Vancouver writer hopes comedy series proves there is life after a good career
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By Liane Faulder, Postmedia News
Published Apr 15, 2025
4 minute read
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Tracy Jovolos believes in reinvention. That’s why, at 62, the Vancouver writer and entrepreneur has crafted After Work — a comedy series that explores retirement through the eyes of a broadcaster who loses her job because she looks too old.
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Not only does Jovolos — a former member of the tech industry — hope to recreate herself as a TV producer as she enters her so-called retirement years, she wants to show others that there is, indeed, life after work.
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“I wrote a show that I wanted to see but that so many people need to see, about starting over when the world wants to write us off,” says Jovolos in a phone interview about her series. “This show will inspire them and empower them to feel full of possibilities and ready to take chances.”
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Jovolos has a couple of big names in the Canadian entertainment business on her pitch team. Laura Lightbown is perhaps best known as the multi-Gemini award-winning producer of the hit series Da Vinci’s Inquest (as well as comedy productions, including Brent Butt’s Canadian Comedy Award-winning CTV series, Hiccups). Standup comic and Leo award-winning writer Erica Sigurdson (CBC’s The Debaters) has signed on to pen After Work.
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Here’s the premise: when TV anchor Christina (envision, perhaps, Canadian actor and comedian Caroline Rhea in the role) is forced from her job, she decides to become a retirement coach and podcaster/influencer, ostensibly to help others. In truth, Christina, 60, sees coaching as a way to help herself figure out a new path forward.
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The story is scripted to appeal to a wave of gen-Xers (born between 1965 and the early 1980s) who are staring down the prospect of retirement. But the series, with its focus on creating life anew, also appeals to people like me who are newly retired and still figuring it all out.
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“We can’t be afraid to reinvent ourselves in our 60s,” says Jovolos. “If not now, when? This is when you get to say ‘who do I want to be? What do I want to do?’ And you find your community of people who are doing the same thing.”
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Lightbown, 57, thinks After Work is perfectly positioned to resonate with a big segment of the TV-watching public. “Who doesn’t know people who are retiring? You’re either related to them or they’re your friends,” she says. “We start talking about this and freaking out about it in our 40s. I actually think the idea of retirement and what it means to us as a society and women specifically, is embedded from middle age on and it’s this concept that no one wants to wrap our head around.
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“It’s a time of life we have to explore and crack open because it’s hilarious but it’s also changing … let’s stir it up and examine it differently. Tracy’s angle made me laugh and it delighted me.”
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Set in Edgemont Village (a tiny, charming enclave of North Vancouver), the series features numerous characters in Christina’s retirement coaching group who are navigating life changes. Franny is 66 when her husband dies, leaving her free to take a plunge into a larger-than-expected dating pool.
