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WILL AND GRACE from page 73
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Entertainment president, who suggest-
ed they focus on the "he's gay-she's
straight" relationship, the premise for
Will Grace. Kohan and Mutchn- ick
banged out a script and spent four
tense months feverishly faxing
Littlefield the grosses from hit films
with gay characters such as The
Birdcage and My Best Friend's Wedding.
When the go-ahead finally came,
they decided to name the show Will &
Grace after a concept. in Martin Buber's
Jewish philosophy book I and Thou.
"Buber talks about how in order to
have an `I-Thou' relationship in the
presence of the Eternal ... one needs
the 'will' to go after it and the 'grace'
to receive it," Kohan says.
He and Mutchnick concede that
Ellen, which featured the first gay
. primetime TV lead, helped pave the
way for Will & Grace — though Ellen
crashed and burned after the coming-
out episode. Why Will escaped that
fate, Kohan says, is because "our agen-
da is entertainment, not politics."
Mutchnick agrees: "We never stand
on a soapbox."
`INSIDE DATING' from page 74
ostensibly for dramatic conflict —
Schwartz may be the first sitcom in
which two appealing young Jews gener-
ate romantic tension.
For Engel, the reason is simple. "I'm
Jewish, and the character is basically
an exaggerated version of me," he says.
Growing up Reform in New
Rochelle, N.Y., the now 40-year-old
Engel was as sports-obsessed as
Schwartz. He shot hoops daily, fanta-
sizing that he was a Knicks star and
that sports announcer Mary Albert
broadcast his every move. Every time a
car drove past the hoop in his drive-
way, he assumed it was a Knicks scout.
"If I missed the basket, I- was, like,
devastated," says Engel, who at 5-foot-
9-inches was too short to play on his
high school team.
At Tufts, the budding comedy writer
made the Hillel team and taught a
comedy writing course, but decided to
attend NYU law school to please his
parents. "I spent most of my 20s try-
ing to convince my dad that I didn't
want to be an attorney," says Engel,
who wrote screenplays on weekends
and got his first break penning a com-
edy for producer Joel Silver.
By 1991, he'd snagged a full-time
writing job on HBO's Dream On,
though he was too terrified to imagine
Albert announcing his ditching of law
But the sitcom has generated a few
complaints — largely from Jewish
viewers. They're pleased that Grace
reminisces about attending Camp
Ramah (Eisenberg went there) and
being profiled in the Jewish Forward
but gripe that she's never seriously
dated a Jewish man.
Kohan, for one, believes she proba-
bly never will. "I'd love her to find a
Jewish love interest, but that rela-
tionship might actually work, and
then there'd be no more Will &
Grace," he says.
Mutchnick faced a similar dilemma
when Eisenberg married a Jewish man
not long ago. "There's been a shift in
our relationship," he admits.
"But I fly to New York all the time
to see her, and we've done a pretty
good job of maintaining our friend-
ship." He pauses, then adds, laughing,
"Sometimes I even wonder where her
husband is in all of this." Ill
Will and Grace airs 9 p.m.
Thursdays on NBC.
with a trademark "Yessssss!"
Nevertheless, Engel went on to co-
executive produce Dream On, serve as a
consultant for Mad About You and create
the short-lived CBS series Work With Me,
about married attorneys who are forced
into the same practice.
Inside Schwartz came about when
Engel decided to experiment with the
sitcom format and thought it would be
funny to merge the grandiose field of
sports with a person's private life.
"Sports coverage is so pompous," he
says, with a laugh. "It's like they're talk-
ing about gladiators going into battle."
Schwartz also allows Engel to poke
fun at his dates from hell — and the
talent agency that refused to sign him.
Schwartz's hack agent, named after the
William Morris agency, "carries himself
like Mark Ovitz but has the client list of
Broadway Danny Rose," Engel says.
To satisfy NBC attorneys, the char-
acter must always introduce himself as
"William Morris, not affiliated with
the William Morris Agency, the largest
talent agency in the world."
Engel's talent agency is Creative
Artists Agency. "I could have named
the character that, but it wouldn't have
been as funny," he says. ❑
Inside Schwartz airs 8:30 p.m.
Thursdays on NBC.