Screenwriters Association
of Santa Barbara
Screenwriter & Playwright
Walter Halsey Davis
Thursday, October 13, 7 pm
*Come early to join in interactive discussion, get to know each other, and network with local talent. The speaker presentation will start around 7:30 pm
Brooks Institute
27 East Cota Street
Downtown Santa Barbara
(805) 617-4503
FREE and open to everyone!
After serving four years in the Navy, Walter Halsey Davis went to France with the notion of writing a novel. Just when he was about to run out of money, he was mysteriously cast in a small part in a movie filming in Paris. This early exposure to the movies didn't take, however, and he took off for Austria where he worked in a ski factory until sawdust and solitude drove his north into Germany where he worked as a television repairman while he attended the University of Mainz.
Davis returned to his native California. He attended UCSB where he took a Bachelor and Masters Degree in English literature, and went on to UCLA where he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in Theater Arts.
Davis' first play, The Tapioca Misanthropa (a verse drama cum cosmic vaudeville), was produced for ABC television in Santa Barbara and later broadcast in Los Angeles on the PBS station KCET. "Tapioca" won the Lucille Ball Comedy Writing Award and was published by Painted Cave Books in Santa Barbara.
Davis' second play, Panhandle, a chronicle of a Texas family's struggle through the Great Depression, was first produced at UCSB, then the Oxford Playhouse in Los Angeles, the Scott Theater in Fort Worth, North Texas State University, Texas Tech University, and in New York at the Walden Theater. Panhandle won the Samuel Goldwyn Writing Award, the Texas Bicentennial Playwriting Award, and the American College Theater Festival Playwriting Award (Region V). On the basis of Panhandle, Davis was selected to be a playwright in residence for one year at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.
Davis' third play, Tilden (written in collaboration with Pierre Delattre and Lew Catching), is based on the life of the tennis champion Big Bill Tilden. It has been produced in Minneapolis.
Davis sold his first screenplay, a science fiction piece called The Locus while he was still a graduate student at UCLA. Since then he has worked constantly as a screenwriter and has written feature films, television mini-series, and movies for television. In an effort to maintain a greater degree of control over his material, he has managed to become a producer on his more recent projects and is looking forward to directing.
He has won an Emmy, a Writers Guild of America Award and two Nominations, an Edgar Allan Poe Award, two Christopher Awards, the Lucille Ball Comedy Writing Award, the Goldwyn Writing Award, the Texas Bicentennial Playwriting Award, the Red Cross Prize at the Monaco International Television Festival, The Peabody Award, The Humanitas Prize, a Golden Globe nomination, and the American College Theater Festival Playwriting Award (Region V).
No comments:
Post a Comment