Stage Fright

A veteran of dozens of stage, television and independent film productions spanning some thirty years, Brad Mays is now coming into his own as a filmmaker. Brad Mays' professional experience began with an internship at the McCarter Theatre's resident repertory company in 1970 in Princeton, New... Jersey. By the age of 18, he was directing main stage productions at Baltimore's Corner Theatre experimental theatre company; during this time, he also became interested in film making. The long and short of all this is that by 1982, Brad was living and working in New York City, where he directed a number of off-Broadway stage productions, including Requiem by Linda Chambers, Dragon Slayers by Stanley Keyes, and the acclaimed The Water Hen by Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz. During this time he also produced and directed his first feature-length film, Stage Fright, which premiered at the 1989 Berlin International Film Festival. Since moving to Hollywood in 1991, Brad Mays has worked in a variety of capacities: screenwriter, script doctor, post production supervisor, producer, editor and director. He has also staged a number of highly-acclaimed and award-nominated theatrical productions: Joan by Linda Chambers, Marat/Sade by Peter Weiss, a highly controversial multimedia production of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, and the critically acclaimed 1997 hit production of Euripides' The Bacchae . In 2008, Brad completed work on the documentary film SING*ularity, a portrait of Ann Baltz's world-famous OperaWorks training program for classical vocalists. Mays' 2008 romantic comedy feature, The Watermelon, was featured at the 2008 San Diego Film Festivsal and is currently in national distribution. The Watermelon was also the recipient of the 2010 California Film Awards "Diamond Award." In 2009, Mays was invited by producer Annie Wong to participate - along with Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka, theatre scholar Richard Schechner, and acclaimed actor Alan Cumming - in a discussion about The Bacchae for an up-coming series An Invitation to World Literature, which launched on Annenberg Media's educational website in September, 2010and was subsequently aired nationally on PBS through WGBH Boston. Mays is currently preparing to direct Beginning Blue, a feature film drama about a group of brilliant young female musicians. The film was conceived and co-written by Mays' longtime partner in life and art, Lorenda Starfelt, who died of cancer on March 16, 2011.
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