MFA screenplay c. 1975 resurrected as a play

Screenwriting alumnus Brian Alan Lane ’73, a Hollywood veteran with multiple credits on hit TV shows such as “Remington Steele” and “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” has now accomplished the almost unheard of. A screenplay he wrote at TFT in the 1970, never produced despite winning high praise from the likes of François Truffaut, has been successfully ressurected almost 40 years later — as a major stage production.

Lane’s “The Caterer,” which will be presented at the Whitefire Theatre in Studio City, in April, with “Star Trek” icon LeVar Burton and “Lost” castaway Cynthia Watros in leading roles, was and is a passion project for Lane. It came to him, he says, when he was 20 years old and his mother, brother, and best friend were killed in an auto accident from which he limped away.

A year later Lane wrote a script about a mysterious stranger who offers to sell people an "appropriate death". The script was optioned, was the talk of the studios, but never found the right cast. "A story before its time, and a story written by a young writer who did not really have the courage to tell it," says Lane now.

After a bout with cancer, Lane came up with a wholly new approach to the story. “I'd always had the death experience,” he says, “but now I had the life experience and wisdom sufficient to justify courage.”

Also a tenured professor in the Department of Film and Electronic Arts at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), Lane is using this stage production of “The Caterer” to create opportunities for his students and recent graduates.

“The Caterer” will run April 10th through May 10th with a special $15 student preview on April 9th at the Whitefire Theatre, 13500 Ventura Blvd, Sherman Oaks, CA 91423. Shows are at 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets for all seats are $34.99.

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