April 2016
BFF Virtual Festival Announced!
Great news for those of you who cannot make it to the Bentonville Film Festival! VUDU will be offering a virtual festival, featuring 10 of the films in competition at BFF. Wild Prairie Rose will be one of the films featured! So, watch this space for information on how you can stream WPR to your home next week.
Screening of WPR with ASL Interpreters
Our leading actors, Tara Samuel, Troy Kotsur, and Suanne Spoke, will be in attendance at the question and answer session following the screening of Wild Prairie Rose at the Bentonville Film Festival. ASL interpreters will be provided during the screening and for the Q & A session. Tickets can be purchased at Bentonville Film Festival.
Screening: Wednesday, May 4th at 4:30pm in the Cinetransformer Razorback Theater in Downtown Bentonville, Arkansas
Wild Prairie Rose at BFF
The Bentonville Film Festival schedule of films is up and Wild Prairie Rose will premiere on Wednesday, May 4th at 4:30pm in the Cinetransformer Razorback Theater in downtown Bentonville!
Tickets are $10 and will sell out fast — many of our cast and crew will be in attendance and we hope to see you there! You can reserve tickets here: Bentonville Film Festival
Director’s Statement
Wild Prairie Rose reflects my love affair with South Dakota, which began in 2010 while shooting a short film in the small rural town of Beresford. The community was incredibly open and enthralled with the adventure of filmmaking, and supported the film with locations, props, costumes, supporting actors and other critical production elements. It was a natural progression to make a feature film in this place of magical beauty.
In developing this story I wanted to work with professional artists from Los Angeles who are exceptionally talented, but who would appreciate spending time in Beresford, engaging with its community and exploring its natural beauty. The project was an opportunity for a band of outsiders to fully immerse themselves in a new community with all the fascinating challenges that presents.
The film is set in 1952, positioning the story at an intersection of cultural shifts in musical taste, fashion and ideas of morality. I especially wanted to explore the frustrations building as women’s roles were being jostled and to examine the spaces between 1950s idealism and the subtle prejudices that eventually erupted in the upcoming eras.
Besides depicting the less ideal aspects of this era, I wanted Wild Prairie Rose to express hope and capture the warmth and kinship we discovered working in Beresford. The film’s leading actor, Troy Kotsur, was happy to play a role written in his first language, American Sign Language (ASL), but he also wanted to be a part of a story that demonstrated how, with effort, all people can communicate no matter how difficult language, cultural or emotional barriers might be between individuals.
Wild Prairie Rose pays homage to that spirit as embodied by the people of Beresford welcoming our filmmaking team into their community and their investment of time and talent in the making of Wild Prairie Rose.
Deborah LaVine
Troy Kotsur
ACTOR/JAMES
Troy Kotsur has been acting and directing for over 20 years, winning multi-awards along the way. Deaf since birth, he was raised in Mesa, Arizona. Troy graduated from Westwood High School and went to Gallaudet University, were he playing basketball from 1987 to 1989. In 1990 he left to become a professional actor with the National Theatre of the Deaf/Deaf West Theatre and a freelance-director.
Troy’s first film project was a short that he wrote and directed called Got Matches, which premiered at the Toronto International Deaf Film Festival. His other film work includes Ray’s Potion, The Eye, and True West, a film that he starred in as well as directed. In 2013 Troy directed his first feature length film, Super Deafy: No Ordinary Hero. He is attached to direct an independent film called Deaf Ghost, filming next year.
As an actor, Troy has had success in both film and television. His guest starring roles include but are not limited to, Scrubs, CSI: NY, Criminal Minds, and Sue Thomas F.B.Eye, a show where he had a recurring role and was a fan favorite. In film, Troy has had strong supporting roles in The Number 23 with Jim Carey, Father’s Day Breakfast, and Universal Signs. Troy will play the leading role in the upcoming film, Inside Track.
Troy’s stage performing credits include the Tony-Award winning Big River on Broadway. He has had starring roles in in Pippen at the Mark Taper Forum, Deaf West Theatre’s production of Spring Awakening (2015 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, Nominee – Best Production), American Buffalo at Cal State University Los Angeles, Cyrano at Deaf West/Fountain Theaters, (2013 Winner of seven Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards including Best Actor), A Streetcar Named Desire, (2001 LA Weekly Award, LA Drama Critics Award), and Of Mice and Men (1994 Lenny-Best Actor, LA Weekly). Troy will next be seen on stage in Edward Albee’s At Home at the Zoo at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, and in a production of American Buffalo in Ohio.
Troy is currently studying writing and directing with Luca Ceccarelli of the Director’s Edge in Hollywood, California.
Tara Samuel
ACTOR/ROSE
Tara Samuel hails from Toronto Canada, where she was classically-trained at George Brown theatre school, and began her career on the professional stage. She is most widely known for her television role “Tara Williams” in Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye. which continues to air around the world. Other television credits: The Mindy Project, The Neddeaus, The Division, Beachwood Charter, Singled Out, The Bold & The Beautiful, Twice In A Lifetime, Killer Deal.
