Co-created by Bill Lawrence and Matt Tarses, HBO Max’s ‘Rooster’ steps into college life with a twist, following Greg Russo, a complete outsider to academia. While his novels are among the most read in the world, Greg struggles to find acceptance from critics and, over time, turns into a recluse. This particularly affects his relationship with his daughter, Katie, who is a professor at Ludlow College. While reconciliation seems out of the picture for quite some time, things change when Katie’s marriage begins to fall apart. In a curious turn of events, Greg finds himself in the heart of the college, tackling problems at home and at work, while the unpredictable world of academia carries on.
Ludlow is the Name of a Fictional Humanities College Set in Massachusetts
Ludlow College is a fictional institution in the world of ‘Rooster,’ crafted from scratch by writers Bill Lawrence and Matt Tarses. Depicted as a liberal arts college in Massachusetts, Ludlow becomes the show’s primary setting after Greg takes on the role of writer in residence. While The Bay State is home to some of the homeland’s most prestigious institutions, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or Harvard University, it is unlikely that any of these real-life universities served as the basis for Ludlow. Instead, it is more probable that the writing team drew loose references from these well-known fixtures and then invented a college of their own, customized to fit the needs of the story.
Although Ludlow College appears to be a singular, grand campus on screen, in reality, it was filmed in and around multiple real-life colleges, all of which are based in California, not Massachusetts. For the most part, the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, doubles as the fictional Ludlow, providing both exterior and interior shots that convey a sense of scale and grandeur. As we move further inside Ludlow, the scenery shifts to the McKinnon Center for Global Affairs at Occidental College, Los Angeles. The crew took over the famous center, situated inside the college’s Johnson Hall, and transformed it into the interiors of a fictional Cabot Hall. Reportedly, some scenes featuring Ludlow were also lensed at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
It appears that the crew filmed footage across these real-life universities, and later stitched the scenes to form one cohesive narrative. Despite that, Ludlow comes to life as a very realistic depiction of a college campus, with the mashup of various distinct buildings, lawns, and architectural set-ups resulting in a richly rendered setting. Perhaps the most striking detail about Ludlow lies not in its physical description, but in how it sustains a full-on campus culture. It is likely that the creative team looked into multiple arts colleges to understand the nuances of college campus life, and later simulated that through Ludlow. The College of Humanities & Fine Arts in Amherst, Massachusetts, is one of the many real-life humanities-oriented institutions that might have served as a reference point.
Ludlow College Was Conceived as a Bridge Between Old and New Ways of Education
Given that Greg Russo, the protagonist of ‘Rooster,’ is partially based on writer and journalist Carl Hiaasen, there is a possibility that the creative team borrowed a page from his life and turned it into the plot beat surrounding Ludlow. However, in reality, Hiaasen worked as a journalist from the early 1970s all the way until his retirement in 2021. While he did study at Emory University, as well as the University of Florida, neither of them is likely to have inspired the show in any way. Instead, the simpler answer is that the writers were primarily interested in exploring an ageing writer’s relationship with his daughter, following which they worked backwards to create Ludlow College and seamlessly integrate it into the narrative.
In an interview with Deadline, Lawrence explained the challenges of making a college campus the main setting, stating that “we don’t want to land in a political hotbed, right? And universities are all over the place…” However, he also added that such a setting adds to the nostalgic vibe of the show, with the campus then serving as a transitional space to invite and foster new ways of learning into the world.
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