Welcome to 'Palm Royale,' where aggressive originality meets relentless positivity, thanks to UCLA TFT alum Abe Sylvia
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Abe Sylvia, who earned an M.F.A. in production/directing from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television, says he wants to “break the machine.”
The creator, showrunner and frequent writer/director of “Palm Royale” said the phrase “aggressive originality” is the watchword in the writer’s room of the Apple TV+ show, which returns for its second season November 12.
“Palm Royale,” which earned 11 Emmy nominations in its first season, including Best Comedy Series, features a cast of sharply drawn (and often sharp-tongued) characters. Exquisite sets and costumes bring mid-century South Palm Beach to vivid life. It’s a setting Sylvia had long hoped to tackle, and when Laura Dern approached him with the book she had optioned, the decision was immediate.
“Without even reading the book I said yes, because I would do anything for Laura Dern, as anyone in their right mind would,” Sylvia said.
He eventually read it and found it hilarious, but very little of the original story remains in the series beyond the title and some character names.
“We were inspired by the book, but it’s also a brand-new thing that can go anywhere,” he said. “Apple has given us tremendous freedom. I tell the writers our show is the show ChatGPT cannot write. Our goal is to break the machine. There is no algorithm to our episodes, and we really have a mission to be aggressively original.”
“Palm Royale’s” originality takes many forms.
In one episode, Alison Janney’s haughty Evelyn becomes enamored with a beached whale that is sung back to sea by Kristin Wiig’s Maxine Delacourte, a society outsider determined to flip that status. Musical-theater inflections from Sylvia’s background appear throughout the series, with complex song-and-dance numbers, elaborate costumes and rich period set design. Ricky Martin’s pseudo-closeted bartender Robert perfects the art of the (socially uncouth) grasshopper cocktail that Maxine gulps by the gallon. He ultimately emerges as one of the show’s most ethical characters in a world defined by varying degrees of deviousness. (Sylvia makes use of Martin’s singing chops in the season two premiere.)
Comically-tinged nods to second-wave feminism appear throughout the storytelling, fitting for a cast that includes Dern, Julia Duffy, Leslie Bibb and the iconic Carol Burnett. In one scene, Dern and her real-life (and on-screen) father Bruce Dern take a shared psilocybin journey in the nursing home where he has lived since surviving a long-ago shooting, one of several mysteries seeded throughout season one.
Stars of Palm Royale and friends. Image courtesy Abe Sylvia
“Film and TV is the marriage of everything I love,” Sylvia said. “I’m always trying to bring dance, music, visuals, words and performance into every project.”
That passion dates back to childhood living-room performances in which he imagined himself as the title character in “Annie.” Sylvia began attending UCLA in the early 2000s after years as a Broadway dancer performing in shows such as “The Producers” and “Cats.” He earned a bachelor’s in theater from Boston Conservatory. While on Broadway, he found himself writing in his off hours.
“I like a new challenge every day, and those ideas I was challenging myself to explore became important to me,” he said. “But I didn’t think anyone would take me seriously unless I got serious about my education.”
At UCLA, he found faculty mentors like Nancy Richardson and Gyula Gazdag, who remain creative advisors to this day.
“The student body influenced me the most,” he said. “The community created by this film school, with students from so many different backgrounds, really expanded my worldview.”
Sylvia visited campus last week for an event honoring Burnett, who stars in “Palm Royale” as the crafty, not-so-invalid Norma Delacourte. Virtually comatose for much of season one, Norma speaks only a few lines. And yet, Burnett earned an Emmy nomination thanks largely to a role played with gestures and expressions.
“You always dream big, but I never thought in a million years we would get her,” Sylvia said. “She’s a genius, getting laughs with one twitch of her face. She’s an American master.”
Originally, in "Palm Royale" scripts, Norma was meant to be comatose for much longer, but after Burnett joined the cast, Sylvia revised the timeline. Norma becomes even more central in season two.
“Norma has a lot to say and is driving a great deal of the action this season,” he said.
Burnett recently established an endowed scholarship for musical-theater students at UCLA TFT and donated her collection of more than 140 awards to be displayed in Freud Playhouse. Among them is one of her earliest honors: the 1952 Outstanding Newcomer Award from UCLA.
Detail view of award display Carol Burnett speaks at a ceremony on campus while Abe Sylvia and Dean Celine Parreñas Shimizu look on. Images by Sebastian Hernandez
"There’s not a cynical bone in that woman’s body,” Sylvia said. “She is gracious of heart and elegant of spirit. She’s the best person I’ve ever known.”
Sylvia’s film and television credits include producing, writing and directing the dark comedy “Dead to Me”; producing and directing “Nurse Jackie”; and serving as producer and showrunner for “George & Tammy,” the limited-series biopic about Tammy Wynette and George Jones. He also wrote the critically acclaimed biopic “The Eyes of Tammy Faye.”
“Palm Royale,” he said, represents a “pinch me” moment every day on set.
“It’s a very happy set,” he said. “These people are incredibly kind, have tremendous respect for one another and came to play. Kristen Wiig on ‘Saturday Night Live’ was my hero, and now she’s my colleague and my friend. It’s pretty incredible.”
Wiig’s preternaturally plucky Maxine faces new challenges in season two, but Sylvia says her optimism remains intact.
“She is the embodiment of American exceptionalism — that sense that if you’re well-intended, smiling and striving toward something admirable, how could anything be wrong?” he said, laughing.
