Name: Wild Prairie Rose (2016)
Director: Deborah LaVine
Released: 2016
Cast: Troy Kotsur, Tara Samuel, Suanne Spoke, Maya Brattkus

Deborah LaVine

LaVine headshot DIRECTOR

Deborah LaVine is the Program Director of the graduate level Film Directing Program at California Institute of the Arts (CALARTS). An award winning director, Deborah’s most recent work is the short film, UNINTENDED. The film features Jeff Perry, a founding member of the Steppenwolf Theater Company and co-star of the television series, SCANDAL. UNINTENDED has recently screened at the Sedona and Newport Film Festivals. Deborah is currently directing a webseries based on the mystery of time, and a short film, WHEN YOU GET HOME, starring Suanne Spoke.

Other recent film works include, LOST MUSIC, a lyrical exploration of loss and memory featuring Barbara Bain that played the Newport Beach Film Festival and the Sedona Film Festival among others. Deborah’s short film, PRAIRIE SONATA, screened at the Moondance Film Festival in Boulder, Colorado winning the Spirit of the Festival, and Audience Favorite awards there. It has also played the Reel Dakota Festival, The Newport Beach Film Festival, and the Black Hills Film Festival. PRAIRIE SONATA, filmed in South Dakota, served as an inspiration for WILD PRAIRIE ROSE.

Theatrically, Deborah has directed over 300 professional productions across the United States for which she has received many prestigious awards including 4 Ovation awards, 16 Drama-Logue/Backstage West awards, and a NAACP Image Award citation among others. Select Los Angeles productions include NAPOLI MILIONARA at the Road Theater (Ovation award winner Outstanding Director and Best Production), THE RESISTIBLE RISE OF ARTURO UI at Theater Exchange, Deaf West Theater’s STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (Ovation award Best Production), KINDERTRANSPORT and A SHAYNA MAIDEL at the Tiffany Theatre, THE ACCOMPLICES at the Fountain Theater, and Edgemar Center for the Arts multi-award winning BLACK CAT CABARET.

Nonetheless Productions

PRODUCERS

Giulia Caruso and Ki Jin Kim are award-winning producers and founders of Nonetheless Productions. After moving to Los Angeles from Italy and South Korea respectively, Giulia and Ki Jin started the filmmaker collective Nonetheless Productions with partner Gorav Kalyan. In 2017, they won an Independent Spirit Award for Andrew Ahn’s debut feature SPA NIGHT. Their latest feature, COLUMBUS (starring John Cho, Haley Lu Richardson and Parker Posey) premiered at Sundance and Rotterdam 2017. COLUMBUS is self-distributed through the first Sundance Creative Distribution Fellowship – after opening in theaters on August 4th, it went on to gross over one million at the box office.

Nonetheless has produced content for clients such as Focus Features, Intel, MTV, KCET and GoPro – including the award-winning Sundance short films Myrna the Monster and Deer Flower, and Rhys Ernst’s GLAAD-awarded docuseries We’ve Been Around.

Giulia and Ki Jin are alumni of the Sundance Creative Producing Summit, Film Independent Project Involve, Rotterdam Producers Lab and Berlinale Talent Campus. They both hold MFAs in Film Directing from CalArts.

Carol Monroe

CarolM PRODUCER

Carol Monroe was responsible for both the acquisition and development of new intellectual properties, as well as production, for SD Entertainment. While at SD, she executive produced numerous DVDs and television series for such properties as Bob the Builder, Angelina Ballerina, Care Bears and My Little Pony. Prior to joining SD, Carol served as Executive Producer and head of the Entertainment Division of the Hasbro Properties Group, where she produced numerous television shows and movies based on the toy company’s legendary brands, including Transformers, GI Joe, Action Man, Tonka and CandyLand.

As Senior Vice President of Programming and Development, she was integral to the success of Fox Kids Worldwide in the 90s, then the #1 children’s television network. In that capacity, Carol was responsible for 19 hours of original programming per week, including such hits as Power Rangers, Spiderman, X-Men and Goosebumps.

Carol was Vice-President of Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television, where she produced Fudge and Harry and the Hendersons, and was involved in the development and production of ER, Animaniacs, Tiny Toon Adventures, Back to the Future and Fievel’s American Tales. Prior to that, she worked on the feature side of Amblin, on films ranging from Land Before Time to Arachnophobia.

Carol is the author/editor of Over There, Over Here, an electronic book about literature during WW2, as published in the Saturday Evening Post. Previously, she served as editor for Gatsby Girls, a collection of early F. Scott Fitzgerald stories, originally published in the Post. She is a special consultant to Mitroff & Associates, the leading provider of educational and curriculum services in the children’s’ entertainment space. Carol has served on the Boards of Directors and special committees for Children Now, Girls, Inc., the American Center for Children and Media, and the Fred Rogers Scholarship selection committee. Carol worked as a theatrical producer and has won three Drama-Logue awards for outstanding production of the year.

Ki Jin Kim

KIJINCROP CINEMATOGRAPHER /ASSOCIATE PRODUCER

Ki Jin Kim is a filmmaker, cinematographer and producer, working and living in Los Angeles. In 2012, he co-founded Nonetheless Productions, an independent production company dedicated to helping its talented collective of diverse directors in the production of feature films and digital content for a variety of platforms.

