Theatre Alumna Wins Top Screenwriting Prize
Tammy Duffy '00, earned $150 for her first play, when the USM Department of Theatre produced Unwritten Song in 2000. Last month, Tammy earned $15,000 for her new play, Cricket, taking first place in the prestigious Samuel Goldwyn Writing Awards contest.
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In Good Company—Award-winning UCLA screenwriter Tammy Duffy '00 with (from l to r) Samuel Goldwyn Jr., president of the Samuel Goldwyn Foundation; Leonard Maltin, Entertainment Tonight film critic and co-host of the weekend movie review show, Hot Ticket; and Robert Rosen, dean of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, at the 49th annual Samuel Goldwyn Writing Awards ceremony. |
The awards, open to all students in the University of California System, were announced by Samuel Goldwyn Jr., president of the Samuel Goldwyn Foundation, at a ceremony on the UCLA Westwood campus. Tammy, a graduate student in screenwriting at UCLA, attended the ceremony as one of the top five finalists in the competition, but the first-place win was anything but expected. “I was very surprised and very grateful,” she said, during a recent telephone interview.
Tammy's screenplay tells the story of a poor 11-year-old girl, named Cricket, who gets caught stealing from a chapel by James, an unconventional choir conductor. James discovers Cricket has the voice of an angel, but Cricket's agnostic father forbids her from singing. On the day of her mother's funeral, Cricket must choose between obeying her father and singing a requiem for her mother's soul. In the end, Cricket's victory becomes a victory for her family, bringing them together again and restoring a long-lost faith.
Tammy noted that she was thinking about how people tend to struggle between the highlights of their lives when she sat down to write this screenplay. She set the story in South Boston, where her father grew up, and said that the characters drove the plot of the piece, which she worked on for a full year.
Her work obviously paid off. Her screenplay was first recognized in June as one of five winning entries in the annual graduate student screenwriting competition at UCLA. The winners gave 10-minute staged readings of their work during the UCLA Screenwriters Showcase at the Writers Guild of America West Theater in Beverly Hills. Tammy noted that several Maine actors flew to California to perform her work, and it was there that she attracted the attention of her now manager, Judi Farkus.
Like the UCLA honor, the Goldwyn Award has helped generate industry buzz about Tammy—in part due to a full-page ad in the industry trade magazine, Variety, which can only help her land a writing job upon graduation in May 2005. “I have been getting a lot of response from production companies and agents,” she said, noting that her manager is helping field those calls.
Tammy found validation in the words of Samuel Goldwyn Jr., who noted at the award ceremony that those honored should continue to write screenplays because the judges believe they have a future in the industry. This year's judges, Brian Grazer, Leonard Maltin, and former Goldwyn Award winner/screenwriter Scott Rosenberg, selected Tammy's screenplay from a field of 120 entries. And she is in good company. Past Goldwyn Award recipients have included Allison Anders, Francis Ford Coppola, Eric Roth, and novelist Jonathan Kellerman.
She, however, remains pragmatic about the challenges of breaking into this competitive industry. The recognition may help sell Cricket, but it certainly isn't a guarantee that it will sell. It was noted at the award ceremony that Francis Ford Coppola has never sold the screenplay that netted him the Goldwyn Award. “If this doesn't sell,” Tammy noted. “I'll keep writing and I'll try to sell the next one and the next one.”
Tammy, who grew up in York, Maine, started writing when she was 19, shortly after her graduation from York High School in 1987. She attended the University of Maine in Orono and later SUNY at Stony Brook before settling into a pattern of working odd jobs and performing in Portland-area theater productions. She performed at Mad Horse Theatre, the Children's Theatre of Maine, and had even done a stint as the Oakhurst mom in a television commercial for the Maine dairy.
After a decade of acting, she returned to complete her B.A. in theatre at the University of Southern Maine, with a focus on a future in writing. She had grown unfulfilled by the types of roles written for females. “You are either a mother, a virgin, or a whore,” she said, “Or, you're the girlfriend or wife.” She applied to graduate school and opted to pack her belongings and drive cross-country to attend UCLA, which has one of the best screenwriting programs in the country.
Looking back at her decision to move to Los Angeles, where she had never before visited, Tammy noted, “It was the best decision I've ever made. I really feel that everything I did in my career had led me to this, and this is exactly what I'm supposed to be doing.”
—The Hollywood Reporter and the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television media relations office contributed to this report.
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