script doctor

But what the production really needs is a script doctor capable of a miracle cure.

If May’s willful invisibility seems out of character for someone in showbiz, it makes sense within the context of her career, which has toggled between big-budget features and behind-the-scenes work as a script doctor, for which she has consistently refused on-screen credit.

Ishtar was the brainchild of Elaine May, a legendary improvisational comedy performer who'd made a name for herself as a screenwriter, director, and script doctor throughout the 1970s and '80s.

She also famously defied sexism and ageism to carve out a niche as a script doctor and parlay her character's legacy into a career that gave her, and us, many memorable roles including in "When Harry Met Sally" and her final TV credit on "Catastrophe."

The protagonist and reader stand-in, Sandy, who privately refers to himself as Journeyman, is a former Hollywood script doctor who, after the technological apocalypse, finds work cleaning up after the town butcher—he could never kill the animals himself—and running deliveries.