QUARANTEEN
Pamela Winfrey and John Lewis
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LOGLINE
When an American teenager tries to deal with the covid pandemic and the loneliness of being in a foreign country, she is haunted by a boy who died in the 1918 flu epidemic.
SYNOPSIS
Quaranteen: A Ghost Story, is about how a teenager who deals with the loneliness and isolation of living in a new country, while also trying to survive a pandemic. This difficult situation is magnified by the fact that she is also haunted by a ghost who decides that he needs her to complete his magnus opus. Overall, the script captures the feeling of being a teenager struggling with growing up while managing her relationship with her mother and living through a life changing event (or two).
At its core, Quaranteen: A Ghost Story is a “fish out of water” story, where the protagonist is thrust into a new environment and forced to adapt and change in order to survive. “Quaranteen” is loosely based on one of the writer’s experience of living in a foreign country with his wife and daughter during the pandemic. The story takes the pandemic as a starting point and imagines how being stuck at home could be made even worse.
Artistic Statement
As a playwright and screenwriter, I have two strands of interest which operate almost independently of each other: I enjoy writing surreal plays for a thinking audience that explore perception and also writing plays that explore the often absurd realms of science. I am interested in the implications of science as a real and powerful element in our modern lives. This has led me to write plays that explore such varied subjects as the laying of the trans-Atlantic cable, the Very Large Array (a stunning field of astronomy dishes located in New Mexico), and the medical imaging industry running amok. I enjoy writing surreal works for a thinking audience. These surreal plays create situations that one would never stumble upon in real life. These works have a particular interest in the human mind and our perception of the world. They put an audience in a place that transcends time, average landscapes, and every-day personalities in order to uncover the underlying magic of life, the bitter-sweet knowledge of death, and the absurdity of the human condition. They attempt to use a heightened reality to point out our cultural foibles and misconceptions. I am interested in exploring modern culture as a phenomenon. From our hunger for fame, to our denial about who and what we are, I seek to understand the intricacies of being alive in the 21st century.
LOOKBOOK
TRAILER
Pamela Winfrey. Co-Writer, Co-Director, Executive Producer
Pamela Winfrey is an award winning playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and curator. Her two novels, Marconi and His Muses was published in 2017 and The Architect Who Changed Our World's View: A Novel Based on the Life of Andrea Palladio, was published in 2021. She has a BA in theater, an MA in interdisciplinary arts, and an MFA in screen and television writing. Since getting her MFA in 2017, she has received thirteen semi-finalists, selections, and finalist awards. She is just finishing the writing and producing of Desert Trilogy, three short films about death and the desert and will shoot Quarantine: A Ghost Story in August, 2023. She is emeritus at the Exploratorium, a museum of science, art, and human perception, located in San Francisco where she was a curator specializing in science and technology based art forms. Her expertise is in the intersection between science and art and the human narrative that connects the two disciplines. She has a long history of curating exhibitions, performances, and events that explore everything from mental health to brain computer interface (BCI), digital clothing to The Really Big Questions. She is currently the Scientific Research Curator for two labs within the Biodesign Institute located at Arizona State University; the Arizona Cancer Evolution Center and the Aktipis Lab (cooperation and conflict) and is the founder of Navigating Cancer with Science and Art (NCSA) a membership organization that germinates and supports collaborations between professional artists and scientists to empower multidisciplinary approaches to the discovery of novel ways to communicate cancer to diverse communities.
For more information, go to: www.pamelawinfrey.com
John Lewis. Co-Writer, Co-Director, Executive Producer
John was born in Massachusetts but has worked overseas for more than 20 years of his life—mostly with the UN—in such places as Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Cyprus. He is currently with the United Nations in Trinidad and Tobago, working to build sustainable peace. He has written a lot of fiction for his “day job” at the UN and finally decided to try his hand at the real thing a number of years ago. John created and wrote the award-winning web series “Lost in Moldova”, loosely based on his own Peace Corps experience in the 90s in Moldova. He is now working on novelizing the first season. He is also hard at work on two novels—both mystery/thrillers. Quaranteen is his first foray into horror fiction. John enjoys writing “fish out of water” stories where the protagonist finds himself in a new and challenging situation and has to adapt in order to survive. He has his master’s degree in TV and Screenwriting from Stephens College.
Xiaolin Yu. Producer
From ballerina to producer, Xiaolin Yu, born and raised in Qingdao, China, is an award winning producer and Co-Founder of Mad Anchor Entertainment. She landed in New York at the age of 19 through Joffrey Ballet School without any knowledge of English. In her new landscape, she realized her passions and desires were changing and decided if she was staying in the states she should learn English and get a formal education. She graduated Cum Laude from Temple University with a BA in Broadcast and Communication in Mass Media, and she set her sights on Hollywood. She received her MFA at the prestigious American Film Institute and began to launch her career in the industry.
