Residencies and pitches for SCPA students this week
Los Angeles-based SCPA alum Zina Camblin (you may have seen her on stage at Ensemble a few years back in the marvelous “String of Pearls”) has 16 SCPA students pitching TV ideas to Warner Brothers TV on Tuesday and Thursday via Skype. It’s the culmination of a six-week writing workshop.
“It is a super exciting project that I am just starting up called “Reel Kids” Camblin e-mailed. She’s been working on her own development projects for a couple of years “and I wanted to be able to teach the TV development process to students who were interested in writing.
“The program teaches students about the different genres of television and the students then create their own show ideas and pitch them to a studio exec in LA-in this case someone from Warner Bros. I would like to continue the program in different schools in the Cincinnati area because I’ve found it not only improves students writing skills and confidence in their writing, but it also increases their ability to talk about what they write and create.”
Camblin did the project last year with Highlands High School (they pitched to a CBS exec), “I hope to keep it going in Cincinnati and eventually expand out to schools in other cities across the country..”
In terms of her own career, Camblin earned attention when her play “And her Hair Went With Her” was done in L.A. The show earned the attention of some TV development types and “it opened up a new world for me. I had to teach myself television writing by spending hours at a time at the WGA (Writers Guild of America) library in L.A.
“I recently had a great pitch meeting with WB on a show I was working on with Charlie Sheen’s company…” but Sheen appears to be otherwise occupied at the moment.
Meanwhile, after a weekend of performances with Contemporary Dance Theatre, Amy Seiwert, director of San Francisco’s im’ij-re dance company, and James Sofranko, soloist with the San Francisco Ballet (and Broadway veteran), will lead a week-long dance workshop with a series of workshops, master classes, and choreography with advanced dance students.at their alma mater School for Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA) through Feb. 3.
Seiwert (SCPA ’88) had a 19-year performing career before founding her contemporary ballet company and was honored as one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch”. Seiwert and Sofranko met in San Francisco where they realized their common SCPA roots.