Today we’re thrilled to announce the rollout of our latest writer discovery initiative: free, bi-monthly live table reads of projects atop The Red List.
Coverfly’s core mission is to facilitate the discovery of talented writers. That means helping writers get started, develop their projects, and gain exposure on those projects when they’re ready.
We already offer various free tools that help writers gain exposure on their projects, including free hosting on our Industry Dashboard (where hundreds of industry execs are currently browsing), Coverfly Pitch Week*, free project file sharing, a curated list of screenwriting competitions and fellowships, and The Red List.
Live table reads, on the other hand, bolster the tooling we provide for the bottom end of the project development pipeline - helping writers write. We think this complements the other two programs in this category, our fee waiver program and coverflyX.
The inaugural Coverfly Live Table Read (June 2019)
We are selecting writers with high Coverfly Scores who have a project that could benefit from a live performance. Basically, if there is a project with two characters and hardly any dialogue, it probably wouldn't benefit from this. As much as THE QUIET PLACE was a great movie, a silent film may not make for an exciting table read. There needs to be something performative about the piece.
We are doing it on the first and third Saturday of each month. The table reads are produced and cast by our partner Shaan Sharma and his team at The Storytellers Conservatory and professional CSA (Casting Society of America) casting directors. The cast are entirely professional union actors. They are held at Culver City Casting Studios, the American Film Institute (AFI), or the Writers Guild Foundation Library.
The events basically serve three purposes: (1) a chance for actors, writers, casting directors, and creators to network, (2) allow the writer to workshop the latest draft of their project by seeing and hearing it aloud, and (3) the fun for the writer of actually seeing their material on their feet for typically siloed writers.
We hope this free program will enrich the work and careers of 24 writers on Coverfly each year. Click here to apply!
Happy writing!
*Coverfly Pitch Week is a week where we set up hundreds of virtual meetings between top Coverfly writers and literary managers and agents. It has been in stealth-mode and hasn’t been formally made public yet. There will be a public announcement about it soon!