Interview (Part 3): c. Craig Patterson

My interview with the 2023 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner.

c. Craig Patterson wrote the original screenplay “Tah” which won a 2023 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with c. Craig about his creative background, his award-winning script, the craft of screenwriting, and what winning the Nicholl Award has meant to him.

Today in Part 3 of a 6-part series to run each day through Saturday, c. Craig talks about some of the real-life people who inspired key characters in the script.

Scott: Actually, now that you’re saying that and I’m thinking of the script, it shines even a richer light on it. So let’s talk about this script. Tah was a real character?

c. Craig: Yeah. It’s written about my great‑aunt, my great‑grandmother, and my mother.

Scott: OK. I mean, because when you read the script, the characters are so vivid and the story world is so lived in. I just figured that these had to have been.

c. Craig: Yeah. I ran through that house as a child. Those are all very real places.

Scott: The house with the two sides?

c. Craig: Mm‑hmm.

Scott: All right, let’s dig into this a little bit, and we can help people make sense of this. Let’s talk about the character, Tah.

c. Craig: Yes.

Scott: How would you describe this figure? You’ve already hinted at a little bit about what the journey is. But at the beginning of the story, she’s in a pretty positive place.

c. Craig: Yeah. Before Tah got to Nan’s house, man, Tah…The way my great‑grandmother used to talk about Tah was like, oh, she was a “finger popper.” In Tah’s young life, Tah always liked to be in a club. She drank whiskey. She smoked cigarettes.

I mean, my family is painfully Catholic. So, Tah was like, hell on wheels to them. She was managing a bar, a nightclub, and you couldn’t tell her anything because that was her life. She was self‑sustaining. She didn’t need your help.

On the opposite side of that, she could even be helpful to you. She could put a couple of dollars in your pocket. So when the situation turned, it was really, really tough for her. Because now, everything I had to say to you before that you weren’t listening to, you have to listen to.

Scott: Your articulation of this character in the script, are these stories that you were hearing about her…

c. Craig: Oh absolutely, yeah, like 80 percent of them yeah for sure.

Scott: 80 percent. OK. You said this finger popping thing, the way she’s introduced, she’s bopping out of a bingo hall in 1969. It says: “The cadence of Tah’s walk doesn’t sound like a loser. As a matter of fact it’s almost a strut, the neighborhood is her kingdom a black working‑class mecca. She owns it.”

c. Craig: Yeah.

Scott: People are like, hey, I’ll be at the club tonight. You better be there.

c. Craig: And she loved it. Her whole life, she was a loved person. In the story, I wanted her to feel like a woman that people looked up to in a certain space. If you were part of her world, she was a big deal. But it wasn’t hers to have. It was given to her by Moses.

Scott: She’s married to this guy, Moses. Now, that was a funny way of introducing him. The script says: “Moses Gash, 50, a 7th word Billy Dee Williams.” And my mind immediately went to those malt liquor ads that Billy Dee Williams did way back. Yeah, right?

c. Craig: Exactly, yeah.

Scott: Tah’s husband. OK, so, this guy existed?

c. Craig: Yeah, and that wasn’t his name. But yeah, he was a real person for sure.

Scott: And he had a little wandering eye kind of thing going on.

c. Craig: Yeah, he definitely didn’t think of marriages as closed as one would think of marriage to be. It’s more of a suggestion than a rule of law. At least that, because I didn’t have the privilege of knowing him, but that was the family mythos around him, for sure.

Scott: But he owned a club?

c. Craig: Yeah.

Scott: And this club is The Young Friends Club.

c. Craig: Yeah, that’s it. It’s still there. It’s still in the neighborhood.

Scott: Tah had a tenuous situation. She didn’t realize it at first. At least it was presented in the script. She’s in this club, she’s got this friend I think Fish is the name. This club that people come to, she’s got money, the club’s doing great, but she doesn’t own it.

c. Craig: No. She’s not aware of her lack of ownership in it. She’s thinking partnership and that is not the reality of it.

Scott: No, that’s not Moses. Before we get to the big breakdown I do want to talk about the fact that you’ve got these several themes in the script that are woven through like a fugue in a way, like music is one of them. So when you go to the club, you’re seeing Professor Long here who actually existed. And then you’ve got little characters like Zoot, who’s an alcoholic neighborhood trombone player.

c. Craig: Real man.

Scott: Real man. So, of course, music in New Orleans is synonymous. But were you consciously trying to weave that in, or that was just part of the background and it had to be?

c. Craig: It was part of the background, but I knew characters like Zoot. He was a real person that was around when I was a kid and my grandmother was really hard on him. He had a crick in his neck and he was the kindest man. I was like, oh, how do I emphasize that? I’ll give him a trombone and let him express himself that way.

But he was always kind. He’d say, “Hey, Miss Antoine. How you doing?” No matter how mean she was to him, he was always super nice. Always had a kind word. Tying him to music felt right.

Tomorrow in Part 4, c. Craig describes what it was like to adapt some of the script’s more colorful characters from their real-life inspirations.

For Part 1, go here.

Part 2, here.

c. Craig is repped by Gotham Group.

For my interviews with every Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner since 2012, go here.