Bio
Nicholas Thurkettle has worn many hats during his ten years in the creative world – screenwriter, playwright, novelist, journalist, editor, ghostwriter, stage producer/director, feature film story executive and consultant, teacher, production crew member. He now works independently in Los Angeles with the continuing goal of bringing good work to audiences anywhere he can find them.
Thurkettle graduated from Bradley University in 1999 with degrees in Theatre and Music and a Global Scholar option from a semester of study in the U.K. At BU he worked on dozens of plays as actor, director, composer/songwriter, and a variety of technical positions, and served as a member and chapter president of honorary theatrical fraternity Alpha Psi Omega. But his greatest success came through writing. Three of his original scripts were produced, and his one-act play Between 3 and 4 won awards from BU’s Creative Expo and the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival.
KC/ACTF also twice awarded Thurkettle prizes for theatrical criticism. He honed those skills writing hundreds of arts/entertainment features for school newspaper The Bradley Scout and city paper The Peoria Journal Star. Coupled with a film criticism award from the Illinois College Press Association, it earned him a prestigious fellowship from the National Critics Institute to attend the National Playwrights’ Conference at the O’Neill Center in Waterford, Connecticut.
Thurkettle got his foot in the Hollywood door in December 1999 through a script-reading internship for producer J. Todd Harris at Davis Entertainment Classics. Over the next four years progressed from Story Analyst to Story Editor to Creative Executive to Director of Development, working on such films as Artisan/Alliance-Atlantis’ 29 Palms, Regent/Telefilm’s festival sensation Burial Society, and Artisan/Splendid’s Devil’s Pond.
In fall 2003, Thurkettle followed Harris to IPW Productions to serve as Director of Development and head of the story internship program. He helped initiate and develop projects based on IPW’s massive catalog of re-make and adaptation rights, including the 2010 release Piranha 3-D.
In early 2004 he celebrated his first screenplay sale: independent financier/producer Room 9 Entertainment (Thank You For Smoking) purchased his dark comedy Queen Lara.
In January of 2005 Thurkettle left IPW to pursue a writing career full-time. In June of that year he produced and directed a reading of his stage play Hotel Chicago at the Ruby Theatre in Hollywood. Also on stage, he has directed for the Sacred Fools Theatre Company’s Fast & Loose showcase, and they have staged two of his 10-minute plays in their Serial Killers showcase. The 10-minute play is a favorite form, his script Christmas Pizza was featured in the benefit festival The 12 Plays of Christmas, staged by Hogmanay Productions at the OC Pavilion in Orange County in December 2008, and three more 10-minute plays: The Jersey Kid, Self-Sealing No. 10, and Acne, Braces, and Frizz, Oh My!, will be staged in April as part of Bradley University’s Alumni Play Festival.
In the summer of 2006, Wish I Were Here, a family movie written by Scott Lipanovich and developed by Thurkettle based on his story idea, was optioned by veteran TV, film and theatre director Arthur Allan Seidelman (The Sisters, Emmy-winner for Hill Street Blues). His thriller 7 Red was optioned in 2008 by producer Branon Coluccio (The Condemned), has attached a director, and is presently in the packaging stages.
Thurkettle has guest lectured for Columbia College of Chicago’s “Semester in LA” program, and judged for both UCLA’s MFA Screenwriting Competition and the Nicholl Fellowship. He is also the designer of and primary lecturer for an award-winning undergraduate screenwriting course at his alma mater, Bradley, videoconferencing his lectures live via Internet II.
In 2008 Thurkettle branched out into production in order to broaden his technical knowledge base. In addition to working positions such as production assistant, boom operator, 2nd Assistant Director, and 1st Assistant Director on various independently-produced short films and web series (as well as a dress-up gig as a production assistant at the 2009 SAG Awards), he served as an additional assistant editor on the festival-winning independent feature Rolling, and directed, shot, and edited the 15-minute tribute video Direct from Hollywood. The short film WarZone, for which he served as 1st Assistant Director, played at prestigious film festivals including LA’s Dances With Films and the Vancouver International Film Festival.
He contributed a travel feature to the launch issue of the Southern California lifestyle magazine Inside Look, served as a pre-launch ghostwriter and editing consultant for the startup web magazine Kyoto Planet, and contributes reviews to the reality show blog/podcast I’m Not Here to Make Friends. In the summer of 2009 he was commissioned to co-write Family History, a science-fiction novel. He also publishes photos, movie reviews, travel stories, and much more on his weblog The Theory of Chaos, where he has posted over a million words since early 2004. He enjoys cross-country road trips, roller-coasters, and competing on game shows.
He is a proud member of the Writers Guild of America and is represented by Marc Manus of Manus Entertainment. He lives in Huntington Beach with his cat, Nessie.
