so please join me in welcoming doris kearns goodwin and beth laski. . so. let's go back. oh, we're up to this. okay, that was fast. so with all that doris has accomplished now with beth, the work has inspired this wonderful series of docu dramas. but so here's the elephant in the room. why did decide to do television? and both of you, why did you decide that this was the next realm? well, we really owe a lot to the history channel because they came to us. how lucky we were. i see. mary donahue there. she's my great friend and our friend. and they came to us and they asked us if we'd like to work with them on something. and they came up with the idea of george washington, which was a little scary to me because i never had studied george washington. and everywhere i went, people would say, why aren't you doing george washington? and i thought, oh my god, i'm now years old. it will take me ten years to do george washington like it took me everybody else. and i write these big fat books and it'll be another fat book. and then i thought, wow, what if i were able to spend two ye

history's friend, the incomparable doris kearns goodwin, and her very gifted producing partner, beth laski, now. beth has been the co-executive producer with doris for there for wonderful history channel, a channel series, washington, lincoln, theodore roosevelt, and most recently fdr. together they form pastimes productions, which will next be producing a new series on the west with kevin. i auditioned for that, but they chose kevin costner. they have already created a unique and appealing look and style to these shows. you'll see some of some sampling of it during this evening. not only authoritative talking heads, but remarkable, authentic looking action scenes featuring performers and settings that evoke the colonial revolutionary periods, the civil war, the progressive era, the new deal, and world war two. scholarship and scenery. discussion and drama. and tonight, a special focus on their abraham lincoln, of course. so we're glad beth is here and we thank our history channel friends for coming as well, and also for history channel's truly generous sponsorship and support of the forum

history's friend, the incomparable doris kearns goodwin, and her very gifted producing partner, beth laski, now. beth has been the co-executive producer with doris for there for wonderful history channel, a channel series, washington, lincoln, theodore roosevelt, and most recently fdr. together they form pastimes productions, which will next be producing a new series on the west with kevin. i auditioned for that, but they chose kevin costner. they have already created a unique and appealing look and style to these shows. you'll see some of some sampling of it during this evening. not only authoritative talking heads, but remarkable, authentic looking action scenes featuring performers and settings that evoke the colonial revolutionary periods, the civil war, the progressive era, the new deal, and world war two. scholarship and scenery. discussion and drama. and tonight, a special focus on their abraham lincoln, of course. so we're glad beth is here and we thank our history channel friends for coming as well, and also for history channel's truly generous sponsorship and support of the forum

well what happened is the history channel to beth lasky, my partner and me, with the idea that we would help them to work on be an ep on a movie on a six hour document tree on george washington wasn't one of my guys. so this was scary that the first film thing that we'd be doing together? i didn't know him well, but i'd always wanted to write about him. but it was too late. i mean, there were too many things written about him. and then another ten year project. and this time in my age seemed a little crazy. so it was great to have a team to work with. i loved process. we were involved in every step the from the writers board to the there's another word for it but anyway the outline the treatment the scripts we saw dailies, we talked to the actors and we loved it. so we formed a production company and then now has done lincoln a seven and a half hours and teddy roosevelt 6 hours like franklin roosevelt. so we've had four of them done in the last couple of years. so our little pastimes come to an and we're now doing a project, an eight hour project with kevin costner on the west. how fabu