ANGEL — Contemporary Drama, WGAw Reg # 1666069
In the contemporary drama Angel, a lonely fourteen-year-old girl uses her courage and extraordinary singing to rescue herself and her younger brother from a bleak home life of abuse and poverty. It features songs from Miss Evancho’s CD and PBS special Songs from the Silver Screen, but these can be changed without affecting the storyline so her upcoming albums might provide the music and benefit from the publicity. Fourteen-year-old ALY BARRETT and her ten-year-old brother, MARKIE, live in a cramped welfare tenement apartment in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with their defeated mother, KAREN, and her abusive, out-of-work boyfriend, T.J.. Protecting Markie from T.J., Aly receives bruises that are noticed at school, prompting an investigation by Human Services as the children had previously been taken from their mother and placed in separate foster homes. Aly is determined that she and Markie will never be split up again. Coming home from school one afternoon, she hears a trumpet playing in an alley behind an apartment building, seeing twenty-three-year-old TODD playing in his window. She knows the song he’s playing and impulsively begins to sing along. Todd is startled then captivated, thinking the young girl’s voice the most beautiful he’s ever heard. He tries to get down to meet her, but Aly runs off. She goes up through a scraggly woods to the one place of peace and beauty in her deprived life, a graveyard where she visits with her best friend, Amelia, a girl who died three years earlier when just Aly’s age, her grave marked by a beautiful carved-stone statue of an angel. Todd tricks Aly by playing again and she takes the bait, singing along. Todd has a tape recorder pick up the piece and hurries down and surprises her. He tries to find out who she is, telling her that her voice can bring her fame and wealth, but Aly gets away without telling him much more than her first name. Her dangerous and depressing home life, however, finally makes her gather her courage and seek out Todd, singing as he plays and records her. He takes the tape to his professor at the Music Institute, BRIAN, who is astonished by Aly’s voice and takes the tape with him to Disney in Hollywood where he produces music and has many contacts. Just as Aly’s secret career is moving ahead, her mother and T.J. try to avoid the authorities by spiriting them all to a trailer in the country. Todd tries to locate Aly without success. But when T.J. breaks Markie’s arm, Aly bashes him and escapes in his brother’s old car, a neighbor calling the police. When they stop Aly and Markie, she tells the trooper what happened and breaks down in tears as the pain she’s been holding in for so long at last floods out to be swept away. Brian and Todd continue to successfully promote her singing, but Aly is despondent as she and Markie have been put in separate foster homes. Todd tries to take in both of them, but he’s too young and poor to be considered. Brian would like to take them, but his wife, PAULINE, is still grieving over the death of their young daughter. Aly sneaks out of her group home and gets Markie and they go on the run. Todd and Brian search frantically for the children, and learn that the friend she’s mentioned, Amelia, is actually a young girl who died, Brian realizing it is his daughter. They don’t find the children at Amelia’s grave, but just as they’re leaving, they hear her singing in the nearby woods. The children think they are being taken back to their foster homes as Brian makes a private call, but he brings them to his house where Pauline tells them it is their new home “for as long as you need us – forever, I hope.” Aly sings on the stage of a packed concert hall, all the people who helped her in her life there to applaud her. Returning to their new home, Pauline tells the children they’ve hired a new housekeeper who will live with them if they approve of her. The children find their mother waiting for them, hugging her as she apologizes. Aly tells all of them, “I’m happy, truly happy. And when I’m happy…” and she sings, more beautifully than anyone has ever sung. |
ROBYN —Period drama with magical elements, WGAw Reg # 1671559
