Student dramedy ‘Sophomoric’ hits close to home for drug curious

Do you remember your sophomore slump? If not, “Sophomoric,” the new half-hour TV dramedy by Clea Litewka, Columbia University Film Productions president and CC ’10, will bring the memories flooding back.

In three eight-minute episodes created for CUFP, “Sophomoric” explores the lives of seven college students coping with the apathy and depression of their sophomore years. How do they cope with the college blues? Self-medication.

If “Sophomoric” had to be described in three words, those words would be: undergraduate drug experimentation. Let’s face it—for most Columbia students, these three words resonate. As much as parents would like to believe their children are sitting behind ivy-trimmed gates drinking ginger ale and reading Kant, the ginger ale they dream of is usually spiked with whiskey, vermouth, and gin.

In making the pilot, Litewka felt the urge to reveal the truth about college drug abuse. As she put it, “I was interested in exploring college students’ relationships with drugs and representing college students in their naked states.”

Naked? Not quite. Revealed? Definitely.

In network television, Litewka said, “all bad behaviors have to happen offstage.” In “Sophomoric,” Litewka had the creative control to show kids experimenting with drugs on-screen. The opening credits of the series feature students firing up a bong, pulling weed out of private stashes, and lighting incense. In search of creative inspiration for the series, Litewka commented that she “watched a lot of movies with drug trips in them,” as well as shows set in college, such as “Felicity” and Judd Apatow’s “Undeclared”.

In terms of film quality, “Sophomoric” is fairly rough around the edges, but it has a raw reality to it that is very appealing. The acting is hit-or-miss, but the lead actress, Brigitte Thieme-Burdette gives a truly convincing, unaffected portrayal of a slumping sophomore girl. Her determined pursuit of weed and her defeated line, “I just want to get baked,” are compellingly real.

The episodes are available online at www.sophomorictheshow.com, a multimedia blog that includes a place to watch the show and four scripts for those episodes in the series that have yet to be produced. It acts as a platform for Litewka’s work as well as for collaborators on the project.

Litewka said she learned a lot while producing the series. “The process has been stressful, but it is rewarding to build something from the ground up,” she said.

As president of CUFP, she wanted to be a model for undergraduates interested in film and to create crew jobs for kids looking for experience. “The best way to learn film and television production is to do them,” she said.

So for all of those slumping sophomores out there looking for a show to watch while you “get baked,” tune into to “Sophomoric” and chill out.