The Catalyst Story Institute, a professional development program designed to help up-and-coming TV writers, actors, directors, and producers showcase their work and advance their careers, selected a finalist whose hometown is Great Falls to present at its annual content festival in Duluth this past September. Each year, the festival receives nearly 1,000 project submissions, from creators in 15 countries. Fewer than 10 percent of all submissions are chosen to be showcased.
Olivia Haller, a playwright, dramaturg, and screenwriter from Great Falls currently based in Los Angeles, was selected to present Friendmance. Friendmance is a half-hour dramedy about a group of artsy misfits who rely on friendship to navigate upheavals in their personal journeys of sexuality, marriage, and career. In the pilot episode, Rhea convinces Odette to be honest about her asexuality, which ends her traditional—and dysfunctional—relationship with her hypersexual boyfriend Mike. At the end of the pilot, Odette buys her own house and becomes a landlord with Rhea as her first tenant. Over the course of the season, other friends will move into and out of the house, and Odette will begin to create a fulfilling family that doesn’t fit into a mold.
Haller writes feel-good, emotionally earnest stories about relationships—often with a healthy dose of the surreal. Her stage plays have been presented at or developed with Relative Theatrics, Convergence Theatre (2018 Women’s Voices Theater Festival), Interlochen Center for the Arts, NextStop Theatre Company, Theater Alliance, Keegan Theatre, Rorschach Theatre, Spooky Action, and the Inkubator New Works Development Laboratory. Her play Loneliness Was A Pandemic was a finalist in the 2019-2020 Tennessee Williams Literary Festival One-Act Play Contest. She has completed a residency at the Vermont Studio Center, and attended the Midwest Dramatists Conference and the Kenyon Playwrights’ Conference.
Haller holds a BFA in Theatre Arts from Boston University and a certificate from UCLA’s Professional Program in Writing for Television.
About Catalyst
Catalyst exists to advance the literary and visual arts by generating long-term professional career opportunities for storytelling artists. Its year-round institute offers storytellers ways to learn more about their craft and develop their stories while networking with other industry professionals. The Catalyst Content Festival serves as a showcase for the independent television industry.
This year’s Catalyst Content Festival was held September 28-October 1, in Duluth, Minnesota. Among its sponsors are the National Academy of TV Arts and Sciences, The Television Academy, and HBO. The program brings independent story artists together with industry pros and representatives of major industry companies, and the presentations, panel discussions and workshops enable the content creators to refine their show presentation. Submissions include TV series, podcasts, and social/web-based content, and can be in any stage of development from pitch to post-productions. However, no films are allowed. The jury and other industry participants include experienced TV showrunners, producers and development executives, writers and directors, network executives, talent agents, and digital and podcast executives.
Recent participants at Catalyst have gone on to achieve success in all facets of the TV industry, including selling their shows to a network, securing top agency representation, getting hired as writers and directors on popular shows including Gossip Girl, The Blacklist, New Amsterdam, Grey’s Anatomy, and Kenan as writers, directors, and assistant showrunners.
Catalyst is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Festival attendees have included the general public, business executives, patrons of the arts, first time creators and Emmy winners.