34 | DECEMBER 31 • 2020
J
ewish screenwriter Robert
Axelrod, who was born
and raised in the Ann
Arbor area, has been selected
from nearly 1,000 entries as the
grand prize winner for the 2020
ScreenCraft Stage Play Writing
Competition.
Written as a play, Axelrod’s
winning script “Lifeline” fol-
lows a mother beginning to
work through her grief by vol-
unteering at a suicide hotline
after the death of her gay teen-
age son.
The inspiration for the
screenplay came from Axelrod
volunteering for a few years at
the Trevor Project, a suicide
and crisis prevention hotline
focusing on LGBTQ+ youth.
Axelrod was inspired by his
experiences there and wanted
to write a story about hope
and how people could come
from different walks of life and
ultimately want to help one
another.
“I kind of wrote it in the heat
of the summer with the height
of the Black Lives Matter move-
ment, with the pandemic, with
the election gearing up, and
it just felt like a very divided
time.
” Axelrod said. “It was a
script I had started working
on before but with everything
going on, I was compelled to
go back to this piece that was
really about unity and hope,
at a time where things felt so
divided and uncertain.
”
Axelrod attended the
Hebrew Day School in Ann
Arbor and Huron High
School, then attended Syracuse
University’s School of Visual
and Performing Arts for college
and has spent the past six-and-
a-half years in Los Angeles pur-
suing screenwriting. Axelrod is
also currently a legal assistant
for an entertainment law firm.
PRODUCERS INTERESTED
Prizes for the winner of the
competition, which seeks to
celebrate excellent plays that
have great film or TV adapta-
tion potential, include further
opportunities in getting their
screenplay seen by those in
Hollywood.
Axelrod, though, has already
received attention for the
screenplay.
“There are two producers
who I had sent this to and, long
story short, they’re interested in
adapting it starting in the new
year,
” Axelrod said. “We’re still
working on what that all looks
like.
”
No matter what happens,
Axelrod hopes the piece will be
able to reach more people.
Axelrod says the win was
a huge shock, and just being
included was a valuable enough
opportunity.
“It was so meaningful,
”
Axelrod said. “I really applied
because some of the judges
were Pulitzer-prize winning
playwrights who are some of
my absolute favorites of all time
and artistic directors of theater
companies whose work I’ve
admired for years and years,
so even just knowing that my
work was read by those people
was a win in and of itself.
”
Axelrod believes his local
Jewish beginnings helped lead
him to this success.
From an early age, Axelrod
said, creativity and creative
writing were very much a part
of the core curriculum. He was
interested in stories from a very
young age and helped start
the school newspaper at the
Hebrew Day School.
“I think that was very much
a part of the education I was
given in day school, whether
that was learning stories from
the Torah or creative writing
exercises. There was just a lot of
creativity imbued in the curric-
ulum,
” Axelrod said.
Those beginnings have led
Axelrod to make sure Judaism
often plays a role in the things
he writes, and that especially
may be more important now
than ever.
“With antisemitism and
hate crimes on the rise, I feel
very compelled and (have) a
responsibility to tell stories that
deal with Jewish characters and
communities,
” Axelrod said.
“Not in a preachy way, but just
to humanize people from dif-
ferent backgrounds. That’s my
hope for things I write, to tell a
story but hopefully open peo-
ple’s eyes.
”
Ann Arbor native wins national
writing competition.
DANNY SCHWARTZ STAFF WRITER
Suicide Hotline
Inspires Play
CONTRIBUTED
ARTS&LIFE
THEATER
Robert
Axelrod
“MY HOPE
IS TO TELL A
STORY AND
HOPEFULLY
OPEN PEOPLE’S
EYES.”
— PLAYWRIGHT
ROBERT AXELROD