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Interview with Producer Lori Kaye

Lori Kaye is a stand-up comic-turned-producer who has worked on several reality shows, including Joe Millionaire, American Princess (airing this summer on NBC), and currently, Bravo’s upcoming The Ross Show.

Kaye talks to AfterEllen.com about her career and working in reality TV, why there are so few lesbians on reality shows, and how TV producing is really a form of performance art.

AfterEllen.com: How did you get involved in reality TV? Lori Kaye: I went the actor route intially — I went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and trained to be an actor. I ended up doing stand-up comedy, which I found to be a medium I was pretty good at, and I went on to do that for twelve years. I also became a writer, and I moved to L.A. eight years ago from New York, and I had my play produced here, Girls Room.

Some folks from E!’s Talk Soup saw it and thought it was really funny and said “You should be writing for Talk Soup.” I didn’t end up doing that, but they were starting a new network called The Style Network and they asked if I was interested in getting involved in that. I had also done some production work while I was doing stand up–I was the producer on Girls Night Out which was a Lifetime stand-up comedy show for women. I ended up helping them launch that network and become one of their senior producers over time and ended up developing a lot of programming for them. We did some really fun programming back then, and I worked with all the designers-Vera Wang, Donna Karen, etc.–which sort of introduced me to the reality show genre.

When I left The Style Network, that’s when I got involved in reality television and worked on the first Joe Millionaire as a producer.

How was that experience? Most of us didn’t know what the show was really about in the beginning. When I took on the job and somebody said “Do you want to go to France?” I said “sure.” We didn’t know what the “secret” of the show was [that the show’s bachelor, Evan, was not a millionaire], because if the secret got out, the whole show would be ruined.

Even as one of the producers you didn’t know? Not initially, but I became one of the handful of people who knew–even the cameramen didn’t know that Evan was not a millionaire. So, when we got there, we thought it was a reality show about producers who had no idea what was going on, because they kept asking us to do things that didn’t make sense if you didn’t know the secret. We kept thinking there were hidden cameras watching us.

It was an enormously challenging production, both to keep the secret and keep coming up with fresh ideas for Evan, and then of course the production schedule on the back end was enormously difficult because we had such a short turn-around. But it became one of the highest-rated shows ever on Fox, and on TV in general — 40 million people watched it.

What did you do after Joe Millionaire? I recently completed a show called American Princess with NBC, which is hopefully going to air in the summer. It’s a reality show that starts with twenty girls, ten of whom go to England to learn how to become a proper lady. Very My Fair Lady, very Pygmalion. The women are from all walks of American life, ages 18 to 29, and it’s really funny, smart, and poignant at the same time.

Are they competing for something? The title of American Princess, which includes a real royal title and a cash prize. But ultimately the takeaway for these girls is so much bigger than just the prize — so many of them got so much more out of it. It became not so much about who won, but about their experiences.

How are feminists likely to respond to this? I think they’ll respond to it really well when they see the women, when they see what they’re all about, when they see these independent, strong American women pushed up against this British class system, and some of them said “this is who we are. You’re going to think I’m cool just as I am” and didn’t go so easily into that good night.

Tell us about your latest endeavor, The Ross Show. The show is about Ross the Intern from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno; he’s become very popular, and Bravo, which is owned by NBC, decided to see what kind of legs this could have. I’m co-executive producer, and having a really good time–Ross is really funny and adorable. The show itself is kind of a combination of celebrity pieces, “Dear Ross” where people write in their wishes and Ross makes them come true, and adventures — Ross being in all different kinds of situations doing different things. Kind of a modern talk show/reality show.

So you went from Joe Millioniare to American Princess to The Ross Show — you’re becoming a reality-show expert. (laughs) I guess I am. I also did a quick, fun teen-makeover show for MTV called Make or Break with my really good friend Laura Fuest, whose doing the Branson reality show for Fox.

What do you think of reality TV in general? I think it pays the rent really well (laughs).

Is it something you envision continuing to do, or do you want to do something else? There are several things close to my heart I continue to work on, like my own scripted writing or projects I’m developing. But I think reality TV is evolving in an interesting way, too-—The Ross show is an example of that, since it’s a new kind of reality show that blends more established formats to create a new one. So it’s not always about hiding cameras and secret rooms, or making people look bad or foolish.

There haven’t been many lesbians on reality shows, partly because so many of them revolve around heterosexual dating — a lesbian would never fit in on Joe Millionaire, for example… I was actually really hopeful to cast a lesbian in American Princess–the network was open to it, and we even found a lesbian we wanted to go with, but unfortunately, she ultimately could not get out of work to do the show.

