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Join us for the next performance in our San Francisco-Northern California Local Conservatory Screenplay Reading Series: Desert Star News by Robert Haus
SYNOPSIS: After a major-market anchorwoman wins a sexual harassment lawsuit, she quickly learns no other station in the country will hire her - except for a low-budget, ramshackle station in the middle of nowhere.
The main character, Brooke Pierce, is a former anchorwoman for a Pittsburgh television station. After rejecting repeated sexual demands from the news director, she was demoted to the noon newscast, ostensibly due to falling ratings. She wins a sexual harassment lawsuit and arranges a settlement with the station. Brooke entrusts the settlement money to her father, the highly regarded owner of a Miami bond brokerage house.
But shortly after winning the suit, she is hospitalized with viral pneumonia. While recovering, she learns she has lost almost all of the settlement money and a good part of her life savings to a financial crisis. Nearly broke, she asks her agent to find an anchoring or reporting job. He tells her no other station will hire her. The station owners feel that any woman who would sue for sexual harassment must be trouble. They will not hire her under any circumstances.
After several months, she receives an offer of an interview. The owner of a low-budget, ramshackle station in the California High Desert town of Joshua Valley is willing to talk with her. Brooke flies out for an interview and finds a small, remote town baking in one hundred degree-plus heat. The station owner is new to the television business and is unaware of her lawsuit and its fallout. The news staff, save for the News Director/Anchor, is young and inexperienced.
Her interview is interrupted when the owner learns his News Director/Anchor has been killed in a car accident. Brooke helps the shaken young news staff assemble and deliver the night’s newscast. Afterwards, the owner offers her the position of News Director/Anchor.
Brooke accepts, and starts the new chapter of her life in the isolated, occasionally harsh, and often baffling desert town of Joshua Valley.
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WRITER/FILMMAKER BIO - Robert Haus is a former professional musician, he also worked for several years as an award-winning television news producer and reporter. In 2019, he retired after a distinguished career as a Public Information Officer with the California Department of Transportation. His magazine articles appeared in Flight Journal and the California Transportation Journal. His first book, "Diminished, Resolving to Major" was published this year. He lives in Oakland, California.
This event is only open to active SAG-AFTRA members in good standing (paid through April 30, 2025 or Oct. 31, 2025). No guests are allowed. Parents/guardians of performers under 18 years old are welcome.
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