Screenplay & Novel
Bastille Arts is currently adapting an art heist screenplay written by Cassandra Lewis into a thriller novel. Stolen art is now the third highest grossing criminal enterprise in the world (after drugs and weapons trafficking). This story is about an artist who gets roped into becoming an art forger and how he and his work deceive the public, the FBI, and even the Irish mob.
Bastille Arts Publishes A New Book
Cover art created by Peter Slattery
Literacy Is Power, a book by Cassandra Lewis Slattery is now available for purchase.
Literacy Is Power is for everyone, beginners and experienced teachers, who want to help people build their reading and writing skills.
Literacy Is Power offers everything you need to start your own teen and adult literacy program or volunteer as a literacy instructor. If you can read this sentence, you can become a literacy leader.
• 50 activities in reading, writing, health, numeracy, and digital literacy
• Seven Steps To A Successful Literacy Session
• Conduct literacy triage and create a learner-centered curriculum
• Fundraising leads and how to write grant proposals
• A portion of the proceeds was donated to ProLiteracy
“Literacy Is Power is an essential tool for everyone wanting to halt the devastation impacting families and children and parents in America. Reading is as important and vital as shelter and food and heat—it’s a must read.”
–Jimmy Santiago Baca, author of A Glass of Water
“Literacy is Power is an important book about a crucial issue for our democracy: how to eliminate the problem of illiteracy that affects well over a quarter of the American population and is a major contributor to its high poverty rate. This book offers a thoughtful, practical guide to those of us who are teaching or want to teach literacy, blending sound teaching methods and useful anecdotes with an admirable touch of passion. It is not only an excellent read; it is a must read.”
–Pablo Eisenberg, author of Challenges for Nonprofits and Philanthropy: The Courage to Change
“Slattery’s book is a fascinating read, full of stories and insights. Addressing our literacy culture, it sends a powerful message to society. And after reading, you will truly understand why education is about the learners and cherishing their voices.” –Nikhil Goyal, 17-Year-Old Author of One Size Does Not Fit All
“Before I began Cassie’s literacy program, I couldn’t read this sentence. Now I am able to help my son with his homework.” –E.C.
“Cassie’s literary strategy helped me improve my reading skills by two grade levels in only four months. I am now employed and eager to continue learning.” –L.V.
About the Author
Cassandra Lewis Slattery created and launched a literacy program at an organization that serves adults experiencing housing insecurity in New York City. Her program was the only one of its kind, where all clients who read beneath a 6th grade reading level were provided with one-on-one literacy instruction. During her tenure as Director of Education, the program yielded a 100% success rate. All of her clients who started on a first grade reading level or higher and completed six literacy sessions improved by an average of 1.5 grade levels. Clients who started beneath a first grade reading level required additional literacy sessions.
Recent Full-Length Plays By Cassandra Lewis That Offer A World Premiere
Uneven Surfaces
Uneven Surfaces is about a family haunted by trauma involving train tracks and madness. The play explores what it means to take responsibility for our actions and whether our decisions and circumstances are determined by heredity versus true individuality.
Snitch
When Kelly offers her home as a hiding place to one of her high school students whose life has been threatened at gunpoint by a local gang, she risks losing her marriage and future. Snitch explores how class, race, and history collide with individual aspirations.
Migrations
Migrations was a finalist in Aurora Theatre’s Global Age Project new works contest and the finalist in CoHo Productions’ New By Northwest new play competition and received a staged reading at The Barrow Group, but still offers a world premiere. In Migrations two families living next door to each other in San Francisco’s Mission District explore the connection between blood origins and lives created by individual choices. After a young mother refuses to pay “garbage fees” to her landlord she is arrested for living in the U.S. without a green card and faced with the decision of leaving her American-born baby behind with her neighbors or bringing him with her to prison.
Transparent Sting
Vincent has discovered the cure to cancer. When he learns his employer, a pharmaceutical company, plans to sell the medicine at an obscenely high price that most cannot afford, he steals his research back from the company. Transparent Sting is a comedy about a scientist’s quest for truth and how it turned him into a fugitive and brought his estranged family together.
Migrations The Screenplay
Migrations by Cassandra Lewis received honorable mention in the New By Northwest Play Competition and was a finalist in The Aurora Theatre’s Global Age Project new works contest. An excerpt from the play was published by Editions Bibliotekos in the literary anthology, Common Boundary. Cassandra is currently adapting Migrations into a screenplay.
Migrations is about America’s immigration practices and what it means to love, whether it’s a parent’s love in the face of a life or death decision or an artist’s love in the face of sacrificing personal integrity in order to succeed.
Is it possible to be completely independent, or are we by nature, communal beings, who, at times are called upon to leave our important, isolated worlds to make sacrifices on the behalf of others?
In Migrations two families living next door to each other in San Francisco’s Mission District explore the connection between blood origins and lives created by individual aspirations. After a young mother refuses to pay “garbage fees” to her landlord she is arrested for living in the U.S. without a green card and faced with the decision of leaving her American-born baby behind with strangers or bringing him with her to prison.
BASTILLE ARTS CREATES A TELEVISION SERIES
Bastille Arts has created an original dramatic television series about addiction, set in a San Francisco outpatient clinic. The series explores the many sides and stories of addicts, their families, caregivers, and others: The Wire meets Grey’s Anatomy.
Contact us for more information about this project.
