Table Read of "How to Cope with Suburban Stress" feature screenplay

Hello gang - I just wanted to give you a heads up that on January 28th (tentative) I'll be holding a table read of my second feature length screenplay, “How to Cope with Suburban Stress". The script is based on the novel of the same title by David Galef, feature in the August 2006 issue of the Hollywood Reporter (see attached article).

The story brings together the disturbing and the satirical in a fractured tale of suburban angst and ennui, which revolves around the marital difficulties of Michael Eisner, a psychiatrist who constantly squabbles with his domineering executive wife, Jane, at the expense of the mental health of their prepubescent son, Alex. The story intersects that of Ted Sacks, a budding child pedophile who loses his job as a data recovery specialist and slips further into the seedy chatroom-centric realm of would-be child molesters. He soon grows tired of chatting about molesting "boyz" and begins stalking them in Alex's neighborhood.

This screenplay was work-shopped in 2007 at the NALIP Writers Lab under the mentorship of Harrison Riener, former Production Executive at Sovereign Pictures, which produced Academy Award winners 'My Left Foot' and 'Cinema Paradiso'. Mr. Harrison is producer of “Amar a morir” (2009), currently in post-production. Mr. Riener currently teaches screenwriting in the MFA program at UCLA school of Film and Television, and currently works as Story Analyst at CBS Independent.

Modeled after the Sundance writers lab, the NALIP writers lab is a prestigious feature film lab sponsored and supported by HBO, Time Warner, MTV Networks, ABC/Walt Disney New Talent Development Program, FOX, Cox Communications, UCLA, ASU, UofA, the Academy Foundation, POV, HFPA Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Ford Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the WGA East/West.

“How to Cope with Suburban Stress” was selected as a finalist for consideration to the Sundance Writers Lab for 2008, selected in the 10% out of over 1900 National and International submissions. Although the project did not get in (mainly because it is 140+ pages long), it has been invited back for reconsideration for the June 2009 Lab, without having to go through the formal selection process. In other words, they liked it enough to give it another look see, along with my first feature screenplay, “86“. Both screenplays are due in their hands on March 15th, and I’m hoping to get some feedback on “How to Cope with Suburban Stress” from local talent and observer based on the table read.

I look forward to sharing the screenplay in its current state of disrepair with an ear toward tightening it up in time for the March deadline.

More information will be forthcoming as I go about selecting a location and time. I look forward to sharing the screenplays with actors and observers alike.

Cheers,

Marco ;-)