7:30 p.m. Monday, June 10, 2019
James Bridges Theater, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television
The Event
Screenwriters Showcase is an annual event at the end of Spring Quarter designed to introduce outstanding student work to the industry. Students are invited to submit feature-length and TV scripts which are read and critiqued by industry experts including managers, agents, producers and executives. This year, the UCLA Screenwriting Showcase takes place on Monday, June 10, 2019 at the James Bridges Theater. The event begins at 7:30 p.m. and is open to the public. The Showcase will have speakers from the school and industry, as well as an awards ceremony for the best feature scripts and TV pilots written in the previous year. Reception to follow.
Students Finalists
Previous Screenwriters Showcase winners have signed with managers and agents, become staff writers on TV series, optioned winning scripts, and have received many distinctions and awards.
The Distinguished Award in Screenwriting: Linda Woolverton
Every year, the program honors a professional writer with the Distinguished Award in Screenwriting. Past honorees include Jordan Peele, Dustin Lance Black, Eric Heisserer, Callie Khouri, Adam McKay, Graham Moore, Eric Roth and Aaron Sorkin, among others.
PLEASE JOIN US FOR A FUN EVENING CELEBRATING SCREENWRITING AT UCLA TFT!
FEATURE COMEDY
Katie Adams •A Portrait of the Serial Killer as a Young Woman
Bio:
Katie Adams is a screenwriter who grew up in Big Bear Lake, California, and deeply believes mountain resort gothic should be a genre. She studied film at Stanford University, where she was terrified by vicious hordes of bikes, and is finishing her first year in UCLA’s Screenwriting MFA program, where she has been terrified by vicious hordes of cars. She writes female-driven, darkly absurd stories and keeps trying to come up with a plot that doesn’t involve murder (no luck yet).
She doesn’t bite. Promise.
Logline:
Ramona Morgan is just another young woman who wants to make it in a male-dominated field, but attracting the attention of both an upstart young detective and a criminal psychologist could make or break her dreams of becoming the first famous female serial killer.
Contact Information
Email: ktadams@g.ucla.edu
Aaron Carter Dalton • Cartoon
Bio:
Born in Ohio, Aaron quickly left it, escaping to attend NYU’s Stern School of Business. There, he discovered words like bagel and bodega and the cultural discourse. Now in Los Angeles, Aaron enjoys running marathons and performing improv comedy in addition to his writing.
Ask Aaron what his golf handicap is. Ask Aaron who should have won the 1996 Best Actress Oscar. Both have complicated answers. Both involve Sharon Stone.
Logline: A male prostitute is hired by a politician’s wife to derail her closeted husband’s primary campaign. But in a case of mistaken identity, in which he sleeps with the opponent, he must find a way to keep the “right” guy in the race.
Contact Information
Email: aaronthendalton@gmail.com
Taylor Santiago Berger • Feeling Sorry for Valerie
Bio:
If Taylor Santiago Berger is anything, she’s not afraid to make mistakes. As an amateur skateboarder, amateur stand-up comic, and above-average screenwriter, Taylor prides herself on her fearless nature and willingness to try new things, even if those things occasionally land her in the emergency room. After graduating Summa Cum Laude in Film Studies from the University of Colorado, Taylor was admitted straight to UCLA, where her first feature comedy, Road Rally, won UCLA’s 2018 screenwriter’s showcase. As a writer, Taylor leans into her voice as she writes female driven, somewhat raunchy coming-of-age comedies grounded in questions about identity, sexuality, and friendship. Taylor spends much of her free time recovering from the fact that she was born and raised on Long Island, New York.
Logline:
Valerie thinks she’s hatched the perfect plan to come out to her parents, but as it turns out, her parents have a secret of their own.
Contact Information
Stephanie Berger • Manger Games
Bio:
Stephanie Berger is a writer from Arcadia, California, pursuing a Screenwriting MFA at UCLA. Before that, she completed the UCLA Professional Program in TV Writing, and won the program’s Pilot Competition (Comedy Category), with a script based on her experience as a high school newswoman. She earned a Screenwriting BA from LMU, taught English in Japan, worked as a museum docent, and produced local cable access TV. She’s also a pretty good amateur manicurist. Stephanie has a passion for stories about oddballs, outcasts, and overlooked figures in history. She plans to pursue a TV writing career, but also writes features.
Logline:
Three outcast kids at a repressive Christian school team up against a bigoted teacher, but their plan accidentally gets the teacher killed. Now they must protect their deadly secret (and save their immortal souls or whatever).
