‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ Director Says DGA ‘Completely Erased’ Her Partner’s Contributions

Audrey Wauchope and writing partner Rachel Specter made their directorial debut on Friday’s episode of the CW musical, but only Wauchope was credited

Crazy Ex Girlfriend
Robert Voets/The CW

“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” writer Audrey Wauchope says her partner Rachel Specter will not be credited on their directorial debut due to a DGA bias against female directing teams.

“My #FemaleFilmmakerFriday goes out to my co-Director on tonight’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend episode @RachelSpecter. Rachel and I are a lifelong writing/directing team but due to a decision by the DGA which completely erases her from our work, she’s not credited on tonight’s episode,” Wauchope wrote on Twitter on Friday.

According to Director’s Guild rules, only one director can be credited on a project, with “few exceptions” made for “bona fide teams,” which a post on the DGA website defines as teams who “learned how to direct together, by actually doing it, and have, therefore, demonstrated that they perform the director’s duties as if they were actually one director.”

Wauchope and Specter, whose credits as a writing duo also includes “Cougar Town” and “One Tree Hill,” directed their first episode of television with Friday’s episode of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.”

Wauchope continued, “we were told our ‘body of work’ was not great enough and when asked why we hadn’t directed more our answer was: We had children. And full time writing jobs. A career which we fought for after being let go for sexual harassment and pregnancy.”

“I could go on and on but the end result is still the same — we achieved something we’d dreamt of for years and only one of our names appears on the episode,” she wrote. “Because a board of people get to decide who constitutes a team that gets to make art.”

“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” co-creators Rachel Bloom and Aline Brosh McKenna both backed Wauchope’s tweets, with Brosh McKenna calling the DGA decision “distressing and confusing.”

“DGA, get your act together. @audreyalison and @RachelSpecter are a dual directing force to be reckoned with,” Bloom wrote.

“There are NO Female teams directing TV,” Wauchope noted. “The DGA had the chance to do the right thing here and put their money where their mouth is. Would it have hurt their union to allow two hardworking females to create together? No.”

A spokesperson for the DGA did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment.

https://twitter.com/Racheldoesstuff/status/1053383461988257792

https://twitter.com/alinebmckenna/status/1053380474977112064

Comments