One-Hour Fantasy Drama Pilot
In a dystopian twist on Peter Pan's Neverland, a 13 year old girl is killed in a school shooting and must learn to survive in a dark, magical afterlife ruled by an enigmatic child captor.
“This is the most ambitious pilot script I’ve ever read. It’s childlike and fanciful, yet dark, scary, horrifying. You’re uncovering our collective violent American history, laying it bare, setting it against our contemporary struggles.”
-Anton Handel, filmmaker
Inspiration in progress! Here I am scheming up the world of Nevertown in 2015. (I’m holding my mother’s 1957 illustrated edition of Peter Pan.)
The Story
Nevertown is an afterlife populated by America’s dead from mass shootings. Shooters become Lost Boys under the rule of Pan; victims become townspeople under Mayor Wendy. The Indians, led by Tiger Lily, have been relegated to their forest reservation, and the Mermaids to their water tunnels beneath the ravaged school. The citizens of Nevertown enjoy their suburban oblivion in peace.
Until Eve arrives.
When Eve Gonzales is murdered at school by 15-year-old Michael, she refuses to assimilate into Nevertown with the rest of her classmates. Determined to get back home to Earth, her defiance unites Indians, Mermaids, and a certain one-handed pirate, and ignites a long-simmering war between Lost Boys and townspeople, Indigenous and colonizers, the living and the dead.
Currently in development as a live immersive multimedia show at the MIX Center in Mesa, AZ!