New York Stage And Film Expands Filmmakers' Workshop With Winter Sessions

New York Stage and Film announced today that they have expanded their Filmmakers' Workshop winter session, bringing the 2017-18 residency filmmakers to New York City to get feedback on the rewrite of their script, participate in Master Classes addressing the next phase of their process, and meet other professionals from the industry at a celebratory cocktail party this year hosted by Moët Hennessy.

Additionally, applications for the 2018-19 Filmmakers' Workshop will be accepted until Friday, February 23rd. Application for this program is by invitation only. For more information, please visit www.newyorkstageandfilm.org/filmmakers-workshop

The Filmmakers' Workshop, entering its 4th season, is designed to support early-career screen and television writers with creative development and mentorship. The Workshop includes a week-long summer residency at Vassar College during which 10 writers engage in one-on-one feedback sessions with professional mentors, as well as panel discussions, screenings, developmental screenplay readings, and production discussions, all designed to bring each script and project closer to completion.

Leslie Urdang, co-founder/Producing Director of New York Stage and Film, and film producer (Beginners, Rabbit Hole, upcoming The Seagull starring Annette Bening and Saoirse Ronan) says, "Filmmaking is an extremely interdependent discipline and at some point, every writer sitting alone at their desk, needs a community. One of the most useful outcomes of the filmmakers' workshop is that it creates this community - one that not only provides artists with much needed feedback on their work, but reminds them they are not alone in facing the enormous challenges of putting something valuable into the world. Being able to do this alongside playwrights, actors, and directors, all of whom are participating in a form of storytelling, is something only New York Stage and Film can offer."

The program is produced by Marin Gazzaniga and professional mentors to date have included Josh Astrachan, Keith Bunin, Anne Carey, Thomas Carter, Miranda de Pencier, Geoffrey Gilmore, Billy Goldberg, Bingo Gubelmann, Michael Hoffman, Mia Mask, Kim Jose, Paula Mazur, Lillah McCarthy, Bec Miller, Rob Morrow, Ken Olin, Frank Pugliese, Josh Radnor, John Patrick Shanley, Charlie Stratton, Bryan Unkeless, Suzanne Weinert, Jennifer Westfeldt, and Stu Zicherman. Panelists have included Kevin Bacon, Anthony Bregman, Griffin Dunne, Jenny Halper, Andrew Marcus, Bill Migliore, Riva Marker, Bill Pullman, Peter Saraf, Kyra Sedgwick, Dan Steinman and Alan Wertheimer.

The participants for the 2017/18 Workshop are Michael Cooke, Melody Cooper, Jed Cowley, Kyle Fried, Bat-Sheva Guez, Charles McNamara, Denise Meyers, Azia Squire, and Syd Stewart.

The Filmmakers' Workshop takes place alongside the Powerhouse Theater Season, a collaboration between New York Stage and Film and Vassar College that features over 300 actors, directors, writers, designers, and producers who gather to develop new plays each summer. Dozens of notable theater works trace their developmental roots to New York Stage and Film, including the Tony Award winners for Best Musical (Hamilton) and Best Play (The Humans), as well as the Tony Award-winning plays Side Man and Doubt, the Broadway musicals American Idiot and Bright Star, and the Pulitzer finalists The Wolves and Taylor Mac's A 24-Decade History of Popular Music.

New York Stage and Film (Johanna Pfaelzer, Artistic Director; Thomas Pearson, Executive Director; Mark Linn-Baker, Max Mayer, Leslie Urdang, Founders/Producing Directors) is a non-profit company dedicated to both emerging and established artists in the development and production of theater and film. Since 1985, New York Stage and Film has been a vital incubator for artists and their work, a catalyst for stories that start with them and continue across the country and around the world.

New York Stage and Film completed the 33rd Powerhouse Summer season last July, its annual collaboration with Vassar College. The Powerhouse program consists of an eight-week residence on the Vassar campus during which more than 300 professional artists and dozens of students in the Powerhouse Training Program live and work together to create new theater works. New York Stage and Film's other programs include the NYC Reading Series at Barnard College, and other workshops, readings, fellowships and residences for artists at all stages of their careers.