Characters & Profiles

CITY

OUTLINE OF MAIN PROTAGONISTS, ANTAGONISTS, LOVE INTERESTS AND SUPPORTING CHARACTERS.

MICHELLE DAGSETH

Michelle Dagseth, early thirties, tall, white, not beautitful yet appealing looks, a psychotherapist and Clinical Social Worker who gives up her private practice and moves from Boston to the warm climate of Florida, taking position as Director of the City's Community Centers Program which is the City's troubled delivery system for social services to elderly, disabled, poor, at risk families and working single mothers.  She always seeks a win-win solution, her motto: "There's a needle in every haystack, it's our job to find it".  She faces political and social realities as she goes about her work along with a very active social life and sensitive personal side which is explored.

LEO FICK

Mayor Leo Fick, approaching fifty, olive-skinned Italian and Hispanic descent, built stocky, under six feet with wiry salt and pepper hair and bright blue eyes, dimple.  By all appearances he is respectable, happily married for twenty five years to wife Dolores, two children in college.  Just elected mayor and taken office less than a month ago.  Elected mostly for his business sense and reputation for high ethical standards (overstated) and he operates effectively in a "dirty tricks" atmosphere.  Usually will take the "high road" in conflicts, disputes.  Has high morals and standards in some areas and not in others.  Revealed to have curious sexual quirks and plays sexually titillating games with bombshell wife Dolores.  Also prone to having affairs.

LOUISE ECHEVERRI

City Attorney Louise Echeverri, mid-forties, Leo's closest confidant, long time friend, hint of previous intimate relations with Leo; and she desires present relations with Leo or with City Manager Adam Tillerman; while Louise is part-Hispanic and Adam is black they have identical olive skin coloring, Louise's hair being fluffier and straighter.

ADAM TILLERMAN

Adam Tillerman, City Manager, mid-thirties, light-skinned black, six-foot, well-chiseled body and sharp business dresser, authoritarian, but often personable, too.  Revealed over few episodes as extremely ambitious and even possessing autocratic tendencies, on ocassion clashing over tight control of policy and city affairs with Leo and Louise and the City Commission.  No significant other is evident at start of series but he soon will enter relationships with Press Secretary Debbie Wills and later with Michelle Dagseth.

MARTHA DRITCHMAN

Martha Dritchman, anorexic, and mentally challenged concessioner, very quiet and shy, borderline genius, and hyper-sensitive; also very perceptive on a gut level.  Big kind blue eyes, cries easily, scared of people but tries hard to put it aside and like them; speaks retiringly, often scared to go out, often embarassed in an endearing, vulnerable way.  Has important role in climax of pilot episode.

JERRY LOPEZ

Jerry Lopez, legally blind newsstand operator.  Much older than Martha, he takes her under his wing -- among other things she learns more about being in the world of people, politics and blindness over time from Jerry and they form a special trust which later develops into sexual relations.  He plays a crucial role in the climax of pilot.

BARB SHUMWAY

Barb, perky Human Resources Director, early forties, looks and behaves like late twenties, petite figure, vague Southern accent, comes off very capable and self-assured, has a thirty year-old live in boyfriend, Josephus, and has a once a week affair for many years with powerful City Commissioner, Woody Halsey.  Keeper of peoples' most sensitive confidences in her professional and personal position she knows everyone and somehow is in on the things happening with other characters, touching all their lives in different ways.  Barb is the person who is always around the action.  She helps Michelle acquire an apartment in her apartment complex and they form an immediate friendship.

DEBBIE WILLS

Debbie Wills, Press Secretary/Spokesperson, beautiful, articulate, late twenties, mysterious.  Initially unattached to a man, she is supposedly concentrating on education and career, but her love interests are developed.  She is more of a "wild card" and love interest character; she does have a history of sexual abuse which colors her at times volatile personality, and contrasts with her naivete in other areas.

COMMISSIONER HALSEY

Long-time city political boss Woody Halsey, big strapping builb, slightly overweight but fit-looking in his mid-fifties.  Known as an exceptionally good speaker, negotiator and dancer.  He has smooth white skin, and a neat gray rim of hair around his large head, but otherwise he is as desireable-looking as a man could be at his age.  Once-a-week hotel room affair with Barb, tries to date Debbie who spurns him, separated but not legally divorced from his wife.  Will behave brusquely, rogueishly, threatening, calculating, easily capable of any politically or financially enhancing scheme, but has an uncanny knack of staying out of trouble.  He is one of the natural antagonists toward the other characters' and the city's need to change how business has been done.  Regarding situations in later episodes, he allies with Leo or one of these other characters who he is initially opposed to.

JACKIE IRBE

High-powered corporate lawyer and citizen activist, she is the middle-aged organizer and leader of a grass-roots movement to abolish the city and its government as such, and have it absorbed instead by the county government, who would then take over all property, responsibilities for administration and delivery of services.  She is a committed adversary, not only because she believes the form of government is inefficient and hopelessly corrupt, but because breaking up the city increases the value of property she and other real estate developers own in the city, at least based on their own projections.  Also she is revealed as City Commissioner Halsey's greedy ex-wife.                                   

FABIAN

Hyper-sensitive and slightly paranoid, gay Italian landlord of Barb and Michelle's building, a former city employee now collecting Worker's Compensation benefits from the City on a claim of very questionable validity.  He is related to a powerful city politician, he and his partner are also still receiving health insurance benefits and other perks paid by the city, a source of future conflict and plot situations.

JOSEPHUS

Thirty, burly, dirty blond hair, looks great or terrible, never in between.  Lives with Barb, supposedly writes poetry, doesn't work, per se.  Except for where his own appearance is sometimes concerned, he is a neatness and order freak, doing all the cooking, cleaning, ironing, laundry, which is fine with Barb who brings home the money and enjoys the role reversal.  Actually, unknown to all at present, is the fact that Josephus is in the Federal Witness Protection Program for ratting out on some violent drug Jamaican drug gang.  Later, he is taken out of the program because Feds claim the gang was broken up, which turns out not true.  He spurns Michelle's romantic interest in him.

MICK KORAN

Jewish, mid-fifties owner of an apartment building neighboring Michelle and Barb's building.  Tall, studious, thin and awkward, he is daily beachgoer where he meets Michelle.  He also teaches adult education classes at the City College at night.  He is an unlikely love interest of Michelle's after she slowly develops a friendship with him and then hits an emotionally vulnerable time.

ARTHUR PEEPLES

Irreverent media figure with flair and cult-like following, over six feet tall but lumbering type.  Also witty, confident, early forties, rides motorcycle, not overly good-looking with thinning blond hair and faint facial blemishes.  Host of shows, "Peeples On Politics" and "Peeples on Peoples".