RUBBER ROOM, a New TV Pilot With All Star Cast, Will Have NYC Premiere

It's the Breakfast Club for Teachers! This absurdist comedy follows Mark Knowles, a snobbish Bristtish transplant, on suspension from his job as a Principal of a NYC public high school to a Detention Center ("Rubber Room"), for a indefinite period. He quickly makes himself at odds with his zany fellow "cell" mates.

Adrien is a long-time resident of the Rubber Room with a penchant for violence; Malinda, a potential love interest and the sage assistant principal who likes to play coy; Dilshan, the first teacher to find "inner-peace" in the Rubber Room, but being under the finger of Claire, the cougar-ish Superintendent who controls THE ROOM and sees Mark as a potential threat. As Mark undergoes the tension of having his personal and professional integtrity challenged he slowly is being taught about sacrifice, tolerance of others, and especially oneself. Will Mark learn his lesson before it's too late or will he be confined to the Rubber Room forever?

In New York City, teachers and administrators working for the Department of Education who were suspended from their classroom duties reported to a Detention Center where they would spend their ordinary working hours with other suspended Teachers. This arrangement would last for months, sometimes even years, before their fates were decided in a court of law.

A group of people undergoing intense personal scrutiny, locked together in a room day in and day out can only lead to otherwise irrational behavior.

Soon these Detention Centers became known internally as Rubber Rooms, nicknamed after padded isolation areas in an insane asylum. This story takes place in one of these rooms.

Written by Achilles Katsanakis and Dugan Bridges, Directed by Dugan Bridges, Produced by Achilles Katsanakis, Dugan Bridges and Jesse Weeden with Executive Producers: Achilles Katsanakis and Cliff Samara.

The film features: Cory Boughton as Mark Knowles, Penny Middleton as Malinda Wells, Cherie Mendez as Claire, Cliff Samara as Dilshan "Dil", Vincent Benvenuto as Andrean Stavros, Ying-Ying Li as Jackie Li, Roland Sanchez as Waldo, Alfred Gingold as "Larry's Picture" and Robert Kabakoff as "Larry's Voice".

"The Rubber Room" will be featured in The Manhattan Film Festival on Monday, April 29 at 9PM at Cinema Village at 22 East 12th Street in NYC.