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ACT ONE ALUMNI SUCCESS STORIES
Over 100 Act One Alumni currently work at various levels in the entertainment industry as producers, writers, development executives, directors, as well as technical and administrative assistants. Our alumni are also finding recognition in a wide circle of conferences, think tanks and film festivals as speakers, panelists and instructors on a broad variety of topics relating to Christianity, entertainment, the arts, and popular-culture.
The following is only a brief list of the many accomplishments we are seeing within our alumni community.
ALUMNI SUCCESSES:
Christine Park (EP '06) produced the web series Tyler's Ride (www.tylersride.com) for Paulist Productions and Kevin McCloskey(WP '06) wrote the episodes. The series launched April 22 and marks Christian rock singer Jeremy Camp's acting debut.
Clare Sera (WP ‘99) and writing partner Ivan Menchel sold the family comedy pitch Blended to Warner Brothers under producer Mike Karz and his new shingle Karz Entertainment. (Variety 7/24/07)
Paramount Pictures acquired Amy Snow’s (WP ‘00) comedy spec Kept Men, to be produced by Michael Shamberg and Stacy Sher of Double Feature Productions. (Variety 8/7/07)
In March 2007, Melissa Dogero (WP 02) and Jessica Rieder (WP 01) signed as a writing team with CAA.
Clare Sera (WP 99) and Chris Poche will co-write the family action-comedy Captain Abdul's Pirate School , based on the book by Colin McNaughton, with partner Karey Kirkpartrick ( Chicken Run , Over the Hedge, Charlotte's Web ) attached to direct for Nickelodeon Movies.
Also in April 2007, the trades announced that Isaiah Washington (Grey's Anatomy) will star in the indie feature The Least of These for writer-director Nathan Scoggins (WP 05). The film, which has wrapped shooting, was produced by alumni James Duke (WP 01) and Christina Lee (WP 03).
Cheryl McKay wrote the screenplay for the 2007 release The Ultimate Gift, starring Drew Fuller and Abigail Breslin.
Clare Sera wrote for the 2006 Universal/Imagine feature Curious George; Clare recently sold a pitch for an animated feature film to producers Klasky-Csupo and Paramount Pictures.
Nina Shelton was hired to write multiple scripts for Naomi Judd’s Hallmark Channel series.
Scott Teems’ feature screenplay I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down, developed in our Act Two program, won the Emerging Narrative Screenplay Award at the 2006 IFP Market in New York.
Elizabeth Beachy’s screenplay Pulse took first place in the 2006 Nashville Screenplay Showdown in the music-themed category.
Kimberly Wilson-Lauziere was selected for both the 2006 Cosby Writing Program at USC and the ABC/Disney Talent Development Program.
Stephen Chang won the highly competitive $50,000 ABC/Disney Writing Fellowship, the second Act One alumnus to do so.
Jessica Reider, Melissa Dogero and Steven Chang, all products of Act One’s TV Spring Training Program, were all finalists for the prestigious 2007 Warner Bros. Writing Workshop.
Act One writers won three of the five sought-after Art Within screenwriting fellowships for 2006.
Origin Entertainment optioned Chris Foley’s screenplay Stubborn Creek.
Jennifer Dornbush’s script Coroner’s Daughter was optioned by Act One Executive Program alumni Ken Stewart and Vicki Peterson and earned semi-finalist status in the Austin Screenplay Competition.
Writing Program alumnus Jim Hornbeak optioned Haynes Brooke’s Longshot.
Rajeev Sigamony and Dan Ewald were hired to write for the Disney animated series Yin Yang Yo; Dan and Rajeev also sold a television pilot pitch to the Fuse television network.
Robin Knight was signed for representation by Creative Artists Agency.
We are thrilled to announce that the majority of our 41 Executive Program alumni are now working in strategic positions within the entertainment industry.