Do you think when people are casting for reality shows, they’re deliberately screening out lesbian applicants, or is it just not happening? I don’t think they’re deliberately screening them out. Casting is very tricky, it’s difficult to find people who are television-friendly, with television appeal, so the amount of people you have to screen, interview, and put on camera to come up with, say, the cast of The Apprentice, are just enormous. It just becomes about being interesting and compelling enough for TV…

Do you get many applications from lesbians? No, but American Princess was looking for girls and women who want to change and become a proper lady, so there isn’t necessarily a lot of interest in that subject area from lesbians. And as you say, with the emphasis on dating shows, there are not a lot of niches in reality shows for gay women to find themselves a part of.

Do you think there’ll ever be a lesbian equivalent to Boy Meets Boy? I honestly don’t know. I know there have been lesbian-type reality shows pitched that are similar to Queer Eye–like having a lesbian handyman, or lesbian home makeover shows, but I honestly don’t know where those are at right now.

I do think the success of something like The L Word, that opens the public’s eye to our image, creates more ideas for spinoffs, to people saying “hey, Showtime’s doing something like this successfully, let’s maybe do a lesbian reality show.” You also have to remember that television is ultimately about advertising sales and dollars for getting the maximum number of people to watch your show. To be honest, when you look at middle America, it’s hard to sell shows that have a lot of homosexual characters.

Has your sexual orientation ever been an issue in your career? I can’t say that it has, at least not so far. I’m out as a lesbian and have a great relationship with the people I work with, now and in the past. I also think when you’re creative, it almost doesn’t even seem to matter.

Are there more openly gay women in TV than when you first started? It seems like it. The increased media attention on this subject, like the work you’re doing, has certainly helped more people working in television to come out and be openly gay.

Do you want to keep producing? I want to continue evolving. I love every aspect of all the things I get to do: producing, directing, and writing. In reality and non-scripted TV, a producer’s job covers a wide array of duties, including solidying the concept, putting together a segment, deciding what you’re going to shoot, where you’re going to go, who you’re going to shoot it with, and then making that shoot happen, directing the crew, etc. Then later you’re acting as a film director, in an edit bay, where you sit with an editor and say “this is what we want, this is what we don’t want” until the final product is done.

Is this variety of tasks involved one of the reasons you enjoy producing? Enormously appealing, because I’ve been able to travel all over the world and see things from a perspective a lot of people don’t get to see, and I love the opportunity to use so many different parts of my brain. Now we’re putting something together, now we’re running through the streets of Paris actually making it happen, now we’re sitting down in a dark room pulling it all together. It’s really great.

Is your work ever done? Not really (laughs). You do work really long hours, both in pre and post production. There’s also an element of upredictability in unscripted TV that really keeps you on your toes as a producer.

You write about show biz and fashion for The Advocate occasionally, on top of producing. How do you find the time? I don’t know (laughs). I really like that famous quote “I hate writing, but I love having written.” The first draft of anything, whether it’s a solo piece, the first draft of a play, or article or TV script, is really hard; you always have to massage it to make it fit, so it really requires a commitment. That’s partly why I don’t write those kinds of articles very often.

Is it hard to switch from creating entertainment to analyzing it? No, because producing requires so much analysis already, like personality navigation–trying to figure out the best way to deal with a network, for example, or an editor.

What do you do to get away from it all? Do you chuck it all and go to Montana once a year or something like that? I wish I could say I do, but in reality going to the movies is my greatest escape because it’s the fastest and the quickest. I really enjoy watching movies–my most recent favorite is Mean Girls, I really liked that. I love spending time with my girlfriend, too, who is wildly funny and smart. She’s a producer, as well, and currently working on a new show for The Discover Channel called Monster Nation.

I am also fortunate to have a really great group of wonderfully creative, interesting friends who work in various aspects of production, and we just enjoy having dinners together, barbeques, hang out at a friend’s pool, or have game tonight. It’s hard sometimes with everyone’s schedules but we try to do it as often as we can. We had a Grammy party recently where myself and Monica Tragandes, editor in chief of Frontiers Magazine, performed a version of the Justin Timberlake-Janet Jackson incident…we practiced it before dinner and then performed it during a commercial. It was so much fun.

Did you always want to be in entertainment? I always wanted to be in show biz. I was born in New York spent my formative Wonderbread Years in Philadelphia and then moved to New York the minute high school was over to attend the Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Ever think about going back to acting? Not really. It’s the one area I don’t really excel at. But stand-up comedy, maybe…I think about it evolving into something that would be multimedia, so I could use what I’ve learned so far.

Who are your favorite comedians currently? I admire what Ellen’s doing right now, I think she’s found her own – she’s really talented, funny, and accessible.

Does your comedic side come out in producing? Oh yeah. You have to look at it with that eye. Joe Millioniare had enormous humor in it, it had lots of comedic value in it, and The Ross Show is going to be really funny.

I think producing in general is just performance art gone haywire.

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