“Scream” writer Kevin Williamson returns to ECU

"Scream" writer Kevin Williamson returns to ECU

Thirty years after the debut of "Scream," Kevin Williamson'87 returned to East Carolina University and walked down the aisles of McGinnis Theatre to sit on the same stage where he once built sets, worked backstage and performed as a student.

"I'm so happy to be back here," Williamson said during an interview inside McGinnis Theatre. "It's a little weird because it's all the same. Nothing's changed and everything's changed."

The visit brought back memories. As he toured the ECU School of Theatre and Dance and walked through Messick Theatre Arts Center, Williamson noticed posters from productions he performed in as a student still hanging in the halls including "Peter Pan" and "Children of a Lesser God."

"I stood on this stage so many times," he said. "All the memories flood back."

For Williamson, whose work includes "Scream," "Dawson's Creek" and "The Vampire Diaries," the return to ECU was more than a visit back to campus. It was a return to the place where he said he found confidence and a community that changed the course of his life.

"I feel like ECU polished me off. I became sort of a human being," Williamson joked.

Born in New Bern and raised in Goose Creek, Williamson grew up in a family of fishermen. He said ECU, located about an hour and a half from home, felt like a natural fit when he began looking at colleges.

When he arrived on campus as a theater student, he was unsure of his future.

"I think my first year I was a little bit of a scattered mess," he said.

That uncertainty followed him from high school, where a teacher once criticized one of his horror stories and told him his writing should not be heard. Williamson said the experience pushed him away from writing and toward acting.

At ECU, he found professors and mentors who encouraged him instead of discouraging him.

"The turning point for me was when I applied to get into the Meisner technique," Williamson said of the acting technique that promotes authentic behavioral responses. "They were only accepting nine people, and I'd never acted here - no one knew who I was. I don't know why [Donald Biehn] let me in, but it completely changed my life. It set the whole course of my writing career. Everything I learned in that acting class I apply to my writing to this day."

Biehn, who led the Meisner acting program, and longtime theater professor Edgar Loessin became two of the most influential people in Williamson's development as an artist and storyteller.

"Edgar Loessin was the first person who basically kind of believed in me," Williamson said.

He described ECU's theater department as a place where students learned by doing - building sets, working backstage, performing and developing close relationships with faculty and classmates.

"When it's a small department, you get really hands-on extensive experience," he said. "You get to know the professors, you get to know the teachers and you have relationships with these people."

Williamson said when he later studied professional acting programs in New York and pursued acting as a career after graduating, he realized how much preparation he had received at ECU.

"ECU had it," he said. "It was so much more extensive. It was so much more hands-on."

The influence of eastern North Carolina and ECU can be seen throughout Williamson's work. He said his childhood growing up near the water in Goose Creek helped inspire the world of Dawson's Creek and many of the young characters he wrote of early in his career.

"You write what you know," he said.

During his return visit, Williamson spent time with theater students preparing to graduate, talking with them about future plans and the realities of working in entertainment. He shared advice about persistence and learning to find your own voice. He was also interested in finding out about the productions the students had worked on in their time at ECU and their favorite theater experiences.

His interactions throughout the visit reflected the same humility and self-awareness that came through during his commencement address.

When ECU first asked Williamson to serve as commencement speaker, his reaction was immediate.

"Absolutely not," he joked during the speech. "No, no, no."

He told graduates and the 18,000 guests at the May 8 ceremony in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium that public speaking terrified him and laughed about not knowing what to do with his hands on stage. But beneath the humor was a personal message centered on fear.

"I know fear intimately," Williamson told graduates. "I do fear for a living. And I write what I know."

Throughout the speech, Williamson connected the lessons he learned growing up in eastern North Carolina and at ECU with the career that followed. He spoke openly about struggling after graduation, moving to New York City, working restaurant jobs and questioning whether his dreams were realistic.

"I conquered the art of waiting tables," he said later in the interview. "I was really good at waiting tables. So good I was terrified that that's how I would end up."

Eventually, Williamson shifted from acting toward writing and production work. He moved to Los Angeles, worked behind the scenes and slowly built a career one step at a time.

"A lot of baby steps," he said. "You just keep on keeping on."

In his commencement speech, Williamson shared the story of rediscovering a one-act play he had written years earlier while at ECU. A play he had been too afraid to show anyone. That story eventually became the opening scene of "Scream."

"That play I wrote back at ECU, that play I was terrified to show to anyone because my voice should not be heard, maybe I can do something with this," he said.

The message became a lesson for graduates about risk, change and believing in themselves.

"Nothing changes if nothing changes," Williamson said, repeating advice once given to him by his father.

He encouraged graduates not to let fear stop them from pursuing opportunities and told them not to define themselves by other people's expectations.

"You are the writer," he told graduates. "It is your movie now. You control the narrative."

Williamson also used the speech to thank the faculty members, mentors and families who helped students reach graduation, something he said mattered personally because of the support he received during his own time at ECU.

"When I came to ECU to major in theatre arts, I had so many wonderful professors, mentors whose profound words still resonate in my life today," he said during the ceremony.

Even after decades in Hollywood, Williamson spoke less about awards or success than about storytelling, relationships and gratitude. He reflected on working with legendary horror director Wes Craven, whom he called a mentor, and about how surreal it still feels to have built a career doing what he dreamed about as a child.

"I always wanted to be a storyteller," Williamson said. "And so, I did wind up being a storyteller."

Now 61, Williamson told graduates that time moves quickly and encouraged them to embrace uncertainty instead of fearing it.

"You can't be brave if you aren't scared," he said during the speech. "Don't be fearless. Be terrified and do it anyway."

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