Tony Award-winning Scranton Native Stephen Karam Returns Home to Open Northeastern Pennsylvania Film Festival

SCRANTON, PENNSYLVANIA, UNITED STATES, March 18, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- What happens when you put two national critically-acclaimed creatives (who happen to be from Scranton) on stage together? Find out on April 1 when the American Advertising Federation’s award-winning Helen Lavelle digs deep into conversation with Tony Award-winning playwright, screenwriter, author, and filmmaker Stephen Karam.

Join the conversation at opening night of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Film Festival Friday, April 1 at 6 p.m. at the Waverly Community House, 1115 N. Abington Road in Waverly.

Join other filmmakers, community arts advocates, and your movie buff friends as Lavelle quizzes Karam to learn the following:

How did a guy from Scranton take an idea that began at his kitchen table, turn it into a script, bring The Humans to Broadway, and win the coveted Tony Award for Best Play?

And, if that fairy tale outcome wasn’t enough, what drove Stephen Karam to dig even deeper to adapt The Humans to a major motion picture?

During COVID?

That's just the beginning of the conversation and a weekend that celebrates the arts and shines a light on NEPA filmmaking talent.

Meet Stephen Karam at The Evolution of The Humans from Stage to Screen April 1, beginning at 6 p.m. at the Waverly Community House, 1115 N. Abington Road in Waverly.

Following a cocktail reception and the conversation, the Festival will host a screening of The Humans, Karam’s first feature film.

Lavelle said, “I am thrilled to welcome Stephen Karam back home. I’m excited to engage in a candid conversation, which is bound to inspire. Everyone needs to be here because this promises to be a night you won't forget.”

The evening is sponsored by Lackawanna County Arts and Culture, WVIA, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, O’Boyle Real Estate, Gails Cupboard, The River 105 FM & 103.5 FM, Toyota of Scranton, and F. Lammot Belin Arts Foundation.

To purchase tickets for the event, visit https://nepafilmfestival.com/tickets/.

For more information about the NEPA Film Festival, which will be held April 1-3 at the historic Ritz Theater on Wyoming Avenue in downtown Scranton, visit https://nepafilmfestival.com.

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About Stephen Karam:

Stephen Karam is the Tony Award-winning author of The Humans, Sons of the Prophet and Speech & Debate. For his work he’s received two Drama Critics Circle Awards, an OBIE Award and is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Stephen recently directed his first feature film, an adaptation of The Humans for A24 films. He wrote a film adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull starring Annette Bening, which was released by Sony Picture Classics. His adaptation of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard premiered on Broadway as part of Roundabout’s 2016 season.

Recent honors include the inaugural Horton Foote Playwriting Award, the inaugural Sam Norkin Drama Desk Award, two Outer Critics Circle Awards, a Lucille Lortel Award, Drama League Award, and Hull-Warriner Award.

Stephen teaches graduate playwriting at The New School. He is a graduate of Brown University and grew up in Scranton, PA.

About Helen Lavelle:

Lavelle is a nationally-recognized leader in the advertising industry whose distinguished career is steeped in creativity, leadership, education, governance and community service. She is the owner of Lavelle Strategy Group in Scranton.

With Ms. Lavelle at the helm of her creative team, the agency has won hundreds of awards across all media categories—from traditional to digital; from guerilla to social.

Strongly engaged in strengthening her industry, Lavelle served as Chair of the Council of Governors of the American Advertising Federation. In this position, she helped navigate AAF’s national membership through government relations, academic, diversity and economic challenges.

Recent honors include The American Advertising Federation’s Barton A. Cummings Gold Medal, The American Advertising Federation’s Diversity Achievement Award; the Chamber of Commerce Sage Award; Business of the Year; Top 25 Women in Business.

Ms. Lavelle is also an artist and an advocate for the arts in all genres. Her 2021 painting “Pandemic Pieta” was recently featured in the “Hysterica” exhibit in Milan, Italy. Her figurative, landscape and abstract work is held in corporate and private collections worldwide.

Maria Wilson
Executive Director
+1 570-586-8191 ext. 1
mwilson@waverlycomm.org
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