Script File

Lines in the Sand

A 15-year-old boy escapes the homophobic bullies at school and the home of his drug-addicted mother by hitting the road in a dilapidated pickup driven by an ex-con on the run.

  • Jim Dalglish
    Writer
    Teacher of the Year, The Babysitter
  • Project Type:
    Screenplay
  • Number of Pages:
    122
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • First-time Screenwriter:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • The Babysitter
    Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA
    Best Short Screenplay
  • Teacher of the Year
    Worcester, MA
    Best Experimental Feature Film
Writer Biography - Jim Dalglish

Jim Dalglish is a playwright, director, filmmaker, and producer with more than 30 plays and films to his credit. These works have been produced and screened around the world and have won awards in New York, Boston, London, and Dublin. A few of his plays have been anthologized in best play collections. Jim has directed more than two dozen theatrical productions, five of which he also independently produced. He has written, produced, and directed a feature film - "Teacher of the Year" - that has been screened won awards at film festivals in New York, London, and Massachusetts. He has been employed by a variety of theaters in New England as a managing director, marketing director, and box office manager. Jim has a master’s degree in creative writing/ playwriting from Brown University. His thesis advisor was Paula Vogel and works as a digital strategist in the Boston metropolitan area. Jim is the founder of Helltown Players - an exciting new theatrical venture in Ptown. When he isn’t busy writing, directing, or producing plays, he and his husband Rob Phelps enjoy sailing their 17-foot O’Day Daysailer along the sheltered harbors of New England. Read more about Jim at www.jimdalglish.com.

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Writer Statement

"Lines in the Sand" is an adaptation of my award-winning play of the same name. Neither the play nor the screenplay are easy. It won’t be a film in which you can sit back and watch for two hours, smile a few times, and then go home content with yourself and the choices you have made with your life. I didn’t want to write an easy script. I wanted to write a screenplay that would take people to places they were unprepared to go. To coax them to empathize with people they may not normally feel any sympathy. To re-evaluate their pre-conceived notions of crime, rehabilitation, faith and forgiveness. I wrote the screenplay to change people’s lives.

Over the course of the script, my two characters – an ex-con and a 15-year-old boy who picks up men in public parks – take the audience on a journey that will make them look at masculinity, sexuality, paternal relationships, and faith from a new perspective.

Reviews for the play version:
“… a string of surprise twists transform the play from an intense, unnerving mystery to an equally intense but ultimately moving drama… the story is engaging, with terrific performances… The play takes place over a period of less than 24 hours, and packs a wallop… By intermission on this particular night, several members of the audience seemed visibly overwhelmed… it is worth seeing for its unforgiving look at complicated people in extraordinary circumstances, and for the food for thought it offers the audience about bullying, self-judgment, trust and mistakes.”
- Kay Keough, The Inquirer and Mirror.

"Thought-provoking, gripping piece of theatre... Tautly directed by the playwright and Ian Ryan, the 90-minute play moves along at a crisp pace. Just when you think you have it figured out, the plot takes off in another direction before it results in a shocking revelation."
- Johanna Crosby, Barnstable Patriot.

"Taut direction by Dalglish and co-director Ian Ryan keeps the energy level in the small theater bristling with the threat of violence... The production offers some genuinely illuminating moments..."
- Cindy Nickerson, Cape Cod Times.

"Well written and executed... The acting by both performers is outstanding. Raw, emotional, and believable, Mr. Dalglish has written a script that’s both gritty and, in some instances, lyrical."
- Joanne Brina-Gartner, The Enterprise.

"A two-hander by nature is extremely dependent on the skills of the actors portraying the two roles, and in this case they're exemplary. Both Bucchianeri (belying his age and relative inexperience) and Travostino (so memorable in the former play, Unsafe) are, to use an adjective too often loosely applied, riveting. In such a tiny black box, each threatens to blow the place apart. As Directed by Dalglish and Ian Ryan, they come close to doing just that. The play has been selected to be performed at the fourteenth annual International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival this May, and it's easy to see why. Presented here with Artwork by Jackie Reeves and Original Music by Sam Holmstock, it's another example of Dalglish's mixing of powerful “in your face” writing and wise restraint, not a mix that an awful lot of playwrights have the wit to threaten as well as to withhold."
- Jack Craib, South Shore Critic.