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By The Time I Got To Woodstock

1969: a young generation is letting their hair down, except for a high school sophomore who’s wound tighter than her ballerina bun. When she accidentally ends up on a magic bus to Woodstock, she goes on a long strange trip to find her true self.

It’s the summer of 1969. Fifteen-year-old Emily Blanchard lives a sheltered, lonely existence, isolated and dominated by Juliette, her overbearing mother and Arthur, her remote father. She obsesses over her grades and piles on extracurricular activities to get into a Seven Sisters college and satisfy her snobbish parents. Emily’s only outlet — her only passion — is ballet.

The family attends the prep-school graduation of Emily’s older brother Bo, a sullen stoner who treats them all with barely-disguised hostility. The parents reveal to Emily that they have revoked permission for her to participate in a junior-year foreign-exchange program in France. When Emily objects, Juliette pulls her back into line by backhanding her in the middle of a crowded restaurant.

The parents leave on a trip to Japan, appeasing their daughter with tickets to a Royal Ballet performance with Nureyev and Fonteyn. On a dare from Bo, Emily asks Adam, a fellow ballet student whom she has a crush on, to go with her, and she is pleased when he accepts.

Bo and his best friend Flame Beast are low-level pot dealers. When they go after Adam who owes them money, Emily learns that he has absconded with her ballet tickets, and she insists that they all go after him. It seems he’s skipped town and headed for something called Woodstock …

Script Excerpt Interview
Written by:
Format:
Screenplay
Starring Roles For:
Millie Bobby Brown
Orlando Bloom
Evanna Lynch
In the Vein Of:
Woodstock
Taking Woodstock
Woodstock: 3 Days That Changed The World
Posted:
02/22/2024
Updated:
02/22/2024
Author Bio:
I attended New York University's Institute of Film and Television in the 1970s, where I studied under Haig Manoogian, who mentored Martin Scorsese and produced his first feature.

My parents were animators who met on the picket line at Disney Studios in 1941, and I spent almost thirty-five years in the labor movement as an officer of the Animation Guild Local 839 IATSE. About fifteen years ago I started taking classes with Joe Bratcher and the late Judy Farrell at the Twin Bridges Screenwriting Salon.

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Contest Results:
Depth of Field (Second Place) [2023]
Screenplay Festival (Finalist) [2022]
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