Screenwriting : Johnstown by John Radzniak

Quite an assembly of compelling stories collected here! Somewhat daunting.

Johnstown is set against the backdrop of the Johnstown Flood of 1889. In post-civil war Johnstown Valley, PA, a headstrong young woman, grieving the death of her only child, finds her marriage to an embittered factory worker fraying when he gets involved in a labor strike and she is tempted by an old flame. Meanwhile, a deteriorating dam threatens to destroy the town.

I wrote the first draft of Johnstown several years ago, after finding David McCullough’s account of the Johnstown Flood on a library shelf. I was immediately riveted by the sheer magnitude of the tragedy: A Biblical-quality storm, a weakened dam giving way, and 2,200 lives lost, the most in a single day on American soil until 9/11. However, as I worked through several drafts, I started to see the flood in a largely metaphorical way: the deteriorating, threatening dam shadows the protagonists' crumbling marriage, and simultaneously foretells a violent, sweeping social change.

The story is set in the Gilded Age, a time after the Civil War of tremendous economic disparity, class resentment, growing restlessness and frustration amongst the working class, anti-immigrant fervor, and sometimes violent social upheaval – a near mirror of our current moment in history. My goal with Johnstown was to create a relevant and contemporary story in period garb.