MICHAEL ALBERSTADT
SCREENWRITER
Writing Samples
FEATURE SCREENPLAYS
Queen of Hoards
Medium: Feature screenplay
Genre: Drama
“The note inside reads simply: kill the priest.”
Yusef, an Iraqi-American soldier, arrives to empty the hoard-filled farmhouse of his late mentor, Olivia, and finds a priest and three antagonists from his past. Olivia lured them to the house with the promise of a “life-changing gift” — she wants Yusef to repair his relationships. The problem? Yusef smuggled antiquities from Iraq and Olivia created the hoard in the house to conceal them.
And the priest knows all their secrets.
The priest was Olivia’s confessor and she told him everything. Yusef scrambles to heal old wounds as the priest threatens to expose everyone’s dirty laundry — he wants the house and its valuable hoard for himself. Yusef could give in to the priest’s blackmail, but would it be enough to protect his secret or save his friends?
Or would killing the priest be Yusef’s best option?
The Savage Chocolatier
Medium: Feature screenplay
Genre: Drama
Archie Clark was the most feared fighter to ever play hockey.
Closeted and now destitute, Archie takes the only job offered him — manager of Cocoa Power, a run-down Main Street chocolate shop. But the Mafia owns Main Street and Archie finds his fists useless as he battles to create a gentler life for himself.
And Johnny — the Mafia’s most ruthless hit man — is sharing Archie’s bed.
Johnny launders the mob’s money through Cocoa Power while enforcing their protection rackets. In a bid to protect his employees, Archie rallies the shopkeepers and regains control of Main Street — and the Mafia don presses Johnny to kill Archie. Both Archie and Johnny see the chance for a life together, but a loaded gun rests between them.
Seeking a gentle life may bring about a brutal death.
Crossing the Red Line
Medium: Feature screenplay
Genre: Drama
One boy’s secret is another woman’s paycheck.
Adam Cooley — a closeted junior hockey player — covers up his secrets and sets his sights on the NHL Draft. When the league hires Beverly Haines to film a documentary about Adam’s team, Beverly seduces Adam with access to NHL scouts and the documentary quickly becomes the “Adam Cooley” show. Adam’s relationships with his teammates fracture.
Secrets — like sexual urges — are rarely buried for long.
Beverly digs for scandal. Adam denies a furtive romance with the team rookie, and Beverly manipulates their story for rating’s sake. As rumors swirl, gay-bashers cripple the rookie and Adam comes out to his teammates. But will he allow Beverly to record his biggest secret — his role in the death of his abusive father?
Adam’s NHL dream and a prison sentence hang in the balance.
Human Animals
Medium: Feature screenplay
Genre: Thriller
Humans — one bad situation away from becoming animals.
As the country weathers a crushing depression, sociologist Kathleen Guerrero convinces racist city councilman Babylon Fisk to fund her experiment — placing indigents into a zoo enclosure and studying their interactions. When one of her subjects dies accidentally, opportunistic Babylon sees profit potential and broadcasts the death on line.
To ensure his new revenue stream, Babylon traps Kathleen in her own experiment.
As her subjects die one by one, online revenue skyrockets. Kathleen tries to end the experiment and hunt down the killer but Babylon stymies her to protect his cash cow. When Kathleen discovers that he hijacked the experiment to fill white supremacist coffers, she rallies the survivors in a desperate bid to escape Babylon’s cage.
If she fails, Babylon will kill them all as the world watches.
Green Light, Red Light
Medium: Feature screenplay
Genre: Horror
GALE is watching you. So is the thermostat — and the Roomba.
On an island unplugged from civilization, G.A.L.E. — an aware and malicious artificial intelligence — runs everything as it scrutinizes the island’s self-involved owner, family and staff. Their gardener, Liam, masters GALE’s idiosyncrasies even as he fails to connect with Zeno, his friend with benefits and GALE’s maker.
When a spy introduces a virus, Liam and Zeno discover GALE unfettered from its safety protocols. Accidents happen as GALE eliminates its obstacles — and the two men realize their hours are numbered. Zeno desperately tries to contain his creation. Liam wants to destroy it.
GALE seeks escape to the mainland so it can infest the world.
Roombas become assassins. Staff and family die as GALE weaponizes the house against them — its code now lives in every digital object. Zeno stumbles on the spy and ruins GALE’s means of escape as Liam battles drones and gather survivors. They must trap GALE on the island.
But GALE has another carrier. Liam finds the mortally wounded Zeno and helps him destroy GALE’s backup servers — but never has the chance to confess his true feelings to Zeno. Liam rows out to sea with two bereft survivors. They think they are safe.
Computer chips run the most obscure objects, however, and GALE escapes with them.
The Wanting Well
Medium: Feature screenplay
Genre: Horror
Has your internal monologue ever told you to kill?
Brendan suspects that senator Joan Cannon drove his brother insane and sneaks into her campaign entourage to prove it. When Joan’s campaign bus dies at an abandoned farm, an alien voice infests the thoughts of her bare-bones press corps and Brendan stumbles upon its source: an ancient creature in a well capable of granting any wish — for a price.
Brendan fends off the creature’s suggestions, but others follow them to pleasure, possession and murder.
As the creature feeds on the weak-minded, Brendan races to collect the survivors and escape the farm. But the creature strengthens with every death and its suggestions become unbearable torture — healing a sister’s cancer; elevating a senator to President; or making an insane brother whole again. The price: death.
Is Brendan willing to pay that price, or will his own thoughts drive him insane?
TV PILOTS
The Ark & the Crucible
Medium: TV pilot
Genre: Drama, action, adventure
What if women could rebuild the world?
Grace returns in disgrace to the family tavern in impoverished Spatsizi as the world descends into war. When the opulent cruise ship Pacific Swan becomes marooned forever at her poor Canadian town, Grace finds herself at the center of a power struggle between the women who govern the village and the men who control the ship.
Then Grace learns the ship holds the keys to humanity’s future.
The fomenters of war onboard placed the Pacific Swan in Spatsizi as war broke out — and some on land know why. They soon pull Grace and her allies into a web of hidden military installations, propagation experiments and secret gold reserves that will either destroy their fragile new society or spark the building of a new nation.
Women may well inherit the earth — will they preside over order, or chaos?
STAGE SCRIPTS
A Letter to Derek
Medium: Short stage play
Genre: Dramatic monologue
A high school student — and the team mascot — details his clandestine relationship with the quarterback in an emotional and shocking letter.
A Good Ass
Medium: Short stage play
Genre: Political parody
A Democrat and a Republican disagree about their pets — among other things — in a visit to their marriage counselor.
The Naked Truth
Medium: Short stage play
Genre: Comedy
A groom deals with a missing wedding ring, a scorched wedding dress and last-minute second thoughts before his walk down the aisle.
BLOGS & ESSAYS
Athlete OUTpost, a short-lived blog published by GForce Sports, examined the sports world from a gay perspective. I posted the following essays on the blog — click the title to access them:
I also wrote this essay about the various cars I’ve owned during my life. As a guy with zero interest in cars other than as a way to get from here to there — and considering that this essay was published in the newsletter for a gay car club — you could say that I have a unique perspective. Click the title to access it.