Fortunate Son Premieres at SU

SALISBURY, MD—Fortunate Sun, a locally made feature-length film exploring the tangled relationship of money and paternity, will have its world premiere at Salisbury University on Saturday, May 10, at 8 p.m. in Caruthers Hall Auditorium.  Afterward, the cast and director will hold a question and answer session with the audience.  General admission is $8; SU ID card holders are admitted free. The evening is sponsored by the SU Theatre Department.

 

Produced and shot on location in Salisbury, the film features local actors Anne Colwell and James Keegan of Milton, DE, Nita Gary of Lewes, DE, and recent SU graduate Anthony Parker of Baltimore.  The script is an adaptation of a stage play originally written by poet and dramatist Jeff Skinner of Louisville, KY.  Skinner taught at SU in the 1980s.  Fortunate Son is produced by Nancy Mitchell, adjunct faculty in SU’s English Department, and her husband John Ebert, who also directed.  This is their first feature film.

 

In Fortunate Son, a middle-aged divorcee attempts to extort money from her ex-husband of 19 years, to pay for college for their son, whom the father never knew existed.  “’Complications’ in the ex-wife’s plan may cause some babies-boomers in the audience to reflect on the aftermath of the social revolutions of the ‘60s and ‘70s,” said Ebert.

 

This is his first turn at a feature-length film, though he's written and directed television commercials for the past 15 years in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.  He began his commercial career with WMDT-TV 47 in Salisbury in the late ‘80s.   

 

“I can't tell you how excited I am about the job this cast has done,” he said.  “Working with a very complex script and laboring under very tight production constraints, I think they all created beautifully nuanced performances, particularly Anne Colwell as the divorcee.  Anne stepped into the role literally the day we began shooting.”       The film was shot over a four-day period in January in a restaurant on the downtown Plaza in Salisbury.  Ebert edited the mini-DV videotape himself at his home.

 

For more information on the screening call 410-546-9534 or visit the SU Web site at www.salisbury.edu.