Stacy A. Littlejohn

Last updated
Stacy A. Littlejohn
Born
Stacy Littlejohn

U.S.
Occupation(s)Writer
Producer
Showrunner

Stacy A. Littlejohn is an American screenwriter, producer and showrunner. She was the creator, writer and an executive producer of the VH1 network television series Single Ladies . [1] [2] Littlejohn has worked as a writer on Fox network's The Wanda Sykes Show , as a writer and supervising producer on The CW's All of Us , and as a producer on ABC's Life with Bonnie . She is currently working as a writer & co-executive producer on Empire .[ citation needed ]

Contents

Early life

Littlejohn was born in the San Francisco Bay Area. She attended the University of California, Berkeley with initial plans of becoming a criminal defense attorney, but along the way reevaluated her direction and shifted focus to Mass Communications. In her last year of college, she worked in the writer's room as an intern on Nickelodeon's sitcom My Brother and Me .

Career

After college, Littlejohn relocated to Los Angeles where she worked as a PA on Fox's The Last Frontier before securing a job as a writer's assistant to Matt Wickline and John Bowman on The Show. She then worked on the sitcom Moesha for a brief stint before Wickline offered her a job writing for a show he was creating for D.L. Hughley, ABC's sitcom The Hughleys .

Littlejohn next worked on such shows as One on One , Life with Bonnie , Platinum , Cedric the Entertainer Presents and Barbershop . She also lent her talents to an episode of Half & Half before working as a writer and producer on Will Smith's All of Us , culminating in Smith flying her out to New York to assist him on rewrites for the big-screen blockbuster Hitch . [3]

During the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, Littlejohn found herself unemployed for the first time since the age of 16. She took the time to work on a script she had been writing called Modern Love. Producer Maggie Malina of VH1, who was working with Queen Latifah's Flavor Unit in search of the right project, read the script and asked Littlejohn to pitch a show. Littlejohn responded with VH1's first-ever hour-long scripted series Single Ladies , which debuted May 30, 2011. [4] Along with the season 3 premiere of Basketball Wives, Single Ladies posted the network's highest ratings since October 2009 with its two-hour premiere drawing a 1.2 rating in the key P18-49 demo and 1.8 million total viewers. Combined with its 12am encore, Single Ladies drew in a total of 2.8 million viewers. [5] [6]

She worked as a writer and producer on American Crime, on ABC, created by John Ridley. She has more recently worked on Lethal Weapon , Proven Innocent and Dirty John . She had been developing an Empire spin-off series, but it was cancelled. [7]

Related Research Articles

<i>Roseanne</i> American television sitcom (1988–1997, 2018)

Roseanne is an American television sitcom created by Matt Williams which aired on ABC from October 18, 1988, to May 20, 1997, and briefly revived from March 27, 2018, to May 22, 2018. The show stars Roseanne Barr as Roseanne Conner and revolves around her family in the fictional town of Lanford, Illinois. Receiving generally positive reviews for its realistic portrayal of a working-class American family, the series reached No. 1 in the Nielsen ratings from 1989 to 1990 in its second season.

Who's the Boss? is an American sitcom television series created by Martin Cohan and Blake Hunter, that aired on ABC from September 20, 1984, to April 25, 1992, with a total of 196 half-hour episodes spanning eight seasons. It was produced by Hunter-Cohan Productions in association with Embassy Television and Columbia Pictures Television and stars Tony Danza as Tony Micelli, a former Major League Baseball athlete who strives to raise his daughter, Samantha Micelli, outside of the hectic nature of New York City and relocates her to Fairfield, Connecticut, where he works as a live-in housekeeper for a beautiful single advertising executive named Angela Bower. The series' cast also includes Katherine Helmond as Angela's mother, Mona Robinson, and Danny Pintauro as Angela's young son, Jonathan Bower.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amy Sherman-Palladino</span> American television writer, director, and producer (born 1966)

Amy Sherman-Palladino is an American television writer, director, and producer. She is the creator of the comedy-drama series Gilmore Girls (2000-2007), Bunheads (2012-2013), and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017-2023).

A television pilot in United Kingdom and United States television, is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell a show to a television network or other distributor. A pilot is created to be a testing ground to gauge whether a series will be successful. It is, therefore, a test episode for the intended television series, an early step in the series development, much like pilot studies serve as precursors to the start of larger activity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sara Gilbert</span> American actress (born 1975)

Sara Gilbert is an American actress best known for her role as Darlene Conner on the ABC sitcom Roseanne, for which she received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations, and its spin-off, The Conners (2018–present). She is also creator and former co-host of the CBS daytime talk show The Talk and had a recurring role as Leslie Winkle on CBS's The Big Bang Theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loni Anderson</span> American actress

Loni Anderson is an American actress. She played receptionist Jennifer Marlowe on the CBS sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati (1978–1982), which earned her three Golden Globe Awards and two Emmy Award nominations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kim Fields</span> American actress and television director

Kim Victoria Fields-Morgan is an American actress and director. She first gained fame as a child actress on the television series Good Times (1978–1979), and rose to greater prominence for her role as Dorothy "Tootie" Ramsey in the NBC sitcom Diff'rent Strokes (1979–1981), as well as its spin-off The Facts of Life (1979–1988).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lisa Ann Walter</span> American actress

Lisa Ann Walter is an American actress, comedian, and television producer, best known for her roles as Chessy the housekeeper in the romantic comedy film The Parent Trap (1998) and Melissa Schemmenti on the Peabody Award winning ABC mockumentary sitcom Abbott Elementary (2021–present), for which she received a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Ensemble in a Comedy Series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Derek Harvie</span> Canadian TV and film writer and producer (born 1971)

Derek Kevin Harvie is a Canadian TV and film writer and producer. Harvie grew up in Ottawa and graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in film and literature.

