Pamela’s feature length screenplay takes its inspiration from “Trifles”, and provides an interesting, entertaining and powerful modern day spin on a timeless story of the search for personal truth and fulfillment. The quirky dark comedy tells the story of one woman’s struggle to find artistic expression – a void that plagues the protagonist – while fending off a dark family legacy – the inheritance of her grandmother’s madness and the “killer gene”. The story’s theme breathes the same goals as Pamela’s private mission – it serves to challenge the predominant trend of women being underutilized and misrepresented in the arts. Unlike the protagonist in Ghost Ranch Productions’, Becoming O’Keeffe, this leading lady is an “everyday” woman not a world famous artist, but their struggles are remarkably similar.
Fans of dark comedies such as AMERICAN BEAUTY and of quirky director Charlie Kauffman and of Fellini will enjoy the style and humor of Catway’s Seminar.
Why I wrote this script –
“The need to help women has always weighed heavily on me. I wondered what an individual, an actor such as myself, could do to improve the condition of women for the next generation. I want to express, inform, and highlight what it was to be a woman today and show those ideas the light of day. The stories I tell are centered on women, yet they are universal, committed to expressing the stories of those underutilized and misrepresented in mass media today.
Telling these stories cinematically via mainstream Hollywood is extremely difficult. These are the stories of strong people, strong women, overcoming odds and living bold lives; they are not wooden stereotypes. In order for me to carry on my vision, and to create the change I struggled to find as an actor, I formed a not-for-profit production company, Ghost Ranch Productions, committed to these projects and to these ideals.
What’s more, women are misrepresented in the mainstream media, which helps to shape and reflect our culture. The majority of women’s roles and images in the theatre arts are based around stereotypes, and projects by women, as well as projects for them, are marginalized and devalued, seen as less universal and less important to the culture at large. I’m committed to challenging these inequities, telling the stories that deserve to be told, teaching the skills that need to be taught to the next generation.”
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“Only 17% of all Executive Producers, Producers, directors, writers, Cinematographers and Editors working in the top grossing films of Hollywood are women. 16% of Playwrights are women. 17% of Theatre Directors are women. Women, on aveage, still only make 81 cents to every man’s dollar in the arts, entertainment and media occupation.”
(Sources: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Susan Jonas and Suzanne Bennett for the New York State Council on the Arts (2002), and Martha M. Lauzen, PhD, Professor of Communications, San Diego State University – “The Celluloid Ceiling” (2006))