Catherine Gray, an award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker from St. Louis Park, will have a reading by professional actors of her new screenplay, Loonie’s Tune, on Monday, January 26, 7:30 p.m. at the Illusion Theater, 528 Hennepin Avenue (corner of 6th and Hennepin) in the Hennepin Center for the Arts.
Loonie’s Tune, was inspired by interviews the author did at the Minnesota Correctional Facility for Women in Shakopee. It is a story about the difficulty of making a fresh start and the life-changing, conflict-producing choices three generations of women must face when Loonie comes home from prison.
As Gray interviewed the women, and they told about their lives, she resolved that she would pass along their wisdom. She says, “I could relate to the desire these women had for a better life and how much they wanted to learn from past mistakes.”
Loonie soon became a fictional embodiment of the women prisoners Gray had met—women who wanted so desperately to reconnect with their children. Because Gray has sisters, who at one time were jailed for drug charges in Arizona, she felt a personal connection to these Shakopee inmates and a desire to understand their world.
The reading is open to the public. It is sponsored by the nonprofit Minnesota Screenwriter’s Workshop. A donation for the Screenwriters’ Workshop is requested at the door.
