Hi.
I’m Laramie. I’m a director and writer committed to telling honest, unexpected stories about underrepresented characters.
I recently completed principal photography on WHERE IN THE HELL, an arthouse buddy comedy. My exec producer from Pipeline Media has described it as, “Almost Lynchian… Grounded David Lynch? Is that a thing?” This marks my feature film writing and directing debut. Coming in 2023! I’ll keep you posted. (I mean that. If you’d like jaunty, periodic updates, you can sign up for my newsletter.)
While on lockdown in Los Angeles, I also started writing THE GILLIAN PROJECT, a fiction podcast with the spirit of an indie movie.
LIFE ON sMARS, a feature script inspired by a real-life NASA experiment, earned me a spot at THROUGH HER LENS: The Tribeca Chanel Women’s Filmmaker Program, along with a development grant from The Tribeca Film Institute. With sMARS, I made finalist for the Women in Film Production Program, the SFFILM Sloan Fellowship, and the TFI Sloan Filmmaker Fund.
GIRL PRETENDING TO READ RILKE, my adaptation of the offbeat coming-of-age novel by my mother, Barbara Riddle, was a finalist in Script Pipeline’s Screenwriting Contest, and I’ve written or co-written half a dozen other screenplays that have not won awards.
What else?
I freelance as a script supervisor on features and episodic television, and am a member of IATSE Local 871. For eight seasons I was a casting director for the Emmy Award-winning Project Runway; I also scouted fashion designers for Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn’s Making the Cut.
I have an MFA in Film & Television Production from USC. My thesis film, ALL AGES, was shot on 16mm with the help of grants from Panavision and Kodak, and premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival. GREASY HEART, another short, was made with the support of Digital Bolex and Hive Lighting, and first screened at the Short Film Corner at Cannes.
As an undergrad at Wesleyan University, I majored in English and theater. I went on to spend a decade in New York directing and developing new plays, most notably at Jim Simpson and Sigourney Weaver’s Flea Theater, where I was a resident director, and at “the downtown powerhouse” Soho Rep. I co-founded and chaired, for six seasons, the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab.
Once a month, I send out The Laramie Report, an email newsletter with stuff about me and my creative projects, yes, but also recommends for tacos! lots of tacos (see map), female-driven movies, tv, and books, and the occasional link to an excellent pair of overalls. My readers rave, “I love love love this… My favorite thing on the interweb,” and “better than the NY Times.” Sign up below!