Meet the Man Behind the Bluths

Mitchell Hurwitz, creator of the award-winning sitcom “Arrested Development” will be at Drexel University on Tuesday, Oct. 21 for a far-ranging conversation about the iconic show, his career as a successful writer/producer and a look ahead to the future of television.    

“Arrested Development” comically chronicled the lives of the Bluths, a dysfunctional, formerly-rich family. It ran for three seasons on Fox starting in 2003, and received a great deal of critical acclaim including six Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe. It was No. 8 on Time magazine’s 2007 list of the “Top 100 All Time Best Television Shows.” The show kept its devoted following after it went off the air and those fans were elated when it returned last year with an all new 15- episode season, this time on Netflix  

Hurwitz began his writing career on “The Golden Girls,” and his long career in television includes running “The John Larroquette Show,” co-creating “The Ellen Show,” “Running Wilde” and adapting numerous foreign TV programs including “Sit Down, Shut Up,” based on a program from Australia; and “The Thick of It” and “Absolutely Fabulous,” from Britain. He co-ran Tantamount Pictures, a TV production company for several years at Sony TV.

Among his career accolades are six Primetime Emmy Awards –three each in the Comedy Series and Writing for a Comedy Series categories- and the 2009 Outstanding Television Writer Award from the Austin Film Festival. In 2013 he was awarded Comedy Writer of the Year at the Montreal Comedy Festival. This spring, Hurwitz signed a multi-year deal with Netflix to create and produce new, original series for the streaming company– the first time Netflix has signed a long-term pact with a writer/producer.

“Having someone like Mitchell Hurwitz come to campus and engage with students is the kind of thing that sets Westphal College of Media Arts & Design and Drexel University apart,” said Karen Curry, executive director of the Kal & Lucille Rudman Institute for Entertainment Industry Studies. “Getting a chance to pick the brain of someone who’s been wildly successful in the industry, while you’re also engaging in the rigors of experiential learning –that’s what being a student at Drexel is all about.”  

While at Drexel, Hurwitz will also take time to meet with the cast and crew of Drexel’s award-winning, student-produced sitcom “OFF CAMPUS.”

“The students at Drexel have not only proved themselves to be gifted brain pickers,” Hurwitz said. “But with the discovery of Dreadnoughtus schrani they’re clearly leading the field in full skeletal picking as well. It is a privilege to join this fellow new dinosaur at Drexel in revealing secrets about my past.”

An Evening with Mitchell Hurwitz, which is sponsored by the Kal & Lucille Rudman Institute for Entertainment Industry Studies and the Sibby Merkel Brasler Lecture Series, will start at 6:30 p.m. at the Mitchell Auditorium in the Bossone Research Center. It is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.