It’s the proper premise for a rom-com. Two TV writers searching for love discover it in probably the most unlikely place: on a picket line, putting with their union. That’s precisely what occurred to Stacy Traub and Hunter Covington through the 2007 writers strike, however no studio executives have been inquisitive about bringing that situation to the display. “Anytime I write one thing barely shut, they by no means need my character to be a TV author,” Traub says with a sigh. “Individuals really feel prefer it’s not relatable. However for me, it’s relatable!”
Lower than per week into the 2023 writers strike, they’ve invited associates and colleagues to have fun their tenth anniversary on the precise spot the place they met and later received engaged. A variety of folks collect on a windy nook in entrance of Fox Studio’s Galaxy Gate, holding up their picket indicators to make a tunnel for the couple to run by. Traub wears a white sash with the phrase “BRIDE” satirically slung throughout her fuschia blazer. Covington sports activities a bushy beard, tattoos, and a T-shirt that claims, “If my spouse can settle, then so can the AMPTP”—referring to the Alliance of Movement Image and Tv Producers, the group that represents the business’s studios.
The 2 initially met within the fall of 2007 at a singles-themed picket that Covington organized. He was writing for My Identify Is Earl on the time, and egged on by just a few fellow singletons, he determined to search for a silver lining in a probably grueling strike. This was an period earlier than modern-day relationship apps, he factors out; it was value a strive. His Earl colleague Danielle Sanchez-Witzel introduced her buddy Traub, who was then the showrunner of a present known as Notes From the Underbelly. The mom of an toddler and a toddler, Traub had lately gone by a divorce. “Being in a writers room is such a protected area, and in case your life is gonna disintegrate, it’s sort of a terrific place for it to occur—you already know, I had folks round me making me snort,” she remembers. When the strike hit, she regarded to the picket traces for a way of neighborhood.
The singles picket was low stress. “I believed there’s an opportunity that this [fix-up] may work,” says Sanchez-Witzel. “It could be so, so informal, as a result of we’re at all times strolling in a circle. So we may stroll by and say hiya, and sort of loop again round.” Afterward they went out collectively for a meal that cemented their curiosity. “That was the beginning of a phenomenal union inside our lovely union.”
Not that their romance ran easy: There have been sufficient bumps of their relationship to fill a six-episode streaming collection. “I had an nearly three-year-old and a four-month-old, and he didn’t have youngsters,” says Traub. “I got here with a number of baggage and he was like, I don’t know if I can deal with this. So we broke up.” A yr later, although, they discovered their manner again to one another, started relationship and had a baby collectively. In 2012, Covington got here house one evening suggesting that they head to Culver Metropolis to purchase a settee that was on sale. He took a bizarre route, and out of the blue Traub realized the place they had been: the Galaxy Gate. “Hunter takes off his jacket and he is sporting his Writers Guild strike T-shirt. He will get down on one knee and he proposes precisely the place we met.” They married in Could of 2013.
Their strike romance is now legend in the neighborhood, in accordance with Sanchez-Witzel. She was speaking concerning the anniversary to a younger author picketing at Amazon this week. “She mentioned, ‘I heard that story that somebody received married, however I didn’t realize it was really true!’ I believe there was some optimism in her eyes, like, ‘perhaps we must always do a singles picket.’”
For Covington, this strike feels completely different than the 2007 one—and never simply because he’s 10 years older with a spouse and youngsters. Again then, writing for tv and movie felt like a extra steady profession. “Now I believe most individuals are hurting,” he says, “particularly if you alter our earnings for inflation…. ln 2007, we had been combating about what TV on the web was gonna be and getting a foothold in that. And now it is that tv as a profession looks like it’s not a sustainable factor…. I really feel like we’re actually combating for the long run in a manner that we weren’t in 2007.” He pauses as extra well-wishers with picket indicators arrive, then continues. “A bunch existential disaster a few profession is sort of a bizarre place to be. However that’s why we’re in a union, and that’s why we’ve got one another.”
