Women Behind the Scenes Spotlight: Bridget Carpenter

Bridget Carpenter

Today’s Women Behind the Scenes spotlight is shone on Television writer, producer and playwright Bridget Carpenter.

Bridget was born in New York and holds an M.F.A. from Brown University. She has taught playwriting in grammar school, high school and college. She was a playwright-in-residence at the Royal National Theatre in London and has 14 plays under belt (between the years of 1994 and 2003).

It was in 2003 that she turned her attention to television writing, becoming a story editor, writer and eventually a co-producer for the supernatural series Dead Like Me. After her two season stint with that show, she became a writer for the short-lived 2005 TV comedy Head Cases that starred Chris O’Donnell and Adam Goldberg. It was also in 2005 that she was a writer for the TV special Tsunami Aid: A Concert of Hope.

But it was her work in 2006 that really got her noticed, as she joined the writing staff of the critically acclaimed series Friday Night Lights. She worked on that show as producer, supervising producer and eventually as a co-executive producer over the next five TV seasons. It was also during this time period (specifically in 2007) that she wrote an episode for the failed remake of the 1970’s classic series Bionic Woman. During her time with Friday Night Lights, Bridget was also nominated for several Writers Guild of America Awards.

In 2010, she joined the writing staff of the NBC family drama Parenthood where she has remained until this year. It was in 2011 that she was co-executive producer of this series as well.

Bridget’s next big project where she will serve as showrunner and executive producer will be the 2014 Sundance Channel drama series The Red Road (formerly known as The Descendants). This new series will be a hard-hitting drama, revolving around a sheriff struggling to keep his family together while simultaneously policing two clashing communities: the small town where he grew up and the neighboring Ramapo Mountains, the home of the Ramapo Mountain Indians. The cast of this straight-to-series show will include Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones), Tom Sizemore (Hawaii Five-0), Julianne Nicholson (Law & Order: Criminal Intent), Allie Gonino (The Lying Game) and Martin Henderson (Off the Map).