RIVERSIDE, CA – The Department of Theatre at the University of California, Riverside, is pleased to present Sadie Hawkins, a new film directed by Professor Robin Russin, screenplay by Angela Babb Timmons.

In the film, a 30-something Abby meets teenage Doug just after being dumped by her fiancé. When Doug needs a date to his high school Sadie Hawkins dance, an unlikely friendship is born. Sadie Hawkins is featured in the UCR Theatre Department 2nd annual Film Festival, January 16-18, 2014. The festival includes short films produced by students and alumni, as well as our own Root Park, Theatre Department faculty member.

Biography

Sadie Hawkins director Robin Russin was educated at Harvard, Oxford (which he attended on a Rhodes Scholarship), the Rhode Island School of Design, and UCLA, where he received his MFA in screenwriting. Robin taught screenwriting at UCLA in their undergraduate and graduate film departments as well as their Professional Program, and is currently Associate Professor of Screenwriting at UC Riverside. He has served as both graduate advisor and director of the MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Writers Guild of America.

Robin has written, produced, consulted and directed for numerous film, TV and theatre productions, including the box office hit On Deadly Ground; America’s Most Wanted on Fox; and Vital Signs on ABC, where he was Senior Producer. Among the plays he has directed are Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and Charles Evered’s Class. Many of his other feature spec scripts have been either bought or put under option by both studio and independent producers, and he has been hired to write a number of adaptations and rewrites as well. He co-authored Screenplay: Writing the Picture now in its second edition and Naked Playwriting (both published by Silman-James Press). Screenplay: Writing the Picture was reviewed by Lew Hunter, co-chair of UCLA’s screenwriting department, as the “best book about screenwriting and being a screenwriter ever written.” Among Robin’s plays is Painted Eggs, which was reviewed by the Los Angeles Times as “ambitious, heart-felt and hypnotic,” and Dramalogue called “a glorious treat and a wonderful lesson in love.” His stories, articles and reviews have been appeared in Script Magazine, Verdad, Connotation Press, Rivets Literary Magazine, Harvard Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the LA Review of Books, The American Oxonian, Shofar, and elsewhere.

While at UCLA, Robin was Story Editor on the campus sitcom “Good News, Bad News,” and was awarded two Jack Nicholson Awards for excellence in screenwriting. He also directed several short films, was has been a finalist or winner of screenwriting competitions, including ScriptPIMP, The Movie Deal, Award-Winning Screenwriters, Northwest Film Forum, TV Writer People’s Pilot Award. He is Editor At Large for Connotation Press, and regularly writes and directs for the Ruskin Group Theatre in Santa Monica, California.

Born and raised in Wyoming and Italy, Robin currently lives in Los Angeles. He also works as a sculptor, and has taught art, literature and art history.