Contact Information
Shauna Driscoll • When the Levee Breaks
Bio:
Shauna Driscoll was raised outside of Houston, home of Beyoncé and the fajita. She developed an interest in screenwriting during the tenth grade; her first film, written for a world history assignment, was called “Henry VIII’s Just Not That Into You.” She went on to attend the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied film and, briefly, veganism. The latter would not last due to an incident at Salt Lick BBQ. Two of her scripts – a Mindy Project spec and a feature called “Gordon Goes Soviet!” – placed in the second round at the Austin Film Festival. Shauna hopes to someday write adventure-comedy films and have health insurance. She imagined this bio being narrated by Alec Baldwin.
Logline:
As a Category Five hurricane descends on Sugar Land, Texas, a young cartoonist attempts to solve the murder of her neighbor while staying one step ahead of a pesky nine-year-old, a disbelieving sheriff, and a rogue alligator.
Contact Information
Email: shaunadriscoll@ucla.edu
TV COMEDY
Catherine Wignall • Dating Jesus
Bio:
Catherine Wignall is a screenwriter, cat lover, and Harry Styles fan girl (she’s really upset he cut his hair). A graduate of the UCLA Screenwriting MFA program, Catherine focuses on writing about young women, fandom, and pop culture, with the aim of increasing diversity on the small and big screen. She has placed in the Austin Film Festival, PAGE International Screenwriting Awards, and Sundance Episodic Labs, as well as winning the UK-based Euroscript-Underwire Screenwriting Competition. A Fulbright Scholar, BAFTA LA Scholar, and multiple UCLA Scholar, Catherine is disappointed to learn scholarships are not as abundant outside an academic setting. When not writing, she spends most of her time wishing she was a witch, a cat in a well-off family, or Harry Styles’ best friend.
Logline:
A smart and feisty investigative journalist signs up to be a contestant on a reality dating show in order to expose a possibly fraudulent bachelor who claims to be Jesus.
Contact Information
Email: wignall.ce@gmail.com
Sanj Krishnan • Far from the Tree
Bio:
Sanj hails from London, England, where he worked as a human rights lawyer before trading in his powdered wig for a copy of Final Draft. His writing blends adventure, fantasy and magical realism with themes of power and oppression, family ties/shackles, and characters whose worldviews are shattered by journeys to new worlds. On the MFA, Sanj has delighted in honing his writing craft and being surrounded by brilliant storytellers. He was recently awarded a BAFTA Scholarship.
Logline:
After fleeing his despotic home country of Libertad, Simon is making a good life in the USA. Until the State Department forces him to become a double agent and befriend the dictator back home—his dad.
Contact Information
Email: sanjkrishnan@ucla.edu
Sonny Priest • Middle Aged
Bio:
Six years ago, Sonny started saying “Howdy” as a joke and hasn’t been able to stop. Southern hospitality runs deep in his veins—and that’s not just referring to his high cholesterol—he loves hosting a good watch party or game night. He finds writing to be a lot like fishing: it requires lots of patience and a lucky spot. Sonny currently resides in Los Angeles with his amazing wife Amaka—who is way, waaayyy cooler than him—and their two cats, Oliver and Lulu. He departs UCLA in June with a MFA in Screenwriting and the coveted Oliver’s Prize.
Logline:
After an accident at his dead end job, a middle aged janitor becomes the king’s Master of Torture with an eye on becoming a lord in the kingdom, but he isn’t even the lord of his own house.
Contact Information
Email: sonnypriest@hotmail.com
Alix Conde • Playhouse
Bio:
Before attending the Screenwriting MFA program at UCLA, Alix Conde received her B.A. at U.C. Riverside in Theatre (Writing for the Performing Arts) and worked at a regional theater company. She is a Quarterfinalist of the 2018 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, and a Finalist of the UCLA Screenwriters Showcase in the Comedy Pilot Category. Besides comedy, she has a keen interest in both science fiction and historical period genres.
Logline:
When a theater-loving bookkeeper is mistakenly hired as an assistant artistic director, she plunges headfirst into the creative turmoil, office shenanigans, and larger-than-life personalities of a regional theater company. On stage or off, the drama never stops.
Contact Information
Email: conde.alix@gmail.com
JT Gurzi • Sun Valley
Bio:
Jeremiah Gurzi was born and raised in the battle born state of Nevada. He studied Electrical Engineering and Astronomy at the University Nevada, Reno, and Film at the University Nevada, Las Vegas. Since relocating to Los Angeles, Gurzi has allocated much of his personal time to global travel with his wife. He has explored four continents, and over forty countries — these memorable travel experiences have positively informed his storytelling. In addition to writing, he’s an IATSE member, and is PGA qualified. Gurzi is a distinguished graduate of the 2019 UCLA MFA Screenwriting program.
