I just signed a six-month contract as executive consultant to a rapidly expanding television network in Bucharest, Romania. I will be responsible for recruiting and training the next generation of Romanian writers in situation comedy, serial drama, telenovela, sketch comedy, and whatever else the network throws my way. It’s also part of my brief to recruit and train a new cadre of story editors, dramaturges, and development executives. Oh, and not for nothing, but we need to put six new shows on the air by September 2007. Good times.

Friends say I’m crazy for taking this job. They say I’m having an insane midlife crisis, though in fairness, this is the sort of crisis I would gladly embrace at any age. Because here’s the thing: I’m not just training writers, I’m shaping the way they think. And in the sense that television both reflects and directs its culture, I’ll be shaping the way all of Romania thinks, as well.

Almost 20 years ago, Romania underwent a revolution, overthrew a dictator, and embarked on the path of democracy. It’s been a shaky path, not without missteps, but by and large the young writers I’ll be working with have no knowledge of what it means not to live in freedom. They are the new world. The way they go about making television - both their message and their methodology - will be the norm not just for themselves but for those whom they, in turn, teach and train. I like to think, then, that I’m teaching 50 years into the future. That may be overstating the case, but I know I’ll have an impact, an impact far greater than I’ve ever had, or ever could have, in the mature television market and mature (though sometimes the way we act it’s hard to tell) democracy that is the United States of America.

By the way, it’s the ambition of this young and energetic network to develop and sell formats throughout Eastern Europe, and to reach out to writers and editors in other countries, and bring them along for the ride. By fortunate timing, then, I find myself in a position to change the vector of TV writing practice and philosophy throughout a region currently in the midst of explosive transformation. I may not be able to change the whole world, but as for the Wild East, well, I’m sure gonna try.

John Vorhaus is author of THE COMIC TOOLBOX: HOW TO BE
FUNNY EVEN IF YOU’RE NOT. That’s why he gets these gigs.