Stage 32 Screenwriting Lab: Write Your Female Driven One-Hour Television Pilot in 8 Weeks (May 2024)

Do you have a great idea for a female-driven TV Pilot but need help writing or finishing the script? Then this lab was made for you!

Get EXCLUSIVE handouts from two incredibly successful, female-driven shows, “Russian Dolls” and “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”

Only 10 Writers Accepted to the Lab (3 Spots Remain!)

As we take a look at the culture surrounding the stories we are telling about women, it is clear that we are in a moment of revolution. We are finally at a place where we are moving beyond defining the female lead by “I can do anything a man can do” – and we are actually looking at the complexities and nuances specific to the female experience. We are expanding our interest in female-identifying characters to include womxn who aren’t cis, straight, white, stable, put-together. With the “messy woman” story at the forefront of the end of this last decade, we finally saw women on screen who had seized permission to be less than perfect. You could argue that now, we are growing even past that: We are interested in stories about what healing looks like for womxn. With shows like Beef, The Dropout, and Inventing Anna, we are also exploring power, corruption, and psychopathy as they pertain to the female experience. 

Your pilot is your calling card. But it shouldn’t just be a strong sample of your writing: If you want your pilot to stand out, it needs to be the best example of your unique voice, infused with that l special something that only you can bring to it.  What is the story YOU are meant to tell? What irreplicable experience will YOU bring to a writer's room? What do YOU have to say? These are the questions I ask myself when I read a pilot, and the pilots that stand out to me as an executive are the ones that have the answers to all of these questions within them. Throughout this eight-week course, we will focus not only on telling the most relevant kind of female-centric story but also one that only you can tell. 

Colleen Labella is a producer and the Director of Development for Leslye Headland’s company, Shoot to Midnight. She has read hundreds of pilots and met with countless writers. She has sold numerous television series to various networks, and she is currently in development with projects at FX, Hulu, Freeform, and Lucasfilm. Her television credits include SINGLE DRUNK FEMALE, ALMOST FAMILY, and the upcoming Star Wars series, THE ACOLYTE. She also has a number of films in development, including Catya McMullen’s GEORGIA MERTCHING IS DEAD. Colleen has a background in theater and loves working with playwrights as they transition to the world of television, and she’s dedicated to telling stories about women and the LGBTQIA+ community.

In this exciting lab, over the course of 8 weeks, you'll work one-on-one with Colleen in a private Zoom virtual setting on writing your pilot, plus you'll have private meetings with her to go over your script. You'll have the support you need from a top professional and a like-minded writers' group to hold you accountable to writing. Plus, you will receive exclusive handouts of successful female-driven scripts including:

• Russian Dolls
• Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

There is a story in you that is dying to get on the page. Are you ready to tell it?