<i>All of Us</i> American television sitcom (2003–2007)

All of Us is an American sitcom that premiered on the UPN network in the United States on September 16, 2003, where it aired for its first three seasons. On October 1, 2006, the show moved to The CW, a new network formed by the merger of UPN and The WB, where it aired for one season, then was cancelled on May 15, 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mara Brock Akil</span> American screenwriter and television producer (born 1970)

Mara Brock Akil is an American television producer, screenwriter and director. She became the youngest African American female showrunner and executive producer when she created the sitcom Girlfriends (2000–2008), airing on UPN and The CW, and the first African American female showrunner to have two series simultaneously on broadcast network television when she created its spin-off The Game (2006–15) on The CW before moving to BET.

Brenda Hampton is an American television show creator, writer and producer. She created, wrote and produced the television shows 7th Heaven, Fat Actress, and The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

<i>Audrina</i> American TV series or program

Audrina is an American reality television series that originally aired on VH1 from April 17, 2011, until June 19, 2011. The series aired one season and focuses on the lives of Audrina Patridge, who came to prominence as a cast member on The Hills, and her family. Its premise was originated with Mark Burnett, who additionally served as the executive producer.

Basketball Wives is an American reality television series franchise on VH1. It chronicles the everyday lives of women romantically linked to men in the professional basketball industry.

<i>Single Ladies</i> (TV series) American TV series or program

Single Ladies is an American comedy-drama television series that debuted on May 30, 2011, as a two-hour television film on VH1. Created by Stacy A. Littlejohn and produced by Queen Latifah's Flavor Unit Entertainment, the series chronicles the lives of three friends—Val, Keisha and April —and their relationships. VH1 announced on February 28, 2014, that Single Ladies was canceled. It was announced on April 8, 2014, that BET Networks ordered a fourth season which would air on Centric. Single Ladies returned on March 18, 2015 with Melissa De Sousa joining the cast.

Witt/Thomas Productions is an American television and movie production company run by TV producers Paul Junger Witt and Tony Thomas. The company was consistently productive between its founding in 1973 and 1999, but is still active, producing an occasional film or TV series project. It has produced more than 25 American primetime television series, mostly half-hour sitcoms. Witt/Thomas is perhaps best known for producing the popular sitcoms Soap, Benson, It's a Living, The Golden Girls, Empty Nest, Blossom, and Brotherly Love. Witt and Thomas have also produced many cinematic works, including the 1989 box office collection success Dead Poets Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brandy filmography</span>

As an actress, Brandy Norwood has appeared in feature films and television shows. She made her television debut in 1993 in the ABC sitcom Thea, as the daughter of a single mother. Broadcast to low ratings, the series ran for only one season, but earned her a Young Artists Award nomination for Outstanding Youth Ensemble alongside her co-stars. In 1996, her short-lived engagement on Thea led Brandy to star in her own show, the UPN-produced sitcom Moesha, in which she played the title role of Moesha Mitchell, a Los Angeles girl coping with a stepmother as well as the pressures and demands of becoming an adult. The program debuted on UPN in January 1996, and soon became their most-watched show. The network decided to cancel the show after six seasons on the air, leaving it ending with a cliffhanger for a scrapped seventh season. Brandy was awarded an NAACP Image Award for her performance. In 1997, Brandy was hand-picked by producer Whitney Houston to play the title character in Rodgers and Hammerstein's television version of Cinderella featuring a multicultural cast that also included Jason Alexander, Whoopi Goldberg, and Houston. The two-hour Wonderful World of Disney special garnered an estimated 60 million viewers, giving the network its highest ratings in the time period in 16 years, and won an Emmy Award the following year.

Stacy Rukeyser is an American television writer and producer. Rukeyser landed her first job writing for CBS drama Without A Trace. She was a writer and an executive producer on the ABC Family series Greek, and worked on the series, October Road, Gigantic, One Tree Hill,The Lying Game and Twisted. Rukeyser is the executive producer of the third season of the Lifetime Series Unreal. She also produced the Netflix drama series Sex/Life.

Eunetta T. Boone was an American television writer and producer. She was the creator and writer of several television series and, at the time of her death, she was serving as the executive producer and showrunner for the third season of the Disney Channel series Raven's Home.

References

  1. ↑ Stelter, Brian (May 8, 2011). "In Cable Niches, Less Reality and More Original Shows". The New York Times . Retrieved 2011-06-06.
  2. ↑ Martinez, Janel (May 27, 2011). "'Single Ladies' Creator Stacy Littlejohn on TV's Image of Black Women". Black Enterprise. Retrieved 2011-06-06.
  3. ↑ "'Single Ladies' Creator Talks Season 2". 26 May 2012.
  4. ↑ Ho, Rodney (May 30, 2011). "VH1 embraces Atlanta with new 'Singles Ladies' show debuting May 30". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution . Retrieved 2011-06-06.
  5. ↑ Washington, Nyle (June 1, 2011). "Monday Night's Premiere of VH1's "Single Ladies" and "Basketball Wives" Season Three Propel Network to Highest Rated Night Since October 2009". ABC27 WHTM . Retrieved 2011-06-17.
  6. ↑ "'Single Ladies' Creator Stacy A. Littlejohn Exits VH1 Series". 4 September 2012.
  7. ↑ "'Empire' Cookie Spinoff Starring Taraji P. Henson Not Moving Forward at Fox". 14 December 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.