Steve Apostolina – 1st Place Winner – KILLER
KILLER – Set in south Texas where Jesus and football rule, Killer is the story of a high school football superstar whose dreams have been dashed by a most likely preventable injury. Dixie home cares for her wheelchair-bound son Randall (nicknamed Killer), after he sustained a traumatic brain injury during a game. A producer on the extremely popular television docu-series Reaction Sports is coming to interview Dixie and Randall for possible inclusion in a future episode. Present will be Randall’s best friend and fellow high school football superstar, Devonté, Dixie’s daughter Annabel and Dixie’s ex-husband and former coach, the volatile Butch. National exposure would almost certainly spark donations to Randall’s anemic GoFundMe campaign and help with the astronomical health care costs, so it is imperative that the interview goes well. But with exposure comes truth – and family truths can be filled with killers. The cost of winning has never been so deadly.
Steve Apostolina is an actor, playwright, director and producer – occasionally all at the same time. Full length plays include: Killer, Vulnerable Species, Derelict in Fairville, Broken, Forever Bound, The American way and Flight of the Penguin. Short plays (partial) T.N.T., Sleeping Dogs, Cold in Hand, Killed in Des Moines, Embroiled, Elevator Repair and Doreen. His work has been seen in LA and NY as well as all over the US. Playwriting Awards include (partial): Ovation Award Nomination (Forever Bound), Dramalogue Award (Flight of the Penguin) Labute New Theatre Festival (2 time finalist 2015 Cold in Hand and 2020 T.N.T), New Jersey Rep Festival finalist (Embroiled). LA Theatres have seen his work at Antaeus Theatre, Atwater Village Theatre, The Road Theatre, The Ventura Court Theatre, The Limelight Playhouse and The Open Fist – among others. Forever Bound, after enjoying a critical run in LA, starring French Stewart, subsequently had a reading in NYC for Williamstown Theatre with Amanda Seyfried, Tommy Sadoski, Peter Friedman and Howard Overshown. As an actor – you can see some credits on IMDB. Intimate Los Angeles Theatre is largely responsible for his successful 35 year voice-over career (which supports his theatre junkie habit) as well as an introduction to his lovely wife when they met playing lovers in Jamie Baker’s Don’t Go Back to Rockville.
Joseph Hullett – 2nd Place Winner – WRECK OF AGES
WRECK OF AGES – Raven, an unprivileged, East Harlem, Gen-Z girl surviving on guts, wits, and luck, springs a “granddaughter in jeopardy” phone-scam on Webb – an elderly, white, Silent-generation male. A disabled, but far from helpless ex-NYPD Captain, Webb lures Raven into a backfiring trap that ensnares them both. When Darcy, Raven’s girlfriend, comes to her rescue, Raven rebuffs Darcy’s voice of conscience ultimatum and opts to complete her scheme alone. As plans unravel, power boomerangs from old to young, white to Black, male to female. Although revelations draw Webb and Raven toward an uneasy rapprochement, enchained hostilities threaten mutual destruction unless together they can break free.
Joseph Hullett – In another time, Joseph Hullett spent a free-range childhood in Detroit, bailed out of college for the Marine Corps, and came home to work a year on the Detroit Free Press. Finishing college and then Medical school, he returned to southern California to complete an internship and psychiatric residency at UCLA. Over the years, he has used Corps-issued typing skills and life-lessons to write three published novels, two collections of his short stories and nine full-length plays, including The Pledge, first prize winner in the 1993 Julie Harris Playwright Awards. His theatrical works have been read, performed, and produced from New York to Los Angeles and honored with the Ventana Publications Play Award, Silver Medal in the Pinter Review Prize, 2nd Prize in the South Carolina Trustus Theatre Play Contest, 2nd Prize Lee Korf Award, and selected as a finalist for the Arts and Letters Drama Prize, the Heideman Award, and others.
Currently, his day jobs include psychiatric medical director, teacher, husband, father, therapist, and, sometimes, healer. He lives near Camp Pendleton … still within earshot of cannon fire.
www.jhullett.com
Dave Cintron – 3rd Place Winner – THE PLAGIARIST
THE PLAGIARIST – There is virtually nothing about Shakespeare’s life that we can prove. But there is a great deal that we can suppose based on the times and dramatis personae present. This play was written to give life to the man who wrote these many great plays and attempts to connect us with the source of his unsurpassed creativity and those who inspired him.
As a slice of life at the turn of the 17th century, The Plagiarist is meant to respond to and converse with many, if not all, of Shakespeare’s plays. The Plagiarist features Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton, Francis Beaumont, Francis Bacon and even Agnes Shakespeare as possible collaborators. Just as Henry VI is subject to claims of having been a collaboration itself. Henry VI in all its parts is also the story of the life of that king, as The Plagiarist is of Shakespeare’s life, as it is also written in Elizabethan English.
Shakespeare himself is depicted as a man who struggles with the loss of his only son, the need to spend half the year in London away from his family, the demand of turning out a new play every year and his need for creative stimulus to survive in an age where there is no safety net, no matter how vulnerable this makes him.
Dave Cintron of Ojai, CA, although a native New Yorker, has earned his credits writing, acting and directing in Southern California. Author of award-winning full-length plays, one-act plays and short films, he is currently working on pilot scripts with Big Screen Entertainment. As a member of the Ventura Writer’s Block he writes, acts and directs at theatres throughout Ventura County. Recent credits include playing Feste in Twelfth Night, directing in one act festivals and acting in his own short play portraying Willy Loman’s arrival in hell. His love for unconventional theatre led him to write The Plagiarist as a unique take on the life of Shakespeare.