The Chair was filmed on location in Pittsburgh and the surrounding area. To create Pembroke University's campus, the show alternated between Washington & Jefferson College and Chatham University's Shadyside campus.
Annie Wyman, the co-creator and a co-writer of this show, was actually an academic in an English department; she earned a PhD in English literature from Harvard. Additionally, executive producers David Benioff and D. B. Weiss met while pursuing Master's degrees in Irish literature from Trinity College Dublin; each went on to receive MFAs in creative writing from other schools (Benioff from the University of California, Irvine, and Weiss from the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa). And David Duchovny (who appears as a version of himself) earned a Master's in English literature from Yale, and started (but has never completed) a PhD there as well.
Amanda Peet, the co-creator of "The Chair," has been best friends with the actress Sarah Paulson since they met as cast members of the short-lived WB TV series Jack & Jill (1999); they also co-starred on the similarly underloved Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006). In "The Chair," Peet (as a showrunner) cast Sarah Paulson's girlfriend, Holland Taylor, as Professor Joan Hambling.