MEGAN SMITH-HARRIS
PROJECTS IN DEVELOPMENT
Think of all the times you’ve argued with your mother and thought, “I could just kill her!”
What if one day, she asked you
to do exactly that?
KILLING MOM
Stage Play / being adapted into a screenplay
by Megan Smith-Harris
Marion Wolcott, has invited her daughter Ally, and granddaughter Kat, to visit her Martha’s Vineyard home. Ally, a harried single mother, is looking forward to taking a break from the monotony of her life, and from dealing with her sullen, uncommunicative teenager. But Ally soon learns she’s not in for a relaxing seaside getaway when her mother delivers life-shattering news.
Marion has a terminal disease and is counting on Ally (“the Strong One”) to help her die with dignity when the time comes but not to share this news with her siblings. Complications arise when Ally’s sisters—Beth, a charming thrice-married narcissist, and Joanne a dour mega-church devotee—arrive for a weekend visit. When Marion’s end-of-life bombshell unexpectedly detonates, the disclosure triggers a drunken evening and a series of revelations, accusations, and unexpected consequences
KILLING MOM is a fast-paced and moving family drama that tackles the issues that perplex us all: family dysfunction, aging, mortality, and the eternal quest to be the most favorite child.
Do you believe in ghosts?
Jennifer Cabot didn't until she did.
THE GHOST OF YOU
Screenplay (in development)
by Megan Smith-Harris
We make hundreds of choices every day, but what if one simple decision led to a series of catastrophic events that derailed multiple lives?
Jennifer Cabot made such a decision and now she is haunted by her mistake as well as by the ghost of her son, Jack. The bright and popular high school senior had his whole life ahead of him—until he didn’t. Jack’s loyalty and affection for his grieving mother is cloaked in an idiosyncratic wit channeled directly from the afterlife. His mission: To help Jennifer survive her unspeakable loss.
Along the way, she overcomes her paralyzing maternal guilt, forges an unlikely friendship with a street-wise teen mom, and ultimately learns that her life cannot (and will not) be defined by a single tragedy.
On the surface The Ghost of You is about loss, but at its heart, this is a story about a mother’s unbreakable bond with her only son and her journey to rebuild the wreckage of her life.
BEHIND THE HEDGEROWS
Feature Screenplay
by Megan Smith-Harris
At precisely 9:00 a.m. on the Thursday before Labor Day weekend, Ulla Angstrom, a mysterious and enigmatic woman rings the doorbell of 127 Lilly Pond Lane, East Hampton. This simple act sets into motion a series of events that will rupture many lives—including her own.
Swirling about in an insular world of martinis and art openings, extravagant homes, and even more extravagant lives, neighbors Ulla Angstrom and Carolyn Foster, grapple first with misfortune and then with each other.
As the psychological noose begins to tighten, one child dies; another disappears. One family solidifies; another disintegrates. Behind the hedgerows, beneath a patina of wealth and privilege, the suspense is killing us all.
Claire must use her cryptic crossword skills to solve the biggest puzzle of her life —
in order to save it.
CRYPTIC
Feature Screenplay
by Megan Smith-Harris & Bill Harris
Life for Claire Spencer, a creator of cryptic crosswords, is comfortingly predictable until her beloved aunt’s death sends everything spinning desperately out of control.
Motivated by grief, booze, and a great pair of high heels, Claire seeks comfort at her local bar with a bottle of Jack Daniels and her life unexpectedly becomes romantically entangled with hotshot political correspondent Anthony Davis.
Over an action-packed 72-hour period, Claire loves and loses her man, becomes the prime suspect in his murder, and finds herself enmeshed in a high-stakes political scandal. As her world implodes she must use her cryptic crossword skills to solve the biggest puzzle of her life, in order to save it.
Muskoka Dry
Television Series
by Megan Smith-Harris & Bill Harris
A Jeep bearing New York Vanity plates, “YNK-EES” pulls up next to a broken dockside gas pump at McGregor’s Marina on Lake Muskoka. Owner Hank McGregor watches with a gimlet-eye as Matt Stevens, an American, emerges from the vehicle followed by his new wife, beloved longtime summer resident, Liz Campbell.
Add to the mix, WASP matriarch Catharine Campbell with a shopping bag brimming with Bombay Sapphire gin, Spanish olives, and the ashes of her dead husband; Liz’s gender fluid, staunchly anti-American sister Stacy; reclusive former hockey star Guy Lefevre; sleaze-bag Toronto developer “Evil Al”; and an eclectic array of summer renters, and life in Muskoka begins to thrum to a new rhythm.
Muskoka Dry is a wry and refreshing romantic comedy that catapults the yin and yang of Canadian/American relations into sharp—and unforgettable—relief. It’s clear that Cottage Country will never be the same.