After a successful premiere at the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival in summer 2024 (videos and more at Yoram-Com.com), I’ve got three focal points for 2025:
1) In addition to trying to improve the play script, I’ve adapted it into a movie script because Chelsea Henderson of RepublicEn.org told me about this climate screenplay competition organized by NRDC. (Leonardo DiCaprio is on their board!) Maybe I’m in for a cold shower when the winners are announced in April, but it’s great fun to dream, and during the submission process my script got some fairly positive feedback via a Black List industry-professional reviewer who said it had “immense potential to be a [film] festival pleaser.” (If you’re not familiar with the Black List—I wasn’t—check out this amusing TEDx talk by their founder.) The full review is copied below, but overall my script got a 7/10 score, which puts it in the top 20% of Black List submissions and just below the 8/10 score that demarcates the 4% of scripts that are really good… not too bad given that I’ve mostly tried to teach myself how to write screenplays by watching romantic comedy DVDs!
2) The original motivation for the play was to promote the Clean The Darn Air ballot measure effort in Utah, so I’m working on organizing stage readings at colleges around the state in 2025 and 2026 to help tee up a signature-gathering campaign in 2027 to qualify for the ballot in 2028. (It would be amazing to do full-blown productions around the state, ideally with the cast and crew from the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival, but stage readings are much less involved and consequently are easier to arrange both logistically and financially. Plus, since the goal is to involve students in the campaign, it seems like a good first step is to involve students in the play!)
3) There are democracy-themed programs at schools like the University of Michigan and Notre Dame, so I’m continuing to try to connect with them to explore the idea of bringing the play to campus.
4) And I’m continuing to explore workshops and such, including the Great Plains Theatre Commons New Play Festival May 25-31, 2025; Utah Shakespeare Festival Words Cubed in August 2025; the Bay Area Playwrights Festival in March 2026; and maybe a future iteration of Northwestern University Purple Crayon Players PLAYground (every April).
That’s what I’ve got. Good luck to us all in 2025!

Review from Black List (12/3/24)

Numerical

Overall 7/10; Premise 8/10; Plot 6/10; Character 7/10; Dialogue 6/10; Setting 8/10

Genre

Romantic Comedy, Comedy

Logline

The trials and tribulations of life, love, and political activism for climate change.

Strengths

SEIZE THE INITIATIVE personalizes the stakes of political activism into a rom-com that has immense potential to be a festival pleaser. Saul’s idealism is wonderful, and he gains tons of emotional investment for his plight. With Grace, we get the sense of an educated and well-informed character, yet has a tenderness that makes her empathetic. The script radiates positivity, which is sorely lacking in the landscape of contemporary cinema, and it is refreshing and enjoyable. Not only does it make for a better reading experience, but the sophisticated story’s tone is enhanced because of it. It also sets the mood for the characters, fostering a stronger connection between them and their environments. The political activism feels like a throwback to independent films of the very early 1990s, which helps explore the themes of identity and community on a micro (individual) and macro (global) level without beating the audience over the head with its messaging. The story is rather contained, which keeps audiences focused on the characters as they ascend into an enjoyable third act and fitting resolution.

Weaknesses

The script speaks a lot of plot, backstories, and character motivations into existence, which hamper pacing, tone, and characterization. On one hand, there could be more “show it, don’t say it” moments because actions speak louder than words. On the other hand, a lot of exposition could be distilled, as it feels loquacious and redundant – even Saul and Grace’s courtship is quite spoken. Less is more. Across the board, the story could be told much more succinctly without sacrificing its emotional gravity. It takes a while for Grace to even enter the story, and scenes go far past the point of expiration, visible earliest on pages 16-26 [the meet cute at Red Butte]. Less is more. Scenes could harness the essence of drama, dilemmas, status shifts, and tension by employing more of a “postcard” approach (concise, memorable, and picture-perfect) to tighten up the pacing and tone. There isn’t much conflict getting Saul and Grace together, and there may need to be more cosmic forces pulling them apart, so we’re rooting for them to connect more. While we understand what characters have to gain, it isn’t wholly clear what they stand to lose, and they may need more “on the line”.

Prospects

The project has a cuteness thanks to its idealistic characters, and its quirky tone, and it could play well for film festival audiences. That said, it should be mindful of the business side of filmmaking. Distributors have a hardline minimum run time of 80 minutes (aka 80 pages) for acquisitions. Thus, the svelte page count [currently just at 80 pages] might want to consider buffering for run time and also adding a bit more to the story so that it has some room for margin of error to be left on the cutting room floor. The script may need to skew slightly in one direction or another, depending on who the writer intends to target as an audience. The story doesn’t deconstruct the human condition the way arthouse audiences desire their stories, yet it isn’t wholly commercially accessible for wide audiences. The project might want to aim for the microbudget level (around $100K), and producers working at this level are usually ingrained in local film communities. As a writing sample, this will raise the profile of the writer, which could open doors to meetings with independent producers. However, the next draft of the script should address the aforementioned issues before going into the marketplace.