1ST SCENE SCREENPLAY READINGS
Winning screenplays. First scenes readings from features, and television specs.
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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...
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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 TeresaGet 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...
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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...
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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 CampWriter 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 EhmanGet to know the screenw...
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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...
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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 ColeGet to know the screenwriter:
1. What is your screenplay about?
Kubrick's Waterl...
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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 EhmanGet to kn...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...