Screenwriting : Story Path of "The Diary of a Teenage Girl" by Bill Costantini

I saw Diary of a Teenage Girl yesterday. It's a really great film about a girl growing up in the 1970's in San Francisco, and her journeys of discovering herself and the facets of her identities. I'm sure many of us can relate to those mid-teen years when we were trying to discover who we were while transitioning in the adolescence stages of life. That middle stage of adolescence is probably the hardest stage - at least it was for me. The film is based on the great book of the same name by Phoebe Gloeckner. The first time I saw Ms. Gloeckner's work was by accident. I was putzing about in Cleveland a while back and saw her drawings at a Medical Illustrator's Convention, which was her full-time gig back then. She grew up as a young girl in an environment that included having Robert Crumb, Terry Zwigoff, and Diane Noomin in her life. Talk about great influences for a young artist. I had read her first book, A Child's Life and Other Stories, prior to that day, and recommend that book, along with Diary, to all who are interested in some great reads. Her book The Diary of a Teenage Girl was read by then-actress Marielle Heller around ten years ago, who loved it so much that she went to the publisher to acquire the theatrical rights. It took her nearly a year of perseverance to get the rights. She then spent a few years developing it into a play, and the result of that stage of her hard work concluded with a well-received play in 2010. After that success, she then got the film rights to the story, and then received a fellowship to workshop it through Sundance's Director/Writer Lab. The next leg of the journey: getting funding. Anne Carey, champion of small/independent films, and President of Archer Gray, came through, and in 2014, the film was shot for under $2 million. Early this year, the film premiered at Sundance, and two days ago, it opened in theaters. Last year, Variety featured Ms. Heller in a "Ten Directors to Watch" article, and they were right. This is a great backstory about a few really great artists who make the world a better place, and about people who work very hard to create something; develop a vision; and embark upon and endure the hard processes of taking the seed of an idea and following through to successful completion on several different artistic levels: book, theater, and film. Kudos to writer/illustrator Phoebe Gloeckner; actress/writer/director Marielle Heller; and stage and movie producer Anne Carey. What great success stories all the way around. And kudos to Stage32 member Debbie Brubaker, co-producer for "The Diary of a Teenage Girl", among many other great films. Congratulations, Debbie - that must have been a lot of fun to make.