SCREENPLAYS
Learning to Drive (feature)
- Grand Prize Winner - StoryPros Awards Screenplay Contest 2013
- Quarter Finalist - PAGE Int'l. Screenwriting Awards 2013
- The Black List Featured Script May 2015
An introverted teenage girl tries to escape her abusive home when she lies about her age and gets a summer job at a local golf course where she falls into a secret love affair with a thirty year old disgraced golf pro.
"Breathtaking, poignant, and lovely, LEARNING TO DRIVE should be a strong contender for the industry's attention and interest... A spiritual and chronological successor to nostalgic feature masterpieces like THE VIRGIN SUICIDES and ALMOST FAMOUS, LEARNING TO DRIVE is an accomplished, market-ready script .... There is a growing awareness of the fact that women comprise the majority of filmgoers; a script such as LEARNING TO DRIVE reflects so many facets of the female experiences of innocence, abuse, sexuality, and self-discovery that it would make a savvy pick for any studio looking to court this important audience."
The Black List
| learning_to_drive_by_linda_manning_-_sample_pages.pdf |
Charlotte (feature)
Charlotte Bronte, brilliant, paralyzingly shy, and desperate to break away from her restricted, provincial life publishes her writing under a male pseudonym and then must fight to claim her identity on her own terms.
- 2020 Semi-Finalist - Screencraft Screenwriting Fellowship
- Creative World Awards Preliminary Finalist 2019
- Second Round of Competition for the 2016 Sundance Screenwriters Lab
| charlotte_by_linda_manning_-_sample_pages.pdf |
Divine Food (feature)
A forty year old former rock singer, having buried her artistic life to devote herself to her husband and children, falls in love with the alcoholic butcher at her grocery store who was once a great musician and risks everything in order to regain her voice.
"The sexual frankness and sense of female gaze in this script is a really strong and refreshing element. In a way, this script feels like a much darker take on a musical romance like Once. The use of limited locations in this New York-set script is a smart choice in terms of making the budget manageable. This script brings a fresh perspective to some familiar story beats"
The Black List
"Divine Food is a taunt and erotic drama about Helen, a train-wreck of a person, grasping for a better life. Helen is a great character. Damaged, lonely, and striving to feel anything after her life doesn't feel fulfilling. She's definitely an antihero because we're certainly not rooting for her but we empathize with her choices and that's because the screenwriter puts so much time and attention into crafting her. She'll definitely be attractive for actresses who want a strong female with a wide range of emotions."
The Black List
"The sexual frankness and sense of female gaze in this script is a really strong and refreshing element. In a way, this script feels like a much darker take on a musical romance like Once. The use of limited locations in this New York-set script is a smart choice in terms of making the budget manageable. This script brings a fresh perspective to some familiar story beats"
The Black List
"Divine Food is a taunt and erotic drama about Helen, a train-wreck of a person, grasping for a better life. Helen is a great character. Damaged, lonely, and striving to feel anything after her life doesn't feel fulfilling. She's definitely an antihero because we're certainly not rooting for her but we empathize with her choices and that's because the screenwriter puts so much time and attention into crafting her. She'll definitely be attractive for actresses who want a strong female with a wide range of emotions."
The Black List
| divine_food_by_linda_manning_-_sample_pages.pdf |
Wake Up (short)
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Written by Linda Manning and Vincent Liota
Directed by Vincent Liota
Opal has been staring at half a picture her a whole life; but who is the stranger staring back? Skate has been living in the same place his whole life. When Opal returns to confront her past, she and Skate reconnect, and then an undone shoelace unravels everything.
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Ghost Ride (short)
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Written by Linda Manning and Kevin Smyth
Directed by Kevin Smyth
An alienated New York City cab driver picks up a desperate fare who takes him on a ride of reawakening. |
STAGE PLAYS
Perfect Love (solo show)
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Directed by Obie, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Award winner Gretchen Cryer Why does a woman with a loving husband and two kids suddenly find herself unbearably anxious, unable to sleep, and her only comfort an old poster of Robert Redford? Linda tracks her evolution from a rootless girl to a teenager surrounded by predatory, abusive men, to a reckless woman on the hunt for perfect love with every dangerous man she meets. “Nothing is off limits here as she explores love, lust, desire, betrayal, and brutality. She relishes in the telling of her tale. Her words are courageous and her performance is revelatory and joyous to watch..” TheatreReview.NYC "This world is full with brave and honest performances, but not quite like this, It was the sheer force of her work, her truth-telling, her deep dive into the known and not knowing how she might resurface that made us feel all the things we needed to feel." Director Maureen Payne-Hahner |
Linda's articles in the Dramatists Guild Blog:
What people are saying about
Perfect Love:
"I was completely immersed!!"
