From the ‘Ground’
UP
English department, writing plays and shorts when she could and penning a weekly column for the Ledger-Enquirer. On set photo by gdsfilm8
Local Playwright Shoots for the Stars
& MAKES IT
ome people are born to be storytellers. They S have it in their blood - the ability to thread language and image into new worlds. It’s not impossible to learn this art; even the best artists will tell you their hard work and dedication got them farther than any birthright talent. Yet it would be hard to describe Natalia Temesgen as anything other than a born Natalia Temesgen
By Scott Berson
originally learned she had a spark for bringing stories to life. “We moved to Columbus when I was eight, and even before then, I loved performing,” she said. “I always imagined that would be my connection to storytelling. I always loved, like many kids now, making these videos with my friends when they would come over, putting on little plays.” It was at college that she discovered her true passion, the coming-together of all her talents: writing for stage and screen. She wrote a play for school and entered it into a contest, which she won, catapulting her production to New York City, where she was able to watch actors auditioning for the roles she had created. “It was so cool to me. I love playing The Sims, and it was almost like a version of that,” she said. “You create characters, and people are putting life into them. That was the bug, and I knew I wanted to do more of it.” She finished her English degree at Princeton and moved straight onto her master’s in dramatic writing, before finding her way back to Columbus, where her husband, now a prominent lawyer in town, was finishing up his legal exams. She began teaching in CSU’s
Her dream was to begin writing for television, but even with the burgeoning film industry in Georgia, she knew it would be difficult to truly build a career without moving to a major hub. That’s what initially got her interested in co-creating “Grounds.”
storyteller. A playwright, actor, screenwriter, newspaper columnist, parent and teacher – there’s little she’s done that hasn’t been an act of creation in some form or another. The last few years though? She’s leapt to the next level. Just a minor rundown of some of what Natalia has worked on recently: A miniseries, “Grounds,” set and produced entirely in Columbus. A writing gig on the Netflix megahit “Dear White People,” and another on the upcoming HBO drama “Julia.” An upcoming project for Hulu, “Reasonable Doubt,” developed with a writer’s room entirely made up of people of color. And more projects on the horizon. “I’ve evolved so much as an artist in these last couple years,” Natalia said, speaking from her porch in Columbus. She recalled how she had LocaL
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APR I L-MAY 2022