The latest feature he produced and shot, Spa Night, premiered at Sundance 2016 in US Dramatic Competition. His other work as producer includes the feature film, Aurora Notte (BAFICI 2014), and the MTV Other web-series, Myrna the Monster (Sundance, SXSW 2015), and clients such as Intel and GoPro.

Ki Jin moved from his native Korea to Los Angeles to attend the Film Directing Program at the California Institute of the Arts.

Giulia Caruso

GIULIA-headshot

ASSOCIATE PRODUCER

Giulia Caruso is an LA-based Italian filmmaker and one of the founding members of the independent production company Nonetheless Productions. She recently produced Andrew Ahn’s debut feature Spa Night, premiering at Sundance 2016 in US Dramatic Competition, and Myrna the Monster, starring Kathleen Hanna and executive produced by MTV(other), that premiered at Sundance and went on to play more than 100 festivals worldwide, including SXSW, Palm Springs and the Florida Film Festival.With Nonetheless Productions, Giulia has produced content for clients such as Intel, Wired, GoPro and MTV, and is currently producing Ian Samuels’s debut feature Still Lives (working title) and a number of other projects for different platforms and formats.

Giulia’s directorial debut feature Aurora Notte premiered at BAFICI 2014, and her latest short was executive produced by James Franco as part of the omnibus film Holyland. Giulia is a Berlinale Talent Campus alum and 2016 Project:Involve fellow. She holds an MFA in Film Directing from the California Institute of the Arts, for which she was awarded the Hollywood Foreign Press Scholarship.

Sharon B. Greene

SHARONGREENE

WRITER

Sharon Greene is a screenwriter, playwright, producer and teacher based in Los Angeles. Her feature film, Operator, co-written with Director Logan Kibens, premiered at SXSW and can be streamed on Amazon. She currently teaches in USC’s Writing for Screen and Television program. Sharon develops and sells both fiction and non-fiction television, collaborating with Showrunners, Directors and Production Companies in LA and the U.K.

In the course of her writing career, Sharon has been supported by The Sundance Institute, Film Independent, The San Francisco Film Society, and National Endowment for the Arts.

Sharon’s most recent play, written collaboratively with The Neo-Futurist Ensemble, is 46 Plays for America’s First Ladies. It premiered deep in the heart of the pandemic – on Twitch to allow for audience participation – and became a New York Times Critics Pick.

Meridith Sommers

MeridithSommers_Editor EDITOR

Meridith Sommers is originally from New York. She received her B.A. from American University in Washington, D.C. with a double major in Performance Music (cello) and Law & Society. Since moving to Los Angeles over a decade ago, she has worked on numerous television shows including Numb3rs (CBS), In Plain Sight (USA), The Client List (Lifetime), Vegas (CBS), and Covert Affairs (USA). In addition, she has edited numerous short and feature films including: Acquired Taste (dir.: David Ruchman, Best Editing Finalist), Model Minority (dir.: Lily Mariye), Death in the Desert (dir.: Josh Evans), Wild Prairie Rose (dir.: Deborah LaVine), and Thrill Ride (dir.: Chris Parrish). She was also a finalist for the 2015 Sundance Institute’s Sally Menke Memorial Editing Fellowship.

Hannah Rose Dexter

WPRHannah

MUSIC

Hannah Rose Dexter is a 23-year-old bass player and composer with expansive range and interests. Had she never heard the album Funk Power by James Brown, she’d be well along the slippery slope to a career in classical music. Six years after putting that record on the stereo, her style is a combination of all that she loves: funk, ragtime, old time, jazz, pop, world, experimental, new wave, 50s rock’n’roll, country western, and (still) classical.

Since graduating with her Bachelor’s from CalArts in 2015, she has scored the feature length film Wild Prairie Rose, performed an original solo bass score to a series of 19th century films at REDCAT, and another to The Glass Menagerie, directed by Deborah Lavine and James Franco. In her spare time, she can be seen biking around Los Angeles and performing with the psychedelic children’s band, A Horse A Spoon A Bucket.

Caryn Drake

PRODUCTION DESIGNER

Caryn Drake is a Post Production Supervisor and Graphic Designer living in Los Angeles, who went back to her theatrical design roots when asked to be Wild Prairie Rose’s Production Designer. She is also the feature’s postproduction supervisor.

She holds a BFA from Valparaiso University where she studied Graphic Design and Production and has been working in digital post production, graphic design, and marketing with social media campaign planning and execution. Caryn has worked with independent filmmakers as well as entities such as FOX, Mattel, Hasbro, Disney, Warner Bros, LEGO, Universal, The Jim Henson Company, Apple, Cirque du Soleil, Carmike, DigiNext, AEG Live, and Lionsgate.

Nathan Ruyle

Nathan SOUND DESIGN

Nathan Ruyle is the founder and principle designer, supervising sound editor, and re-recording mixer at This is Sound Design. He has an MFA in Sound and New Media Design from California Institute of the Arts, where he is currently an adjunct professor in the School of Film/Video and Center for Integrated Media. Nathan is also a technologist and software developer, creating new tools and infrastructure for a variety of traditional and emerging contexts.

Cast & Crew