Xiaolin searches for opportunities in every corner. Her film Six Letters Word and Prick were at Cannes and 100 other film festivals. Her film “Sweet Memory” won the best picture award at the Nanjing International Shorts Festival. She has worked with international brands and companies producing content and commercials for McKenzie Inc., Sam’s Club China, Haagen Dazs, Chevy, Rhythm and Hues, Prana, AwesomenessTV, AllDef, Spotify, Viacom, Bangzoom, Gruntstyle, MUSA Media, Bigfoot Entertainment and countless others.
When not actively working on a project she is a full-time Professor at Woodbury University heading the Senior Thesis Films track through Pre-production, Production, and Post-production. In the past nine years of her teaching career, she helped design and shaping the film programs to follow the industry standard. Her student's thesis films won many student film awards and counting. To advance her producing and production teaching quality, Xiaolin is currently pursuing her MBA degree concentration in Leadership and Global Strategy.
Emily Franco. Associate Producer
Emily Franco is a producer and assistant director. In high school, she had a passion for sound engineering within theater but found that it didn’t fully satisfy her. After joining a film production class she realized she wanted to produce and help others create their vision and tell their story. From there she went to Woodbury University in 2018 and worked on senior thesis’ as well as independent short films as a producer, associate producer, and assistant director. She is now currently an executive assistant to the Head of Production at Buffalo 8.
Richard Jennings. Composer
Richard Jennings has been actively composing music since his first original song at age sixteen. After a successful career as a singer-songwriter in the late 60s and early 70s, he went back to music school on full scholarship. On the cutting edge of electronic music, he composed in an early Moog studio at Michigan State University where he received a faculty appointment as an undergrad to teach the electronic music program. Jennings became quite active in the New Music/Avant Garde scene, performing and also conducting vocal and instrumental groups. At the University of Michigan School of Music for graduate work, Jennings was a popular performer of new music as he studied composition and voice with Pulitzer Prize winners and international opera stars.
After grad school, Jennings received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Michigan Council for the Arts to be Composer In Residence for a school district where he composed music for every ensemble (K-12), conducted and performed. His two multi media space operas from this period were performed in planetariums, art museums and lofts to critical acclaim.
In the 80s, Richard Jennings moved to San Diego, where he began his career in professional theatre, and then Los Angeles. He composed for several Tony Award winning theatres during this period. Jennings’ music was showcased in feature stories in The Los Angeles Times. He received The Dramalogue Critics Award for "Outstanding Achievement in Theatre” and was active composing for commercial films, television movies, Disney and others.
The 90s found Jennings settling into the life of a music professor. He served on the faculties of University of San Diego and San Diego State University. Following his wife to Phoenix, he was the Director of the Electronic Music Program at Scottsdale College, teaching composition, studio recording and voice. Jennings also composed scores for PBS documentaries and commercial films.
Jennings was composer for the Southwest Shakespeare Company and Shakespeare Sedona Festival in the Phoenix area for the first ten years of the millennium. He composed scores for twenty eight of their productions.
Now living in Berkeley, Jennings has become an integral participant in the exciting Bay Area theatre scene. His original musicals have received full production runs, he’s contributed to several successful reviews and he composes scores for highly acclaimed play productions. Continuing to compose for film, documentaries he’s scored are now in the national rotation for PBS. Richard Jennings is the Artistic Director and a founder of Musical Cafe (musicalcafe.org), a musical developmental program that has launched some of the Bay Area’s most successful new musicals.
Jerry Sun. Cinematographer
Jerry Sun is a Los Angeles native cinematographer. He graduated from Woodbury University in 2020 and since then has worked on a variety of projects including feature films, documentaries, commercials, and music videos. Some projects he’s worked on include: Ant Man and the Wasp and The Daily Cannon. In addition to his work as a cinematographer, Jerry is also a passionate advocate for the art of filmmaking. He is dedicated to mentoring and inspiring the next generation of filmmakers and is always willing to share his knowledge and expertise with others.
Cara Greene Epstein. Actor
Cara Greene Epstein is not a doctor, but she has played one on TV. As a creator, Cara uses heart and humor to explore challenging social dynamics, the world around us, and our very human desire to find somewhere we belong. Her award-winning first feature film Dragonfly, which she wrote and co-directed, is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. Cara's next feature project, Activated, earned her the Athena Film Festival Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship and is currently in development. In her viral TED Talk How Theater Weathers Wars, Outlasts Empires, and Survives Pandemics, Cara focuses on how we can use this time apart to build a more just, representative, and beautiful world together, on stage and off. This talk is heavily informed by Cara's work as a mentor teaching artist with Steppenwolf and Looking Glass theatre companies in Chicago and with Epic Theatre Ensemble in NYC. As a TV writer, Cara was selected for the 2018 and 2019 SeriesFest Writer's Room Series, for which she developed and wrote episodes for Unreal Media's Drop Shot Divas and Growing Up Old. She's a Sundance Writers Lab finalist and her scripts have placed at the Austin Film Festival for three-years running. Cara also works as a creative process and facilitation consultant for all sorts of organizations, from non-profits to Fortune 500 companies. She holds degrees from Cornell University, the Old Globe/University of San Diego MFA Acting program, and the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting. You might also want to ask her about motherhood, competitive swimming, and how to portage a 75lbs canoe through the wilderness.
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