Disney/ABC Writing
Fellowship finalist and
HotCity Theatre Jury Winner
Two-time finalist in
Chesterfield Film
Writer's Project
Heideman Award-winner
and Artistic Director, Boston
Playwrights' Theatre
New Century Writer
Screenplay Award-winner
Peabody Award-winner
and nominee for the
Pulitzer Prize
Heightened Reality: The World of the Absurd
The Three-Act Structure
Aristotle in the New World
The 36 Dramatic Situations
drug deal gone bad, saving each other's lives
in the process.
finals), but the year he won the Nicholl,
something strange happened. "I submitted to
nine or 10 different contests and it didn't even
make the first cut in any of them." Sometimes
truth really is stranger than fiction.
student Andrew Lan-
ham. "I don't really
think there is any
other option for me."
The only Fellow to
hail from outside Cal-
ifornia this year, Lan-
ham originally
wanted to be an actor,
primarily because his
Tourette's Syndrome
symptoms would vanish the moment he
stepped on stage.
and found that writing gave him direction.
"It's really given balance and structure to my
life and helped me understand what I want
and what my goals are." So when Lanham set-
tled on screenwriting, he did it without any
formal training. In fact, he had never even
read a produced screenplay. His first script
came in at 250 pages. He knew it wasn't a
movie, so he rewrote the script about 20 times,
each time starting from page one. "I tend to
go about things in the most difficult way pos-
sible," he admits.
agreed to read Lanham's second effort, The
Jumper of Maine, about a paramedic with
Tourette's Syndrome who is forced to come to
terms with his life and his condition when he
falls in love with a single mother who has ties
to his past. Lanham's inspiration? "I don't
think there's a really good movie about
Tourette's, so I wanted to write about it."
for a public reading in his first year of grad
school that he kicked in the after burners, writ-
ing a new draft in eight days. "I remember I
finished the draft and printed it the day of the
reading, so nobody had seen the draft yet."
script in competitions. "He told me, `You're a
writer and you need your stack of rejection let-
ters. What's the worst thing that could hap-
pen? You win?'" Lanham sent Jumper in that
same day to the Austin Film Festival and the
Nicholl. It won both!
only (only adaptations of your own
work are allowed).
submitted.
in PDF format with NO name on the
document.
11:59pm on May 1.