Logline:
A scrappy family, living on the dusty fringe of a high-desert town, comes into noveau wealth when two brothers discover seven million dollars hidden inside an old vehicle, contained in an auctioned-off storage unit. But with the threat of the original storage owner returning, they must quickly decide how to handle this newfound family secret.
Contact Information
Email: tbor78@hotmail.com
FEATURE DRAMA
Paul M Sprangers • Gang of Witches
Bio:
Paul is a writer, director, and entrepreneur. For many years he toured the world in the band Free Energy. Then he launched a successful vegan food startup. Now, he’s written ten features and a dozen half-hour comedy pilots. Paul recently filmed a short thriller, “Stranger Danger,” and this summer he’ll write and direct his first feature called “The Free Mind Preservation Society.” Paul loves the Eastside, breakfast bagels, his wife Chelsea and their two bunnies: Hammy and Yoshi.
Logline:
A Puritan girl is rescued by a group of witches that trains her to hack and slash her way across 1694 New England on a quest to stop an evil Protestant Pastor before he kills her sister and becomes an unstoppable demon.
Contact Information
Email: psprangers@gmail.com
IG: @paulsprangers
Twitter: @paintbrushmusic
George Carlos • TETRA
Bio:
George Carlos is a freelance screenwriter from Atlanta, Georgia currently residing in Los Angeles. He completed a Bachelor’s Degree in Digital Filmmaking at The Art Institute of Atlanta in 2010, and is currently attending UCLA in their Graduate Screenwriting program. He wrote and produced a microbudget feature film called The 12 Lives of Sissy Carlyle that is currently on the film festival circuit including a featured screening at the 2017 Atlanta Film Festival. He has also made the quarterfinals and beyond in screenwriting competitions including the Nicholl Fellowship, Austin Film Festival, Bluecat Screenwriting Competition, and Final Draft’s Big Break. George will graduate from UCLA with an MFA in Screenwriting in June 2019.
Logline:
A seemingly ordinary woman wakes up trapped in a strange apartment filled with cryptic puzzles, and has only forty-seven minutes to escape before she is brutally murdered by mysterious unseen assailants.
Contact Information
Email: george.c.carlos@gmail.com
Ian DaSilva Hamill • The Guyana Project
Bio:
Ian has dedicated his life to writing. Novels, hundreds of short stories, a handful of one act plays, and scores of screenplays and teleplays. He has a BFA in Film and Television Production from Chapman University and an MFA in Creative Writing from St. Mary’s College of California. Since graduating from St. Mary’s in 2011, Ian worked as a script doctor and published two short stories. He recently graduated from UCLA’s Screenwriting MFA program. Ian is from Palo Alto, CA and currently resides in Los Angeles.
Logline:
A team of Nazi-hunters goes to the Amazon Jungle in search of a rumored Nazi escape haven. Inspired by a true story.
Contact Information
Email: ian.hamill@gmail.com
Amber McCain •Weathering
Bio:
Amber McCain is a Black queer screenwriter hailing from Atlanta, GA by way of Philadelphia. She is pursuing an MFA in Screenwriting at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. Her roots in the arts began in the Visual and Performing Arts Magnet Program at Tri-Cities High School in East Point, GA before eventually receiving an MBA from Georgia State University.
Logline:
A woman takes on the hospital that neglected to save her sister’s life after she passes away during childbirth.
Contact Information
Email:
Jessica Kozak •Wilder Than Her
Bio:
Jessica is currently finishing her Master of Fine Arts in Screenwriting at UCLA. She grew up as a weird home-schooler in northern Florida before moving to New York to attend acting school and then finally to Los Angeles to write. She mainly writes about women, sometimes women who kill men, and often about female relationships because they’re super cool. She lives with her husband in LA and enjoys going to matinees on weekdays.
Logline:
After the death of their friend Beth, three women reconnect on their annual camping trip, but things grow increasingly strange and uncomfortable as their friendship unravels without Beth to hold it together.
Contact Information
Email: JessicaAnneKozak@gmail.com
TV DRAMA
Ryan Hines • New Creek Mountain
Bio:
After a career in the horse industry, Ryan Michael Hines went back to school and received his undergrad degree at the age of 31. He then moved to Los Angeles and was fortunate enough to be accepted into UCLA’s Screenwriting MFA program. He lives in Los Feliz with his wife Bonnie, his cat Princess, and a loyal dog named Dixie.
