Amongst many strong reader feedback’s:
– Blue Cat Screenplay Awards 1st reader analysis: “Despite dealing with ghosts (and the chilly physics of the air around them), this script is full of warmth, a big-hearted and earnest read with endearing characters and a clever, original setup from the first scene. Joanie and Roy never wear out their welcome individually, but their dynamic together is fresh, compelling, and constantly changing — the writer smartly uses Roy’s neurotic transference to illuminate and twist the relationship between the two, as they shift from therapist and client to friends to near-partners to an almost mother-and-child kinship (which is healthier than the real mother-and-child relationship between Dottie and Roy). I appreciated that the script quickly inverts the predictability of Roy’s unrequited love for Joanie into a more complex journey for both of them, as he moves toward self-discovery and freedom while she moves toward commitment and purpose. The rules and details of the ghost world are fun to learn about as they unfold, but they never overwhelm the story, and the wonderful supporting character of Lyuba acts as an exceedingly funny tool for exposition as well as an emotional, bruised soul in her own right.”
– 2024 – First Prize Comedy Feature Screenplay – Film Crash (40th year)
– 2024 – Best Comedy Screenplay – Woods Hole Film Festival (32nd year)
– 2024 – Finalist – Catalina Film Festival Screenshot
– 2024 – Finalist – Houston Comedy Film Festival
– 2024 – Finalist – Northeast Film Festival
– 2024 – Semi-Finalist – Table Read My Screenplay (Hollywood)
– 2024 – Best Screenplay, 3rd place – Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival
– 2024 – Best Fantasy Romance Screenplay – Golden State Film Festival (at the Chinese
Theatre in LA)
– 2024 – Semi-Finalist – Big Apple Film Festival and Screenplay Competition
– 2024 – Semi-Finalist – Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival
– 2024 – Semi-Finalist – Los Angeles Comedy Film Festival
– 2024 – Quarter Finalist – Richmond International Film Festival
– 2024 – Quarter Finalist – Emerging Screenwriters Screenplay Competition
– 2024 – Honorable Mention, The Art of Brooklyn Film Festival / Screenplay Contest
– 2024 – Official Selection – Austin Comedy Film Festival
– 2024 – Official Selection – Portland Comedy Film Festival
– 2024 – Official Selection – San Pedro International Film Festival
– 2024 – Official Selection – Hollywood International Indie Screenplay Awards
– 2024 – Official Selection – Berlin International Screenplay Festival
When I initially finished “Don’t Eat Paper!” in 2023, I began to submit that comedy screenplay to competitions: major, minor and those in-between. I then started to submit my older screenplays to some of these contests simultaneously because I had never submitted to most of them. (Since 2023, I’ve done several re-drafts of paper as the current version is shorter than what I submitted in 2023… ditto, I’ve done polishes on the older scripts too.)
“DON’T EAT PAPER!”
– 2023 Semi-finalist – Final Draft’s Big Break
– 2023 Semi-finalist – Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival
– 2023 Semi-Finalist – Polish International Film Festival
– 2023 – Quarter-Finalist – Wiki World’s Fastest Screenplay Competition
– 2023 – Official Selection – Culver City Film Festival
On March 1, 2024 at the Chinese Theatres in Los Angeles on Hollywood Blvd, the script for “Don’t Eat Paper!” was names Best Fantasy Romance Screenplay at the Golden State Film Festival.
And earlier at the Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival (held at LA Live), the same screenplay was named Best Screenplay – 3rd Place.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the play reading.
Synopsis: It is just after World War 2, and Sian and her husband Joe love each other, but each has been changed by their wartime experiences. For Sian, working in an aircraft factory was the beginning of an evolution of consciousness. At first, however, she can only act on her feelings for her tempting next-door neighbor, Katrina, in a filmnoir fantasy where Sian is the detective and Katrina is the femme fatale. Meanwhile Joe struggles with both PTSD and survivor guilt. Sian eventually finds the courage to accept her sexuality and risk everything in real life.
About the Playwright: Julius Galacki is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, NYU’s Gallatin School of Interdisciplinary Studies and the Yale School of Drama – Playwriting dept. His monologues have been published by Smith & Kraus. His plays have been read or produced Off Off Broadway in NYC, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Connecticut, South Carolina and Hawaii.
Starring (in order of appearance): Demitra Sealy, Gabriella Biziou, Adam J. Smith, Marieve Herington, Cutty Cuthbert, Debralee Daco, Annika Marks and Ingrid Walters
THE FRISCO FLASH. It will be on Sunday, October 14 at 2 pm at the Second Stage at the Broadwater , 6320 Santa Monica Blvd. (between Lillian Way and Vine) in Hollywood. Free. Young Jack Thompson – ca 1928Young Jack Thompson vs Jackie Fields in their 2nd fight in Chicago
Here are some rehearsal photos: Jared Poe (Young Jack Thompson and others) and Gregory Battle (Scipio Thompson and others) after rehearsal Josh Breslow (playing Jackie Grant – a fictionalized Jackie Fields) and Adam J. Smith (playing various boxing managers and the older version of Jackie) after rehearsal Brian Pope whp will be reading stage directions
I’m doing a reading of my play THE FRISCO FLASH. It will be on Sunday, October 14 at 2 pm at the Second Stage at the Broadwater , 6320 Santa Monica Blvd. (between Lillian Way and Vine) in Hollywood. Free. Starring Gregory Battle, Josh Breslow, Jordan Farris, Marieve Herington, Jared Poe, Brian Pope, Adam J. Smith and Ingrid Walters
Description: Cecil Lewis “Young Jack” Thompson twice won the World Welter Weight Boxing title in 1930, becoming the second African-American to win a boxing title, and the first after Jack Johnson. His career closely intersected with two other more well-known white champions. Yet today, Young Jack Thompson is completely forgotten. Based on my own original research, I attempt to right this wrong and relate it to today’s issues of racial injustice. The gravestone of Cecil (Young Jack) Thompson and his mother – photo by Julius Galacki
Sunday September 23, 2018 was the annual West Adams Historical Association living history tour in the Angeles Rosedale Cemetery. (Anyone with any interest in Los Angeles / California history should try to make next year’s tour.) I’ve written monologues twice for them but I didn’t expect to do anything this year, however I ended up helping with casting and doing revisions (and thus getting a credit in the program) on the monologue for Henry Fook Chew played by Roy Vongtama (who did a fine portrayal by the way). Roy Vongtama performing – photo by Julius Galacki
Unlike most of these monologues, the Chew one was inside the Chapel near his actual gravestone.
Henry Fook Chew’s gravestone – photo by Julius Galacki
The theme for this year’s tour was immigrants. While the Angeles Rosedale doesn’t look as pretty or sleek as other Cemeteries in the area, what I really like about it is that it has ALWAYS been an inclusive cemetery open to all races, religions, ethnicities, and nationalities. Thus the immigrants featured in this year’s tour were people of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Latino, Armenian, German and French backgrounds
