Cacaci, Joe

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CACACI, Joe

PERSONAL: Male.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o The Alpern Group, 15645 Royal Oak Road, Encino, CA 91436.

CAREER: Writer, producer, and director. Provincetown Playhouse, producing director; American Premiere Stage, Boston, MA, producing director; East Coast Arts (theater company), New Rochelle, NY, beginning 1983; and Wildcliff Theatre, New Rochelle; directed Concert Pianist, Jewish Repertory Theater, New York, NY, 1997. Television series work includes: (creator) The Trials of Rosie O'Neill, CBS, 1990-92; (executive consultant) John Grisham's The Client, CBS, 1995; (executive producer) The Hoop Life, Showtime, 1999; and (executive producer) The Education of Max Bickford, CBS, 2001. Television film work includes: (executive producer) The Bachelor's Baby, CBS, 1996; (executive producer) Indefensible: The Truth about Edward Brannigan (also known as A Father's Betrayal), CBS, 1997; and (director) Stranger in My House (also known as Total Stranger), Lifetime, 1999.

WRITINGS:

TELEVISION MOVIES

Murder in New Hampshire: The Pamela Smart Story, CBS, 1991.

A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story (also known as Till Murder Do Us Part), NBC, 1992.

Her Final Fury: Betty Broderick, the Last Chapter (also known as Till Murder Do Us Part II), CBS, 1992.

Not in My Family (also known as Shattering the Silence), ABC, 1993.

(From draft) In the Line of Duty: Hunt for Justice, NBC, 1995.

The Bachelor's Baby, CBS, 1996.

Indefensible: The Truth about Edward Brannigan (also known as A Father's Betrayal), CBS, 1997.

(Story only) Crime in Connecticut: The Story of Alex Kelly, CBS, 1999.

TELEVISION EPISODES

L.A. Law, NBC, 1987.

The Trials of Rosie O'Neill, CBS, 1990–92.

John Grisham's The Client, CBS, 1995.

Gun, ABC, 1997.

PLAYS

Self Defense, produce in New Haven, CT, then New York, NY, 1987.

Old Business, produced at New York Shakespeare Festival, 1987.

SIDELIGHTS: Joe Cacaci began his directing career in the theatre—specifically, the Wildcliff Theatre, once a deteriorating mansion in New Rochelle, New York. In 1983, Cacaci, then a budding playwright, turned the building into a showcase for both established and up-and-coming authors. The renovation of the Wildcliff was slow, and the theatre opened in 1986 with The Empty Room and Other Plays, a work by writer-in-residence Shel Silverstein. Cacaci's own dramatic output includes the plays Self Defense and Old Business.

In subsequent years, Cacaci turned to writing television movies. His forte was the "based on" genre, docudramas centering on real events. He scripted the stories of Betty Broderick and Pamela Smart, the former the true story of a woman who shot her ex-husband and his second wife. The second installment of Broderick's tale, Her Final Fury: Betty Broderick, the Last Chapter, was, according to Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly, a "tedious courtroom drama"; the first installment was not only considered more dramatic, but also earned higher ratings. Cacaci also had the opportunity to create a series of his own, The Trials of Rosie O'Neill. Though the show did not last long, Cacaci established himself in episodic television. He served as executive producer of Showtime's acclaimed Hoop Life before gaining a new assignment in 2001 by taking the creative reins of the CBS series The Education of Max Bickford after its creators stepped down.

The Education of Max Bickford, which premiered in October 2001, centers on a middle-aged male professor at an all-female institution. In the series premiere Max confronts a turning point in his life after being passed over for a promotion. "Max realizes that he's an old-fashioned man in a modern world and that something has to change," as a TV Tome reviewer put it. "But he'll be damned if it's him."

Although the show boasted two Academy Award winners—Richard Dreyfus in the title role and Marcia Gay Harden as his professional foil—audiences rejected the series, which could feature as many as six storylines in a single episode. Some of the criticism was directed at the character of Max, originally portrayed as curmudgeonly, alcoholic, and downright bitter. Max needed a sense of humor, Dreyfus decided, and Cacaci was tapped to revamp the series. "We can get a little more fun out of Max's dilemmas," Cacaci told Kevin Williamson of the Calgary Sun. In a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article by Rob Owen, Cacaci elaborated on his idea of streamlining the storylines: "With fewer stories, they each become more complex. You can only serve so many stories in 44 minutes. [The revamp] lets us go further in storytelling, and the audience can actually follow it, which is always a good thing."

Shot in Queens, New York, The Education of Max Bickford was one of several shows that made headlines following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. According to a Los Angeles Times Online writer, production was suspended as film companies donated lighting trucks, electrical equipment, and other resources to the disaster scene. Accommodating the city under such circumstances was physically and emotionally draining, Cacaci recalled to the Los Angeles Times Online journalist, "but, really, that's a small price to pay. . . . When you look at the big picture, it's just a TV show."

Although the more up-beat approach to the series worked for a time, The Education of Max Bickford was finally cancelled in June, 2002. Cacaci once again teamed up with Dreyfuss in the 2004 television production of Cop Shop, part of the PBS series, Hollywood Presents. As executive producer, he joined David Black, a writer for the popular series Law & Order, and Dreyfuss to present two forty-five-minute plays that take a more realistic approach to the lives of policemen. Fear and Blind Date, the two plays, present a different view of police work and the life of a cop after hours. The original concept of the two teleplays was to imitate a live television production by rehearsing each story as a play and then shooting it straight through.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Calgary Sun, February 21, 2002, Kevin Williamson, "No More Mad Max."

Entertainment Weekly, October 30, 1992, Ken Tucker, review of Her Final Fury: Betty Broderick, the Last Chapter, p. 72.

Hollywood Reporter, October 23, 2001, Nellie Andreeva, "'Bickford' Creators Pass the Baton," p. 97; October 6, 2004, Barry Garron, review of Cop Shop, p. 11.

New York Times, November 8, 1987, p. H6; January 23, 2997, Lawrence Van Gelder, review of "Concert Pianist," p. C18.

Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh, PA), February 23, 2002, Rob Owen, "Max Bickford Lightens up in Hope of Better Grade from Viewers."