Inside The Writers' Room Of 'Pose' And 'Gentefied' - Latino USA

In September of 2016, Steven Canals sat down with television producer Ryan Murphy to pitch “Pose,” a period drama that follows the lives of queer and transgender characters involved in New York City’s underground ballroom scene during the 80s and 90s. Steven, a recent graduate of the UCLA MFA program in screenwriting, had developed “Pose” in a pilot writing class in 2014. Over the course of two years, he had pitched the series around Hollywood over 150 times—Ryan Murphy was the first to believe in his vision and greenlight the show.

Earlier that year, Linda Yvette Chavez was working with Marvin Lemus to write and direct an anthology web series called “Gentefied,” which focused on seven characters navigating gentrification in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. In 2017, Chavez and Marvin began expanding “Gentefied” into a half-hour show, shifting the narrative to follow three cousins who work to keep their Boyle Heights taco shop in business in the midst of gentrification. Five months later, Linda and Marvin embarked on a pitch tour around Hollywood. This was Linda’s first experience selling a television script, and by the end of it, she was at the center of a six network bidding war.