pamela harris

I had a very well spent misspent youth, thanks to my uncle, a poet. He lived on Leonard Cohen’s couch when he wasn’t homeless, and when I saw what writing did to him I vowed to flunk English. But oh, the specificity of words! I went to art school and for a decade was a painter who wrote. I became a writer who painted. Most of my writing has been original content for TV, film and stage. I’ve had TV pilots packaged with 20th Century Fox and others; a feature script was selected for the 2017 Writers Lab, funded by Meryl Streep, Oprah and Nicole Kidman; I’ve been awarded fellowships from Jentel Arts and Stowe Labs; I’ve written for an Oxygen series, LIFE ON THE LINE; I’ve been nominated for the New York Stage and Film Filmmakers’ Workshop; and in 2020 I was nominated, then a finalist for the FilmNation/WGA Fellowship. In 2016 I was a sit-in director for Wynn Handman and wrote my first play, NO LAUGHING MATTER. (In his honor I frequently name a character ‘Wynn.’) In 2017 I directed and co-wrote a short film, EN ROUTE, that played many festivals including Adirondack, Soho International, Big Apple, Lighthouse, and others. As a visual artist I’ve exhibited extensively, and after my first solo show I was interviewed for Oprah’s ‘O’ Magazine for the article, ’Make Your Dreams Come True,’ by Phoebe Kest. ​

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Website: https://pamelaharrisart.com/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/pamela.harris.33821/
TW: @PamelaHarris33
IG: @pamelaharris339 

MORE ABOUT ME
A MEANINGFUL MOMENT IN THE THEATER: My mother wanted to be a Broadway star. When I was eight she took me to see Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’ at our local community theater. I didn’t understand what the play was about, but sitting in that dark theater, I knew I was home. I moved to NYC the second I could, and as the decades passed my mother wanted to hear about every play I saw. Her idol was Patti LuPone, but I had yet to see her on stage. When my mother passed I held on to the black mourning ribbon from her funeral. It didn’t feel like something I wanted to keep, but throwing it out felt wrong. A few months later my aunt invited me to ‘Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown’ on Broadway. It starred Patti LuPone, and going to see her made me want to bring my mother in my pocket. That’s when I knew what to do with the mourning ribbon. My aunt gets house seats, so we sat a few rows back from the stage, on the aisle. At the end of the show there was a standing ovation and I stood and flipped my seat up. The underside was hard plastic, but the edges were fabric. When I pushed on the fabric it gave slightly, just enough to pin my mother's funeral ribbon to. My mother always wanted to be on Broadway. Pinning her there was the least I could do. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
I'm wrapping up 'Will Life,' a new full length play about a traditional wife who must learn to advocate for herself when her dying husband's Will comes into play and she's about to get cut out of it. (It's about the fall of democracy, but in an intimate setting.) I'm also working on 'Wicked Hot,' a musical about a princess who wakes after a thousand years, and with no prince around to rescue her must learn how to rescue herself. A feature I wrote, 'Joyville,' about a scientist who's devoted her life to saving mankind and now must decide, are we worth it? is bouncing around with production companies. And lastly, art-wise, I'm working on a large-scale art installation, 'We're Very Sorry,' inspired by a proposal Bruce Nauman made for a German Holocaust memorial but chose to not create. 

KEYWORDS
​comedy, drama, Jewish, non-denominational, science-fiction, mythic, musical, political, equality, environmental, class, female-centered, avant-garde, multicultural, nature, art