Logline:
Life falls in love with Death on a remote Appalachian mountaintop while trying to escape the horrors of the American Civil War.
Contact Information
Email: ryanmhines@yahoo.com
Alexandra Overy • New Eden
Bio:
Alexandra grew up in London and moved to Los Angeles to pursue her undergraduate degree in history at UCLA. She stuck around for the weather and great ice cream, and is now completing her M.F.A. in screenwriting also at UCLA. She loves writing in all formats, from novels to screenplays to graphic novels, always centering on fierce women and morally gray characters, often with a bit of magic and murder. When she’s not writing, she can be found baking, fangirling over her favorite shows, or cuddling her puppy.
Logline:
When her mentor vanishes, psychology student Hanna Ward must infiltrate her mentor’s clinic—enlisting the help of some patients, from a vampire who won’t drink blood to an agoraphobic werewolf—to begin to uncover her mentor’s secrets, and the real reason behind her disappearance.
Contact Information
Email: aovery@ucla.edu
Amy Monaghan •Paradise, PA
Bio:
Amy Monaghan is a Los Angeles-based screenwriter and recovering Long Islander. After earning a bachelor’s degree in photography at RIT in Rochester, New York, she relocated to Scotland for graduate coursework in the history of post-mortem photography. Despite the mystique of the local highland cows, Amy quickly realized that her true love was storytelling. One transatlantic flight and a cross-country road trip later, she enrolled in UCLA’s Professional Program in Screenwriting, and two years later began her MFA. Amy’s writing explores the nuances of trauma and the search for personal freedom. She’s also a proud cat mom to beloved cat son Hal.
Logline:
Five years after being shunned, a scorned woman returns to Amish Country to open its first and only strip club. But when a dangerous figure from her past arrives, she realizes her sins can’t be outrun.
Contact Information
Email: amymonaghan14@gmail.com
Yashna Malhotra • The Void
Bio:
Born and raised in India, Yashna received her MSc in Marketing at Northwestern University in Chicago, before moving to New York to work in advertising (where she constantly felt like she was a modern-day employee at Sterling-Cooper & Partners – yes, the agency from Mad Men).
A storyteller at heart, Yashna escaped the concrete jungle and moved to sunny LA to pursue screenwriting. She enjoys writing character-driven dramas about morally and culturally ambiguous characters who don’t quite belong, but carve out their own unique path and journey anyway. Working with marginalized women and children in India highlighted to her the importance of telling stories that focus on empowerment, resilience and the indomitable human spirit.
Logline:
Logline: A woman wakes up on the morning of 9/11 to find that her boyfriend is gone without a trace. When no evidence of his existence is found, she begins to question whether or not he was real.
Contact Information
Email:
Barbara Soares • Username
Bio:
Barbara Soares was born in Brazil, spent her teenage years in the U.K, and moved to America at 18 to attend film school. Her writing reflects her multicultural worldview and deals with themes of identity and disconnection, often with a dash of social satire. Barbara is particularly interested in how technology shapes identity, as seen in her latest TV pilot, “Username.”
Logline:
A hacker joins an A.I. talent agency where she impersonates a CGI Instagram star. However, months after leaving the job, she finds her livelihood threatened when the CGI persona somehow reappears and begins to commit crimes on their own and blame her for them.
Contact Information
Email: bsoares.writer@gmail.com
The Distinguished Award in Screenwriting:
Linda Woolverton
Screenwriter Linda Woolverton began her career writing for Saturday morning animated TV shows. Her first animated feature, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, won the Golden Globe for the Best Comedy/Musical in 1992 and that year became the first animated film to be nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award. She rewrote the script for Disney’s Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (1993); shares writing credit for The Lion King (1994); and contributed to Mulan (1998).
Woolverton adapted her Beauty and the Beast script for the Broadway stage and received a Best Book of a Musical Tony Award nomination in 1994. The production also received a Best New Musical Oliver Award in the U.K. Beauty and the Beast ran in New York from 1994-2007, becoming the sixth longest running show in Broadway history. Additionally, Woolverton wrote the book for Elton John and Tim Rice’s musical Aida, which ran for five years at the Palace Theatre in New York.
Woolverton’s live-action credits for Disney include director Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, starring Johnny Depp, which grossed more than $1 billion worldwide; Maleficent, starring Angelina Jolie; and its upcoming sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil.
She is currently writing and producing an animated fantasy for Skydance Media and creating a TV series produced by The Chernin Group in conjunction with Margot Robbie’s production company Lucky Chap.
In 2008, Woolverton received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Writers Guild of America-Animation Writers Caucus for her longtime work in the field of animation.
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