Stowe Story Labs Announces Tangerine Entertainment and ISA Fellows to 5th Annual Lab
Tangerine Entertainment Fellow:
Melody Cooper, Hastings, New York (Horror/Thriller, THE SOUND OF DARKNESS) - A blind musician and a deaf sculptor are haunted by a woman only they can see and hear, who leads them to save a missing girl. Writer/Director Melody Cooper was a recipient of the Meryl Streep Writers Lab and AMC Shudder Lab fellowships in 2016 and was selected for the 2017 NY Stage and Film workshop. She has signed a deal to direct a feature for Tandem Pictures, and is represented by Circle of Confusion.
In awarding the Fellowship Tangerine Entertainment’s Anne Hubbell said, “We responded to Melody's multidimensional characters and her bold use of genre writing to convey a political narrative.” Anne will be a mentor at this fall’s lab.
ISA Fellow:
David Sullivan, Ashland, Oregon (Drama, DEVIL RIVER) - When a submissive slave preacher is separated from his wife and child by a gambling professional, he chooses to team up with a mysterious black gambler and enter the cutthroat world of the Mississippi steamboats to learn how to win his family's freedom. David has had his work acknowledged by the PAGE Awards, the Austin Film Festival, and has been a finalist for the Warner Bros. Television Writers' Workshop.
The ISA had this to say about David’s script:
“This is an excellent script, and utilizes an original idea to explore slavery, persecution and the very human idea of family. It was formatted well, with interesting characters in extreme situations, and shows a tremendous amount of heart. This series has the potential on many levels to affect and educate the viewer, with the situations leaping off the page as Nat and the characters he encounters traverse between what is perceived to be right and wrong in order to survive and get his family back.”
ISA Fellowship Honorable Mention:
Vicki Speegle, South Orange, New Jersey (Drama, LOVED ONES) - A precocious 11-year old struggles to win the love of her alcoholic mother, but her quest is threatened when the sister she never knew existed returns home. Vicki’s screenplay LOVED ONES was a finalist for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. She is currently in post on a documentary about her mother's struggle with faith in the wake of Alzheimer's.
The ISA had this to say about Vicki’s script:
“This script is written with love, it wears it’s heart on it’s sleeve from the first to the last page, the story of Allison continually doing her best to win her mother’s affection was touching and endearing, and she is a spectacular lead character. This exploration of childhood and imagination against the realities of having to make ends meet and the fall out of past mistakes made this a magical, but sad, relatable tale.” – Molly Kasch, ISA