Robyn is set in medieval England where the young Princess Aylin is heir to the throne. An attack on her by the usurper of the crown sends her alone into the forest robbed of her memory but with a new-found ability to communicate with animals through her singing. Taken in at an orphanage, she chooses the name Robyn and finds friendship with seven other older orphans. Forced to flee when the evil king discovers she’s Princess Aylin, her loyal friends join her and they’re pursued relentlessly without knowing why, only Aylin’s secret ability with animals saving them. When the northern barons realize Robyn’s true identity, they seek to put her on the throne, but they’re no match for the king’s forces. Aylin’s command of the animals, however, wins the day and she becomes the beloved Queen of the Realm, though still just Robyn to her friends. The songs in this have yet to be determined, requiring period pieces. Eight-year-old Princess Aylin is sailing with her mother, Princess Aylon, to London to see her grandfather, King Alek, when they’re waylaid by the evil Lord Throop, sent by the treacherous Lord Mordant to kill them so he can usurp the throne after poisoning King Alek. Aylin’s mother is killed, and the head injury Aylin suffers robs her of her memory but gives her the ability to communicate with, and obtain the help of, wild animals through singing in an unknown tongue, both Aylin and her mother having extraordinary singing voices. After five long years alone in the woods, two teenagers from an orphanage save her from kidnappers and she enters the orphanage, taking the name Robyn. Her beautiful singing voice makes them form a choir and they’re invited to sing for the new master of their lands, Lord Throop. Aylin’s incredible voice makes Throop think she could be the young princess he was sure he killed, and the royal birthmark she bears confirms his fears. He tries to kill her, but she escapes and with her orphan friends flees to the forest where they’re pursued relentlessly, only her secret ability with the animals keeping them safe. King Mordant learns that Throop didn’t kill the princess and was keeping the secret from him and Throop pays with his head. Mordant sends the Viking Vingaron to capture the princess and bring her to him. Aylin and her friends leave the forest and form a traveling show to perform in the villages, her singing a highlight. The children come to the attention of Lady MacSanvale who asks that they come to Castle Carn to perform for her husband, the lord of the region. Vingaron captures them before they can perform for Lord and Lady MacSanvale, but Aylin’s power allows them to escape. Vingaron captures Aylin once again, her bravery letting her friends escape. They seek the help of Lord MacSanvale, and when Aylin escapes Vinagaron once again and reaches Castle Carn, Lord MacSanvale realizes she is Princess Aylin, heir to the throne, vowing to fight the usurper King Mordant to make Aylin queen. The forces of Lord MacSanvale and the other northern barons are no match for King Mordant’s troops. But Aylin’s secret powers – only her orphan friends knowing of them – route the king’s forces and Aylin is crowned Queen of the Realm but still just Robyn to her friends. |
The Little People — Contemporary thriller with magical overtones, WGAw Reg # 1684901
Fourteen-year-old Dani Shawn has to go to live on the Big Island of Hawaii with her father and step-mother after her mother is killed in an accident for which Dani blames herself. Her wondrous singing makes The Little People, including an Irish leprechaun, reveal themselves to her, and together they foil a plot by Adolph Hitler’s unknown son to blow up the Kilauea volcano to create a mega-tsunami. A plane lands at a remote airfield in the Andes of Argentina in December, 1945, and a pregnant woman gets off, addressed by the men meeting her as Fraulein Braun, Hitler’s mistress, who corrects them that she is now Frau Hitler, his wife, cautioning to never speak that again. In a present-day California apartment, Danielle “Dani” Shawn is watching a video of the Nazis for a report she’s doing on Anne Frank. She leaves with her mother and in their car sings with her beautiful voice, distracting her mother so they have an accident. Dani awakens in the hospital to find by her bedside her father, Jamie, and his second wife, Liz, Dani breaking down when she realizes her mother is dead. She goes to live with Jamie and Liz in their secluded home on the Big Island of Hawaii where her father owns a successful construction company building a resort on the beach near the Kilauea volcano. Exploring with her new pet dog, she finds a beautiful spot where a stream goes over a ledge into a pond surrounded by forest. She sings for the first time since the accident, and an unseen Irish male voice proclaims her to be “a living angel.” When she revisits the spot and sings, two of The Little People make themselves visible to her. Seamus Shawn is an Irish leprechaun married to Illani, a princess of the island’s little people called Menehune. They swear her to secrecy and become friends. Exploring at the resort her father is building called Wulfslair after the owner, Wulf Thiler, Dani finds nearby a strange plant surrounded by an electrified fence with armed guards. Her father tells her it’s a hush-hush project of Thiler’s who has a secret new process to make fresh water from sea-water. At a singing competition Dani enters at the resort, Seamus overhears