While Tom Fontana was playwright-in-residence at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Jake and Gwyneth Paltrow saw his play "The Spectre Bridegroom" and insisted their father, producer Bruce Paltrow, give Fontana a job on his new show "St. Elsewhere" (NBC, 1982-88), the perfect prescription for jumping a struggling playwright's yearly income from $5000 to $90,000. As one of the three top writer-producers for that series, he made a name and the beginning of a sizable fortune pioneering the story structure that weaves several narrative threads together in one hour, a formula that still
Wrote "Johnny Appleseed: A Noh Play", produced at Studio Arena in Buffalo
1975
Became playwright-in-residence at NYC's Writers Theatre
1979
Playwright-in-residence, Williamstown Theatre Festival; plays produced there include "This Is On Me", "The Underlings", "The Overcoat" and "The Spectre Bridegroom"
Writer and producer for NBC series "St. Elsewhere"
