Scarlett Ridgway Savage

A military brat from a long line of distinguished officers (her grandfather was General Matthew Ridgway), Scarlett was called to the stage at age five after seeing The Sound of Music on television. She told her grandparents she was going to be in it; the following day, her surprised grandmother saw an advertisement for the local Community Theatre's Sound of Music and Scarlett auditioned,becoming one of thousands to experience Von Trapp-hood as their first calling. Working steadily through her teens, Scarlett was a model, actress, and accelerated student who took courses at Bates College before she turned sixteen. While she continued to act, it became more obvious that writing was her true love; her first play, "Jimmie Was Here" debuted at the Bates College Black Box in 1986. Before she graduated college, she added the multi-award-winning "The Centerfieldsman", "The Bridge" and "Numbers" to her resume; she was the first undergraduate and first female to win several graduate student awards and grants while attending UMaine at Orono on a VA scholarship. Dissatisfied with the limited range of topics her plays covered, Scarlett temporarily left the stage to "go live and watch and write about it all". Her first marriage to musician Jeremy Ellis and the birth of her first child, ballet dancer Daphne Juliet Ellis, gave her a "huge amount of new perspective on things that had nothing to do with me--a nice change." When Daphne was in infancy Scarlett completed work on "Dear Daddy, Love Cassie", a play that has been produced in New England, Seattle, Arizona, NYC, and London, raising thousands of dollars for Sexual Assault Support Services. Scarlett spent ten years doing independent films, roles in internet shows and touring in the Portsmouth, NH to NYC area; she toured three times in the leading role for A.R. Gurney's "Sylvia" and played the title role of Cassie in "Dear Daddy, Love Cassie" before (in her words, "gratefully") turning the role over to her protege, NYC actress Afton Boggiano, whom she met when the Off-Broadway production of "Numbers" debuted, outselling several theatres on Theatre Row; Boggiano's portrayal of the spiralling rape survivor solidified Scarlett's respect and she claims "no other actor gets my work like Afton". Her short-lived second marriage produced her second daughter, Jessica Juliet Savage. Leading roles in "Breakaway/Backdown" and "Golyadkin" among others heightened her interest in writing for the screen. Other tours of her original plays include "She F*&^ing Hates Me: A Love Story", "Numbers", and "The Meaning of Sexual Life in One Sentence". A weeklong trip to LA to visit a college crush turned into a move from Coast to Coast where she immediately began working on an internet project called The Madison Chronicles, a five-part series about a girl dealing with HIV, starring Boggiano and directed by fellow NH-turned-Anglican Mike Gillett. She's currently writing for several TV shows and keeping her eye on her goal of bringing women's issues to the page.