1ST SCENE SCREENPLAY READINGS

1ST SCENE SCREENPLAY READINGS

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

1ST SCENE SCREENPLAY READINGS
  • FEMALE Festival 1st Scene: ALL THAT YOU LOVE, by Ken Gire

    A teenager's idyllic life on a German farm is shattered during World War II by a ruthless Soviet invasion that separates her from her family, putting

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Steve Rizzo
    Mildred: Val Cole

  • THRILLER Festival TV 1st Scene Reading: ZOOM HIT, by Laura Puccia Valtorta

    When idealistic attorney Silvia Moretti watches her obnoxious doctor/lover get assassinated during a Zoom meeting, she travels to California with her housemate, Wyshonda, to find the killer.

    https://www.twitter.com/laurapuccia

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Hannah Ehman
    Cedric: Shawn Devlin
    Silvia: ...

  • DRAMA Festival 1st Scene: AGAIN, by Melissa L. White (screenwriter interview)

    AGAIN tells the story of three strong women whose lives intertwine in three parallel stories about r eincarnation, life-altering love, and the re-connecting of souls throughout history: from Duchess Bianca Maria Visconti in 15th Century Milan; to author Jean Rhys in Devon, England in 1966; to cur...

  • COMEDY Fest 1st Scene: YOU MUST BE THIS TALL, by Randall R. Reese (interview)

    Workers of a run down amusement park rush to save the park before an evil developer buys the land.

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Steve Rizzo
    Colette: Hannah Ehman
    Ryan/Kristopher: Geoff Mays
    Julia : Kyana Teresa

    Get to know the screenwriter:

    1. What is your screenplay about?
    The series is about...

  • COMEDY Festival 1st Scene: SHELTER, by Janna Jones (interview)

    A smart, but indecisive movie theater owner is about to lose her husband, movie theater and her family's legacy, but when two forces of nature sweep into her life--a violent tropical storm and a gorgeous and compassionate man--she finally jumps into action to get what she wants.

    https://www.face...

  • LGBTQ+ Festival 1st Scene: SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY, by Kate Harbert

    With the help of her best friends, a strongly-spirited girl must do whatever it takes to keep her family on the right track no matter how desperate the antics become.

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Steve Rizzo
    Reese/Jim: Geoff Mays
    Sierra: Kyana Teresa
    Finn: Hannah Ehman
    Victor: Sean Ballantyne

  • LA LGBTQ+ Festival 1st Scene: THE BLESSED, by Sarah Grodsky (interview)

    When a young, queer nun confined to a life of labor, starvation, and flagellation reaches her threshold, she draws attention and takes control by performing possessions and miracles, electing herself a holy conduit of God's word.

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Steve Rizzo
    Carlotta: Val Cole
    Benedetta: ...

  • THRILLER Festival 1st Scene: Infinite Man, by Greg Robbins

    The consequences of a society that no longer ages and a journey to revive death.

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Steve Rizzo
    Harlan: Sean Ballantyne
    Madalyn: Hannah Ehman

  • THRILLER Festival 1st Scene: BLOOD MONEY, by Dominic Flanagan

    Howard Swan, a doctor with a severe drinking problem, loses his medical license, his wife, his house, and is on the verge of losing his daughter as well. In a desperate act, he enlists the help of Caspar, his drug dealer brother, to make some easy money. After a deal goes wrong, Howard uses his m...

  • SHORT Screenplay 1st Scene: The Debt He Never Promised, by Daniel Foster

    When a lone rancher learns of his impending death, then he must find homes for his six beloved Labradors before he pays the debt he never promised

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Val Cole
    Eugene: Geoff Mays
    Everitt: Steve Rizzo
    Ammon: Sean Ballantyne
    Alex: Andy Camp

    Writer Statement
    As soon as I retire...

  • TV 1st Scene Reading: Southern Elite Law, by Clifton McMillan Jr. (interview)

    A former JAG attorney starts a new life as a private sector lawyer and gets caught up in a class action lawsuit against a crooked pharmaceutical company.

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Sean Ballantyne
    Al/Emmett: Steve Rizzo
    Organ Player/Grace: Kyana Teresa
    Sylvia: Hannah Ehman

    Get to know the screenw...

  • TV FESTIVAL 1st Scene: THE WATCHLIST, by Alex Vickery-Howe

    A young man falls in love with an ecoterrorist and teams up with her to save the world.

    https://www.currency.com.au/books/drama/watchlist/

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Val Cole
    Delia: Kyana Teresa
    Bolton: Sean Ballantyne

  • TV Festival 1st Scene: CROWN POINT, by Joseph Anthony Francis

    A scandalous event in their hidden past transformed the once-friendly Dalton and Alvarez dynasties into bitter rivals. Against the backdrop of the Crown Point skyline, members of these two empires scheme to gain the upper hand, leaving a path of broken dreams, broken promises, and broken hearts b...

