General Hospital Spoilers: Major Writing Shakeup, Chris Van Etten and Dan O’Connor Fired!

General Hospital (GH) news reveals a major shakeup behind the scenes, with Soap Opera Digest reporting that head writers Chris Van Etten and Dan O’Connor have been let go. Patrick Mulcahey and Elizabeth Korte are the soap’s new co-head writers.

Scripts associated with Van Etten and O’Connor will air into March.

General Hospital spoilers: New GH Head Writers

Van Etten was installed as co-head writer in 2017 following the retirement of Jean Passanante. At that time he was teamed with Shelly Altman, and when Altman retired in 2019, O’Connor took over her position.

Both Van Etten and O’Connor have extensive soap writing experience. They started out at ABC’s now defunct One Life to Live where Frank Valentini was the executive producer and Ron Carlivati was the head writer.

When OLTL left the airwaves in 2012, Valentini and Carlivati migrated to GH as did Van Etten and O’Connor. Valentini serves as GH’s executive producer and Carlivati is the head writer on Peacock’s Days of our Lives.

General Hospital News: Chris Van Etten and Dan O’Connor

After he was hired, Van Etten told the outlet that coming to GH was “daunting … taking over any kind of leadership role on a show like this that has such a history.”

He went on to say that he was “excited and happy and grateful to Shelly and to Frank and to Nathan [Varni, ABC executive] and the network for giving me the opportunity, and I am really hopeful that I’ll be able to satisfy fans, because I’m a fan before I’m a writer.”

O’Connor told SOD in 2019 that his new job was “incredibly exciting but equally terrifying. [You] recognize what a great responsibility it is.”

He referenced the legacy characters “like Laura and Sonny and Alexis and Robert and Elizabeth that have been around for decades, and you need to make sure that you’re curating them.” He added “There’s a responsibility for taking care of those characters and the responsibility of bringing in the next generation of families to the show and the next generation of viewers and honoring the viewers that have been here the whole time and the responsibility of working with some real-world parameters that affect our storytelling, and hopefully in a way that the audience won’t notice.”

GH spoilers: Patrick Mulcahey and Elizabeth Korte are the New Co-Head Writers

The incoming co-head writers have prior connections to the show. Mulcahey worked on the show from 1998-99 as associate head writer and breakdown writer, positions he moved into after being hired in 1996 as a script writer. Mulcahey’s first daytime job was on Search For Tomorrow where he was employed in 1979 as an associate writer.

He left the job a year later and moved on to Texas where he worked as a script writer through 1981. In 1982, Mulcahey became head writer on Guiding Light and he worked on the soap Santa Barbara from 1984-90 as a writer and story editor.

From 1992-94 Mulcahey worked at Guiding Light as a script writer, breakdown writer and, in his final year, co-head writer. Mulcahey worked as a script and story consultant on The Bold and the Beautiful through 2019.

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Korte is a GH writing veteran, having started out in 1994. The outlet notes that her job titles included co-head writer in 2001 and she has been a script editor since 2008.

In 2007 Korte and Robert Guza, Jr. debuted the popular spinoff GH: Night Shift, with both serving as co-creators and co-head writers.

Based on the talent, history, and enthusiasm Korte and Mulcahey bring to the writing table, the future appears to be in good hands for GH fans!

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