"Wonderful writing and beautifully performed. When you screamed 'Mom,' I froze!"
"I loved the shifts between young you, adolescent you, and grown up you."
"Very powerful. And so honest. Really amazing!"
"You knocked me flat and lifted me back up!!!"
"Perfect Love is fabulous. So witty and raw and poignant !"
"Linda’s solo show is courageous, honest, raw, and full of heart."
"This piece was brilliantly conceived and portrayed. honest, insightful, humorous, compelling, poignant, riveting. Every moment was completely real and raw."
"Linda Manning’s Perfect Love is seamlessly told and beautifully performed. The truth laid bare without a single false moment. A triumph of the human spirit and a riveting night of theatre. My only regret is that we didn’t do more shows because we sold out every night and could have sold many more."
Don Creedon - Artistic Director of Poor Mouth Theatre Company
"Manning skillfully performs various stages from her life, embodying uncertainty, amusement, catharsis, and ultimately, strength. Her daring personal journey provides an inspiring and empowering model for anyone seeking to understand how early experiences impact our current behaviors and obsessions."
Mark Hayes - Artistic Associate at Dixon Place
There is No You and Me (full length)
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A married woman walks into a bar... to reclaim a piece of her past. Can she put an old lover to rest and reinvent herself, or is this a ghost story destined to be repeated? "Such an unusual play. Very skillfully crafted.... Beautifully written sexual encounter. The writer bore her soul. She knows the grasp that love can have. Like being possessed by a mysterious, exciting energy of the other." New Works of Merit | ||
Bite the Apple (full length)
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Cinderella, in the middle of a full blown mid-life crisis, comes face to face with the lies she has told herself and is thrust into the stories of Red Riding Hood, Snow White, and Rapunzel exposing their emotionally treacherous stories of sexual abuse, abandonment, and betrayal, unearthing her own past she has tried to forget, and discovering the possibility of a new story, of her own making. "The ensemble of actresses are remarkable, particularly the evocative and nuanced performance by Manning. Bite the Apple is a smart script with intricate dialogue and beautiful language...." Joseph Samuel Wright Theatre Is Easy, New York, NY | ||
GUY (full length)
Guy, a successful truck salesman in his mid-sixties, is dying. When his estranged, middle-aged daughter shows up at his door full of self doubt having followed in his footsteps and become a wandering, rootless Cowboy herself, Guy must face the real world consequences of his actions. Will he be able to save her before it’s too late?
- Semi-Finalist - Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference 2007
- Workshop reading June 2015 at The Drawing Board NYC
- originally developed through a Ledig House International Writer's Colony Fellowship
| guy_by_linda_manning_-_sample_pages.pdf |
DO SOMETHING WITH YOURSELF! The Life of Charlotte Brontë (full length)
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This is the story of Charlotte Brontë’s emergence as a world class novelist as she carves out her own path between the provincial constrained existence of her Victorian reality and the fantasy world of her novels where so much more is possible. "Writer-performer Linda Manning gives us a fiercely intelligent and sexual Charlotte Brontë.... The writing delicately renders the conflict between family responsibility and the artist's calling, between romantic yearning and the realities of married love." The Village Voice. New York, NY Purchase a copy from Smith & Kraus Publishers |
| do_something_with_yourself__by_linda_manning_-_sample_pages.pdf |
The Fall of the House of Usher (full length)
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Produced by The Invisible Theatre in NYC
An adaptation of Poe's mysterious and fantastic short story -- mad, reclusive Roderick Usher, obsessed with this twin sister Madeline, lures his oldest friend, William, to visit him in his haunted mansion (played by four dancers). William falls in love with Madeline and attempts to free both brother and sister from their tortuous bond. "The Invisible Theatre Company’s adaptation of the classic tale is strikingly fresh, thanks to playwright Linda Manning’s bold vision.... Manning had a dynamic presence .... Deftly handling the madness that lies at the heart of Poe’s tale, Manning oscillated from a petulant little girl, to a proper young lady, to a disturbing sexual force.... The amount of humor that Manning has incorporated into the script, without compromising its horror, is one of its greatest accomplishments.” The Off-Off-Broadway Review, New York, NY | ||