She received a Best Actress Award from the Manhattan International Film Festival, for her role “Ruby” in the film Ruby Booby. Other film credits: Tiger Orange, Way Down In Chinatown, Hunt the Maguffin, The Interview, The Rwanda Blend, Tanya & Gary, Prairie Sonata, The Drain, The Third Eye.
As a filmmaker, Tara wrote, directed, produced and starred in FIND (The Journal of Short Film) which screened at festivals around the world; was nominated Best Narrative Short at the Oscar-qualifying Austin Film Festival. Also as producer-actor: Ruby Booby, dir. Jon Rannells, The Rwanda Blend, dir. Sam Zvibleman, and Prairie Sonata, directed by longtime collaborator Deborah LaVine.
Tara’s screenwriting credits include Find, Last Wish and Karen Of God, and she is co-founder of both Busterhouse Productions and of the notorious Los Angeles indie film collective www.wemakemovies.org As story-consultant, Tara is CEO of www.sriptkicker.com and is published in Movie Maker Magazine online. In 2014, Tara was honored at the LA Business Journal’s Women Making A Difference Symposium & Awards for her notable work in the Los Angeles filmmaking community.
Suanne Spoke
ACTOR/PEARL
Suanne Spoke has an extensive career in theatre, television, film and the class room. In theatre she has been recognized for her work as both an actress and as a producer, re-envisioning classic works and helming West Coast & National premieres. Suanne was most recently seen at the Fountain Theatre in the West Coast premiere of Athol Fugard’s “The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek”, named by the LA Times as one of the 10 best plays of 2015. She has been seen on innumerable stages and has won every major acting and producing award given in Los Angeles; a three time recipient of the prestigious Ovation Award for Lead Performance by an Actress, the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle award for both Best Production (Producer) and Best Actress, the LA Weekly Award for Best Production (Producer/Actress) and the Backstage Garland Award for Best Actress and many other nominations, honorable mentions and acknowledgements over her 30 year career on the stage.
Suanne continues to cultivate a career in front of the camera as well, appearing in over 100 television episodes and feature films. She recurs on “Switched at Birth”, appears in a very special feature on the DVD release for season 4 of “Once Upon a Time”, and will be seen in Christopher Guest’s new film “Mascots” and upcoming in three independent films “Wild Prairie Rose”, “Mom” and “Dumped”.
She currently serves on the faculty of the prestigious California Institute of the Arts in the Film Directing Program and is also a faculty member for Deaf West Theatre’s Summer School Program. She has served as a juror for the Newport Beach Film Festival and the Austin Film Festival.
Deanne Bray
ACTOR/CAFETERIA WORKER
Deanne Bray has received rave reviews since she burst onto the scene in her critically acclaimed starring role as Sue Thomas in the award winning television series Sue Thomas: F.B. Eye. She then brought a new legion of fans to her work when she was a regular on the NBC hit show Heroes where she played the role of ‘hero’ Emma. Heroes director SJ Clarkson said about working with Deanne, “She’s spectacular. Her natural instincts are right on when she performs.” Heroes Executive Producer Dennis Hammer says, “she’s an extraordinary actress. Her talent and heart have made us all proud.”
Ms. Bray is now known within the Hollywood industry and beyond as someone who brings honesty, depth, and her own unique charm to her growing list of roles. She has also done work for Disney, Paramount, HBO, Sony, CBS, ABC, and NBC as well as having been a stalwart performer at the prestigious Deaf West Theatre and CTG Theater Group, earning accolades and awards for her performances.
For Deanne, working in Hollywood is a bit like coming home. As a little girl she grew up riding her bike around studio lots while her single father worked as a lighting technician. Little did she know she’d end up being in front of the camera.
Perhaps Sue Thomas: F.B. Eye creator, writer, and executive producer Dave Alan Johnson summed up the experience of working with Deanne Bray when he said, “Deanne is simply the best actress and nicest person I’ve worked with in my twenty years of writing, producing, and directing in Hollywood. She’s one of a kind and no one should ever put limits on what she can do. I can’t wait to see what she does next.”
Courtney Jones
ACTOR/MACY
Courtney Jones was born and raised in northern California. She studied at the American Conservatory Theatre in the Studio program in San Francisco, and with the acclaimed acting teacher Robert X. Modica at Carnegie Hall in New York City. She currently studies with Sharon Chatten at the Sharon Chatten Studio in Los Angeles.
Some of her previous credits include a recurring role on All My Children, Friends with Benefits for Fox TV, Stupid Face/Bad Dad on Fuel TV, I’m with the Band on the Disney Channel and NTSF-SUV-San Diego on Adult Swim/Comedy Central. Films such as, Nightfall, the short Look at Me, Pandora Machine where she portrayed Isabella Von Liechtenstein, a trophy wife who murdered her husband and got away with it, Beautiful Kid, Slider, Thor with Marvel Studios as an Asgardian Goddess, J. Edger directed by Clint Eastwood, the short film she co-wrote and produced titled Forget You, Fortune Cooky that competed at the International Athens Film Festival in the short films program about love. She has appeared in numerous commercials and theatre productions in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles.
Wild Prairie Rose is the second project she has worked on with director, Deborah Lavine. She previously lent her ADR skills to Deborah’s short film, Prairie Sonata.
