1ST SCENE SCREENPLAY READINGS

1ST SCENE SCREENPLAY READINGS

Winning screenplays. First scenes readings from features, and television specs.

1ST SCENE SCREENPLAY READINGS
  • SCI-FI Festival 1st Scene Reading: Arcturus Rising, by Robert Cox

    A large spaceship glides over Peran, a moon circling a planet in the Arcturus System. Staying for a few moments, it drills a hole into the crust, deposits a box and silently leaves. Over 12,000 years later, Mining Colony Six occupies the same general area. The colony consists of six miners, a doc...

  • 1st Scene Screenplay Reading: There Are No Black People In Space, by Ant Thompson

    Facing a dying Earth, an unlikely crew of inmates is forced to build a habitable colony on Mars.

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Val Cole
    Teejay/Sway/Omari: Sean Ballantyne
    Kojey/Officer Vega/Miles: Shawn Devlin
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  • ACTION Festival 1st Scene Script Reading: Sequestered, by Jake Parrish

    In New America, run by AI, a group of young people escape the camp and come to realise the world they’ve known is not as it seems.

  • 1st Scene Screenplay Reading: The Past Is A Temple, by Joe Favalaro

    A struggling writer travels to London to finish his perpetually delayed novel, where he begins a fraught search into reincarnation and past lives that will threaten his brittle sobriety and fragile relationship.

  • 1st Scene Reading: TV PILOT Fairyland Ain't What It Used To BE

    Lured into what they think is a virtual reality game, girl-boy twins find themselves in a fantasy dimension, fighting for their lives to save an enchanted realm fallen into shadow.

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Val Cole
    Casey (M-12): Shawn Devlin
    Claire (F-12): Hannah Ehman
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  • BLACK & WHITE Festival 1st Scene Reading: WE ARE ALL DEAD, by Arthur Tiersky

    When a robbery goes wrong and the getaway driver is killed, the gang's two leaders become romantic rivals when the driver's widow shows up to collect her share.

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Val Cole
    McBride/Voice: Geoff Mays
    Johnny: Allan Michael Brunet

  • SCI-FI/FANTASY Festival TV PILOT 1st Scene Reading: Nature > Nuture, by Daniel Roche

    After the north and south magnetic poles flip overnight, people’s random inner animals run wild. In this new world, the power dynamic between men and women, rich and poor, parent and child go extinct. All that matters is where you fall on the food chain. Are you predator or prey?

    CAST LIST:

    ...

  • 1st Scene Script Reading: THE MOUNTAINS ARE CALLING, by Eva Bennett

    Set in a small town nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, recovering heroin addict Mason Summers moves back into his parents home after leaving rehab. The day after he arrives, he comes home to find the daughter he secretly gave up for adoption 18 years prior sitting on the couch....

  • LGBTQ+ Festival 1st Scene Reading: SCHOOL STORY, by Jit Fong Oon

    Teen rebel Kai joins the school production of Romeo and Juliet in order to cozy up to his romantic target Ana, but he gets embroiled in her attempt to launch a clandestine gay-themed version of the play despite opposition from the conservative school authorities.

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Elizabeth ...

  • CRIME Festival TV Series 1st Scene Reading: CHICAGO UNDERGROUND, by T.J. Barkwill

    To pay off his gambling debts to the mob, a desperate unemployed black man and single father to a five-year-old is forced to kill a man—but having discovered a talent for murder he finds himself caught up in the twists and turns of a gang war which lead to his son being placed in harm’s way.

    CAS...

  • 1st Scene Script Reading: STRAYS, by Robert Wooldridge

    A lonely surveillance officer at a grocery store helps a street kid get a job, but their budding friendship soon turns into a brewing obsession.

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Elizabeth Rose Morriss
    Young Woman: Kyana Teresa
    Pete: Shawn Devlin

  • 1st Scene Script Reading: MISERABLE PEOPLE, by Jeff Hindenach

    A young man suffers from the uncanny ability to absorb the worst memories of people he comes into physical contact with, which forces him into a lonely life of seclusion. But when he starts seeing happy memories for the first time in his life, he embarks on a mission to find the woman from the fl...

  • SCI-FI/FANTASY Festival 1st Scene Reading: THE DEPTHS BELOW, by Andrew Dean Pearson

    In the not too distant future, a team of oceanic explorers equipped with technologically advanced diving suits become the target of a highly adaptive creature that teaches them a valuable lesson: Space was never the final frontier.

