thePULSEMeet Worcester Screenwriter Caitlin McCarthy
By Robert Newton
The reluctance to self-promote is something that hobbles far too many artists, preventing their talents from being appreciated by an audience. Most mistakenly consider it shameless and unbecoming, forgetting the almost famous words of one gentle self-help maven, Stuart Smalley: “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!”
Worcester screenwriter Caitlin McCarthy knows no such obstacles. In fact, with four screenplays and significant accolades to her credit, the Worcester Technical High School English teacher is a world-class hurdler.
“In this day and age,” the 37-year-old Tampa-born multi-tasker explains. “You need to be not only an artist, but a promoter, as well. You really need to be of two minds; an artist first, where you find a place that is comfortable, but then you need to start investigating your outlets.”
McCarthy, who graduated Worcester Academy in 1988 and got her MFA in creative writing at Emerson College, has certainly found a number of productive outlets for her work, just this side of “greenlighting,” or a production go-ahead. One of the best routes to a production deal for an aspiring screenwriter is the film festival competition circuit.
McCarthy’s screenplay Wonder Drug, a based-on-a-true-story scientific drama about how the synthetic non-steroidal estrogen DES (diethylstilbestrol) affects the lives of a Big Pharma executive, a feminist doctor and a thirty-something newlywed actress across three decades in the world’s first drug disaster, received a staged reading at October’s Hamptons International Film Festival. It was directed by one of McCarthy’s mentors, Tom Gilroy (Spring Forward) and featured in its cast veteran actor Steve Guttenberg (Three Men and a Baby) and Alysia Reiner, who played Thomas Haden Church’s fiancée in Sideways.
“Steve and Alysia were fantastic,” she recalls glowingly, “and they took on multiple roles with such ease. It was the first time it had been performed by live actors, and it was thrilling and insightful to watch. The fact that people were crying at the reading blew me away, and it exceeded every fantasy I could have had.”
Another screenplay, a war drama about Czech Resistance fighter Vera Laska called Vera, has actress Lucie Vondrackova of Last Holiday and the upcoming Bathory attached to star, should the film be produced. Vera was a winner at this year’s Atlanta Film Festival’s inaugural screenplay competition.
Competition is nothing new to McCarthy, who cut her teeth in marketing and PR for an agency that represented high tech behemoths like Microsoft.
“You don’t always get to see what they’re selling,” she says of the high-pressure stint, “and that really helped me when I moved to teaching. You learn to take a huge idea and break it into bite-sized pieces, and that trickled into writing on-point and on deadline.”
McCarthy’s personal discipline has certainly helped her, a discipline that she instills in her students daily.
“You have to make your own opportunities,” she notes, “which is something I share with my students. Use education as your foundation, build on it, find your drive and never ever give up.”
Photo: from left to right: WONDER DRUG scientific mentor P. Harry Jellinck; WONDER DRUG screenwriter Caitlin McCarthy; actress Alysia Reiner (SIDEWAYS); and actor Steve Guttenberg (THREE MEN AND A BABY).
