Ticket to Write Contest - Your chance to preview the short list at Preview Night

HOLLYWOOD WRITER IN BEATLES PLAY CONTEST
A Hollywood TV writer is one of the three authors chosen for this year’s Beatles-themed one-act play contest, Ticket to Write, being staged at Unity Theatre, Liverpool on July 15 and 16.

 Bob Stevens, a life-long Beatle fan who worked for 22 years in Hollywood, will compete against fellow American Trevor Boelter, one of last year’s finalists, and Welsh writer Neil Walden from Caerffili. Bob worked for 22 years as a TV writer in Hollywood on such shows as “Night Court,” “The Wonder Years,” “Murphy Brown” and “Malcolm in the Middle.”

 “I begged my parents for a Beatles wig, and they gave me the top of a mop,” he recalled. He lives in Vermont with his wife, his daughter and his beagle. Bob’s entry "Here Today" is his first play. It has John and Paul sparring about their songs and exchanging tender moments from their childhoods.

Neil Walden offers a romantic, if black, tale about Maxwell called “Silver Hammer Man”. In 2010 his one act play 'Lug' won the Drama Association of Wales award for the best play for a youth cast. Neil has had short plays performed by the Sherman theatre in Cardiff and elsewhere and is also the current holder of the Andre de Lorde Award for Excellence in Horror Writing at the London Horror Festival. The last play that he had performed in Liverpool was in the 2011 Write Now Festival. “I’m really pleased to be back,” Neil enthuses.

Trevor’s “And Now It's All This” has Brian Epstein sorting out the storm that followed John's infamous remark about The Beatles being more popular than Jesus. Trevor, a writer/producer living in Los Angeles, came joint-fourth in last year’s contest with another Lennon episode featuring Cynthia called “When I Get Home”. Trevor recently produced his first feature film, “Inverse”, which can be seen around the world at various film festivals. He lives with two other Beatlemaniacs: His wife, Mona, a location scout for the US television show, "CSI: Cyber" and their eighteen-month-old daughter, Mimi. “I do an impression of George Harrison which is not half-bad for a Yankee,” says Trevor.

“We had a great number of excellent scripts and the judge, who was kept in the dark about the authors, went back over several of the top contenders, many from Merseyside, before reaching his final decision,” explains Festival Director, Jamie Gaskin. For more details go to www.acedrama.co.uk and for tickets etc to www.unitytheatreliverpool.co.uk