Thiler and his manager talking about their regret that Dani must die with all the other “swine.” Seamus and Dani investigate the secret plant and discover a plot to pump sea-water into the magma chamber of Kilauea to cause an explosion that will create a mega-tsunami. Dani is caught and learns that Thiler is actually Adolph Hitler’s son, getting revenge and being paid by terrorists to cause the disaster. Seamus’ invisibility allows him to free her and they disrupt the pumping and get away. They’re chased, but the Menehune subdue their pursuers and Dani and Seamus capture Thiler, Dani decking him with a right-hook while saying, “For Anne Frank.” As she sings at the finals of the talent competition, the invisible Seamus is next to her on the stage and they agree that they’re soulmates forever. |
Johnstown
Period love story/Drama set against the 1889 Johnstown flood, WGAw Reg # 1697926 A construction company is tearing down an old bridge on the Little Conemaugh River in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, when the company owner finds buried in the mud the skeleton of a victim of the 1889 flood, believing the diamond on its finger to be an engagement ring. He summons an archeologist to recover the skeleton and as he and his employee wait, they speculate on who this unfortunate young woman was… The diamond sparkles on the finger of a woman with her hand in moving water. The lovely Victoria ‘Vickie’ Donnelson is trailing her hand in the water of a pristine mountain lake as she’s being rowed across the lake by her recent fiancé, Guy Mansley, both of them dressed in elaborate Victorian clothes of 1889, a picnic hamper and blanket in the boat. On the shore behind them are the elaborate summer homes and large clubhouse of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, the millionaire’s retreat in the mountains east of Johnstown. At the far end of the lake is the dam that formed the lake and which will fail in a storm to create the flood that devastates the city and kills over 2,000 people. In the woods, they have to hide from a meandering bear and Guy runs to get help. As Vickie is menaced by the bear, Sean Patrick, a worker at the club, arrives and saves her life, Guy not pleased to be upstaged, especially as Vickie and Sean obviously are attracted to one another. Vickie’s father visits Sean at his regular job at the iron works in Johnstown, and when he finds that Sean is skilled in the new art of electricity, he offers him a job putting in electricity at his Pittsburgh theatre where Vickie often sings, having an extraordinary Bel Canto voice. Vickie is thrilled Sean will be working for her father. Guy, an executive at Vickie’s father’s theatre, is annoyed to find Sean becoming a rival for Vickie’s affection, their own relationship beginning to sour. He drugs Sean and makes certain Vickie finds him unconscious in the company of prostitutes, and then sabotages Sean’s electrical system in the theatre so that the test of the new electric lights sets fire to the building. Vickie and her father want nothing more to do with Sean who returns in disgrace to Johnstown. But a chance statement makes Vickie wonder about Sean’s trysts with prostitutes and she uncovers Guy’s schemes, rushing off to Johnstown in a vicious storm to find Sean. Guy sets off in pursuit to intercept her. Sean has gone to the club where he finds the storm is about to burst the dam, sending the lake down the river to inundate Johnstown. He hijacks the train to race back to the city to give the warning, meeting up with Vickie and Guy just as the flood catches up. In the maelstrom, Guy slips the diamond ring from Vickie’s finger and puts it on his own pinkie for safety as he pushes her from the raft to join Sean in the flood to murder both of them to keep his secret. Ironically, the raft is crushed by a tumbling locomotive that kills Guy while pushing Sean and Vickie towards the shore. They escape the flood to safety, but then go back in to rescue a woman and her children and Vickie is swept away. Sean finds that Vickie is caught in a debris pile against the brick railway bridge at the end of town, in danger of being burned to death as the pile has caught fire. He uses an electric hoist he built for the local iron works to free her from the debris but falls down into the river himself. Vickie risks her own life to bring him to safety on the bank where he revives and… He and Vickie are marrying at her family’s estate when the sky threatens another storm and they all rush inside remembering what the earlier storm brought. The construction crew at the present day site finds the skeleton isn’t wearing the diamond ring on its index finger but its pinkie, the skeleton not that of a woman but a man. It is the remains of Guy, and the construction company owner is, in fact, the great-grandson of Sean and Vickie. |