Announcing Stage 32’s First Annual Comedy Writing Contest Winners!
Announcing Stage 32’s First Annual Comedy Writing Contest Winners!

Man, what a contest. The 1st Annual Stage 32 Comedy Writing Contest not only provided some amazing concepts and ideas, but the writing had our judges in stitches…and with a very tough job to do. In the end, the average scores were higher than we’ve seen in some of our other contests to date, a testament to the creativity of the incredible writers within the Stage 32 community.
I'd like to announce and congratulate the winners of the 1st Annual Stage 32 Comedy Contest:
Comedy Winners - Feature Screenplay
1st Place & Grand Prize Winner
Kelly Anelons - Life's A Beaut
2nd Place
Sherrie Sanet - Sleeping With Dogs
3rd Place
Kranti Pally - Man to Man
4th Place
Wolfgang Wright - Not About Love
5th Place
Giovanni Porta - The Hook Up
Comedy Winners - TV Pilot or Spec Script
1st Place
Adam Dasilva & David James - Counter-Intelligence
2nd Place
Kevin Mahoney & Zach Zachariadis - The Barry Steinwich Show
3rd Place
Joe Henriques - Castle "Death By Stockings"
4th Place
Sundae Jahant-Osborn - A Lying Shame
5th Place
Frank Gaydos & Mark Saunders - Hotel Manana
To see the total list of finalists - click here!
Just as a reminder, some of the amazing judges who collaborated on picking our finalists and winners included:
- Sean Berard - Jr. Agent, APA
- Matt Horwitz – Manager at Echo Lake Entertainment (writers on Shameless, Everybody Loves Raymond, How I Met Your Mother)
- Jared Iacino - Director of Development at Panay Films (Wedding Crashers, Van Wilder, Hot Tub Time Machine 2)
- Will Phelps - Head of Feature Development for Mailbox Baseball Productions (The Wedding Ringer, Shaq Inc.)
- Tiffany Fiedler - Creative Executive at Five All in the Fifth Entertainment (The After Party with Paramount Pictures, Narc with Zac Efron*, Fakenapped)*
- Melissa Daykin Cassill - Former Vice President of State Street Pictures (Faster, Beauty Shop, Barber Shop, Notorious, Nothing Like the Holidays.)
- Jackson Reynolds – Coordinator of Physical Production at Lionsgate (Mad Men, Orange is the New Black, Nurse Jackie, Manhattan, Nashville, The Royals, Boss and many others.)
As you know, our contests are all about providing our writers with access and opportunity in the form of meetings and exposure. 8 of our contest finalists over the last year have already been signed. We’re quite proud of that fact.
For this contest, our Grand Prize winner will be flown to Hollywood to meet with industry executives and meet with the legendary Jerry Zucker (Airplane, Naked Gun) and Scott Armstrong (Old School, The Hangover II)!
Additionally, we will be passing their info along to the hundreds of managers, agents, development execs we work with. Our other finalists will have Skype meetings with executives. All finalists will have their loglines exposed to all the industry executives we work with as well. So if you made the finals, congratulations and best of luck with your meetings!
A Final Reminder to All Our Screenwriters
Entries for our 2nd Annual Feature Contest are now being accepted! This contest offers the same exposure and access as all our other contests. All genres welcomed!
To submit and learn more, click here!
Like this blog post? Please share it on social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, email etc) by using social media buttons at the top of the blog. Or post to your personal blog and anywhere else you feel appropriate. Thank you.
As always, we welcome thoughts and remarks on ANY of the content above in the Comments section below...
About the Author

Richard "RB" Botto
Actor, Producer, Screenwriter, Voice Artist
Richard "RB" Botto has created the online platform and marketplace designed to democratize the entertainment industry, Stage 32. By leveling the playing field for all film, television and digital content creators and professionals worldwide, Stage 32 provides networking and training opportunities as...