  • LA Festival BEST Scene Reading: Kubricks Waterloo, by Mike Mann (interview)

    in 1969 Stanley Kubrick attempts to make his dream film, an epic about Napoleon Bonaparte. If Napoleon doesn’t unmake him first…

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Steve Rizzo
    Kubrick: Sean Ballantyne
    Christiane: Val Cole

    Get to know the screenwriter:

    1. What is your screenplay about?

    Kubrick's Waterl...

  • FEMALE Festival 1st Scene Reading: BETTER ANGELS, by Helen Orme Darvall

    A teenage girl is forced to volunteer at an animal shelter after getting busted with the wrong people.

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Steve Rizzo
    Crystal: Hannah Ehman
    Olivia: Kyana Teresa

  • FEMALE Festival. 1st Scene: The Road to Sorrowful, by Andrea Lawson (interview)

    In the afterlife, a murdered man meets a grieving mother who died during the Great Depression and has been ferrying souls through purgatory ever since for the chance to rescue her daughter's soul from damnation.

    CAST LIST:

    Narrator: Steve Rizzo
    Deacon: Geoff Mays
    Sadie: Hannah Ehman

    Get to kn...

  • FEMALE Festival 1st Scene: BY DARK, by Sabrina Barton (writer interview)

    When her older sister is brutally murdered, a Black teen girl and her white best friend must overcome police apathy, racial prejudice, and extreme peril to bring a serial killer to justice. Inspired by true events in late nineteenth-century Austin, Texas.

    CAST LIST:

    Narration: Sean Ballanty...

  • LA Festival 1st Scene: BLOOD MONEY, by Dominic Flanagan (writer interview)

    Howard Swan, a doctor with a severe drinking problem, loses his medical license, his wife, his house, and is on the verge of losing his daughter as well. In a desperate act, he enlists the help of Caspar, his drug dealer brother, to make some easy money. After a deal goes wrong, Howard uses his m...

  • TV Festival 1st Scene Reading: The Murderbot Diaries, by Keith A. LaCabe

    On a distant alien planet, a security “construct” (half human, half robot) must decide between saving its clients from certain death or hiding out in safety watching its entertainment feed and an uncertain rescue.

    CAST LIST:

    Narration: Hannah Ehman
    Murderbot: Geoff Mays
    Dr. Mensah: Kyana Teresa

  • DRAMA Festival 1st Scene: STILL PERFECT, by Michael Fitzer, Karin Partin Wells

    When a young single mother’s baby is murdered by a close friend, she and her family struggle with each other and regret about the past before they find peace through the sound of a beating heart.

    CAST LIST:

    Narration: Geoff Mays
    Bethan: Kyana Teresa
    Siri/Mair: Hannah Ehman
    Owen: Andy Camp

  • THRILLER Festival 1st Scene: AS SCARED AS YOU, by Jesse Dorian (interview)

    A twenty-something male “drifter” antihero, and a young blind woman become caged prisoners at a bed and breakfast in small-town northern California, where the drifter’s violent, malignant actions prior, push a group of malicious locals-- along with their two animalistic, basement-held zombified r...

  • SCI-FI Festival 1st Scene Reading: The Agreement, by Jared Stuart

    Young US Air Force wife and mother realizes that she is a part of an alien hybridization program through an abduction and hypnosis, and that her son along with her husband and his family may not be who she thinks they are.

    Cast List:

    Narration: Hannah Ehman
    Eve: Kyana Teresa
    Jeremy: Geoff May

  • SCI-FI Fest 1st Scene Reading: Department of Disinformation, by Justin McLachlan

    When a manipulative intelligence agent is abducted by aliens, he turns to his hapless brother — a once well-regarded journalist who now hosts a conspiracy-laden, low-rated cable TV show — to help him expose a coming alien invasion.

    CAST LIST:

    Narration: Val Cole
    Charlie: Geoff Mays
    Jason: St...

  • ENVIRONMENTAL Festival 1st Scene; WATCHLIST, by Alex Vickery-Howe (interview)

    Logline: A young man falls in love with an ecoterrorist only to discover their pasts are entwined.

    Synopsis: Basil Pepper is not ‘the man’, he’s not a doer, or a fighter…or even much of a thinker. World events pass him by, ideology makes him sleepy, and the Prime Minister’s name eludes him. Deli...