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Val Cole
    Crew Member: Elizabeth Rose Morr...

  • LGBTQ+ Festival 1st Scene Reading: THE DISTANCE, by Pann MuruJaiyan

    Jackie Beeman, a young under privileged African American girl eyes for the boxing championship. The only obstacle is not the opponent but a Pastor who hates her guts. Coincidentally, Jackie soon gets a title shot, but at the same time she meets her college crush back in town. Whether she has the ...

  • LGBTQ+ Festival 1st Scene Script Reading: Strays, by Robert Wooldridge

    Pete is ruthlessly efficient in his role as loss prevention officer at a grocery store, scanning cameras, ready to catch potential thieves. Feeling the Christmas spirit, he lets a new shoplifter, Nick, off, and buys him shopping. But this is the start of a growing infatuation with the young man, ...

  • TV Screenplay 1st Scene Reading: The Soldier And The Spy, by Mike Garcia

    A CIA operative and a former Green Beret must work together to stage a coup in Chile, 1973 before KGB agents can foil it. (Inspired by true events)

    CAST LIST:
    Narrator: Allison Kampf
    Danh: Geoff Mays
    Guards/Bryan: Steve Rizzo - 13

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  • Experimental Festival 1st Scene Screenplay: Penelope's War, by Nancy "Sunny" Ellis & Marc L. Ellis

    This absurdist tongue-in-cheek musical comedy is about a sassy, single mom, suffragette, who must save her Colorado mining town from ruin by organizing the women and by joining forces with a colorblind, Victorian, chauvinistic doctor/inventor, who has unwittingly created a sex toy to cure female ...

  • FEMALE Festival TV 1st Scene Screenplay: Sweet Valley Spy

    Liza has a budding career at a pharmaceutical company. Her twin sister, Jess, talks to a bottle of tequila and dates a guy who tells dead-baby jokes. When Liza mysteriously disappears, Jess gets a crash course in the family business - espionage.

    CAST LIST:
    Narrator: Allison
    The Narrator: Geoff...

  • LA Festival 1st Scene Script Reading: Miserable People, by Jeff Hindenach

    A young man suffers from the uncanny ability to absorb the worst memories of people he comes into physical contact with, which forces him into a lonely life of seclusion. But when he starts seeing happy memories for the first time in his life, he embarks on a mission to find the woman from the fl...

  • COMEDY Festival TV 1st Scene Reading: Stazie In The Spotlight, by Christina Hodel

    Stazie Sattler, 16, is part of the popular family band trio: The Garage Grrrlz. While her mom, Meg, and sister, Cora, are alongside her as musicians and vocalists, Stazie yearns to headline her own Las Vegas show. The teen singing sensation’s attempts at a solo career go awry when she tries to ad...

  • DIVERSITY Festival 1st Scene Script: QUASH, by John McCarney

    Inspired by true events... A Vietnam Vet on the verge of
    homelessness, loses custody of his children and will do anything to
    get them back. He takes a job with a community service group in the
    middle of a gang war and is confronted with more than he bargained
    for, thrown into the center of the de...

  • ACTION Festival TV 1st Scene Reading: Orpheus, by Richard Giarraffa

    Set in Ancient Greece, our protagonist Orpheus gets entangled with the god Apollo, who teaches him how to play his lyre, becoming a muse and an instrument used by gods for their bidding. Within the year he turns 18, Orpheus performs alongside other Apollo protégés and is chosen to go abroad with ...

  • DIVERSITY 1st Scene Screenplay Reading: KILT, by Ron Leach, Kristian Hodko

    The forbidden love affair between a dashing young Scottish soldier and his superior officer, in the Second World War, bears remarkable fruit when his grandson attends his funeral 50 years later.

    CAST LIST:
    Narrator: Steve Rizzo
    Lavery: Geoff Mays
    General Donaldson: Andy Kamp
    Mac: Sean Ballantyne

  • SCI-FI/FANTASY Festival 1st Scene Script Reading: Kevin's Other Kevins, by Gordie Hvolka

    While his small video-game business teeters on failure, KEVIN and his abusive inner voice argue and fight one another. But when Kevin faces a near-death experience, he meets his inner voice and together must resolve their issues or risk never getting back to Kevin’s life on Earth.

    CAST LIST:
    Nar...