Tennyson Stead

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Supported by a successful film development and finance career (Igor, 2008) and a body of screenwriting and script doctor work encompassing more than 70 written screenplays, Stead is one of the most prolific and…

About

Supported by a successful film development and finance career (Igor, 2008) and a body of screenwriting and script doctor work encompassing more than 70 written screenplays, Stead is one of the most prolific and reliable writers working in independent Hollywood today. Currently, Stead has three features in active development: a pre-colonial Alutiiq survival epic co-written with Evan Ipiluni called She Alone, a procedural space archaeology adventure in the tradition of “Star Trek” called The Lost Star, and a kitchy cosmic horror film called The Seamstress based on a short story by cult horror icon Liz Ransdell.

Of the thirty or so features that Stead has written on spec, twelve are sold or under option. In his script doctor work, Stead has ghostwritten films and television shows ranging from prestige dramas and memoir adaptations to animated musicals, comedy, horror, and both original and adapted science-fiction and fantasy films. In addition to his screenwriting efforts, Stead is a produced playwright and a game developer with over twenty years of experience in game design, narrative design, and worldbuilding.

Currently, Stead’s entrepreneurial focus is on developing tabletop roleplaying game and literary properties for exploration in film, television, and transmedia. Stead is consistently writing at least five screenplays a year, and is serving Lady of the Light Productions out of Melbourne as Head of Development.

  • Joined May 2026

Languages

  • EnglishFluent
  • GermanBeginner
  • RussianIntermediate
  • FrenchBeginner

Industry experience

  • Media & Entertainment
  • Gaming
  • Software & Internet
  • Education
  • Life Sciences

More experts in Boston, United States

Projects · 10

The Powerbroker

LOGLINE: When a US military agent captures a rogue superhuman with the ability to predict the future, she sets off a cataclysmic chess game of cause and effect! SYNOPSIS: The Powerbroker is a high-stakes chess game of counterintelligence between a superhuman with the ability to predict the consequences of any action, and those US military agents charged with capturing him alive. The US government wants the Powerbroker for his ability to trigger the complex chain reactions that turn ordinary people into superhumans. What the Powerbroker wants in return is a mystery, and one with world-changing implications... On an undercover mission to verify The Powerbroker's identity, to confirm intelligence about his superpowers, and to bring him into custody, Agent Carly Truesdeed of the Defense Intelligence Agency starts a game of "cat and mouse" that could change the face of our world forever. Is the military containing a potentially catastrophic threat, are they utilizing this man's mind-bending gifts to secure our nation's future, or are they playing right into the Powerbroker's hands? The only rules of this game are "cause and effect," and the future of our world belongs to the winner. screenplay screenwriting film filmmaking writing writer

  • Screenplay Writer
  • Screenwriter
The Stormcrow

LOGLINE: With dusty pulp and otherworldly terror, the Stormcrow is a supernatural investigator in the tradition of H.P. Lovecraft. Like a ruthless and power-hungry Indiana Jones, his first adventure brings him to the dried-up boondocks of 1930's South Carolina. SYNOPSIS: In his customary leather duster, wide brimmed hat, tweed suit and spectacles, THE STORMCROW leads a Kurdish guide through the misshapen desert canyons of Iraq. This is a man haunted by forbidden knowledge and weathered by his own arcane adventures. This is 1932, and the Stormcrow seeks the ancient Urdish writings of Medo - a madman and prophet who devoted himself to that which dwells in darkness. All he will find are the remains of a tomb and the bones of a crusading scribe. Perhaps, the knowledge of Medo has been written down. Those dark and dangerous words may yet survive. Four years later, in a small South Carolina township, a young white girl - GWEN - wakes up in the house of a kind black stranger. Her memories are gone, replaced by harrowing and ghoulish visions. Her innocence has been violated by rituals beyond description. While the citizens of Goshen are charitable Christians, they have lost countless children to the followers of Medo - and to the dark manuscript to which this cult has pledged itself. Should they be caught opposing this ancient brotherhood, the people of Goshen will have nowhere to turn when violent reprisal inevitably comes their way. Tracing rumors of the girl's disappearance to South Carolina, the Stormcrow finds the people of Goshen have gathered to drive Gwen from the safety of their village. With the cult and the townspeople both arrayed against him, his only chance of finding the manuscript (and those who would master its secrets) lies locked within Gwen's dormant memory. To unravel her past and recover the tome of Medo, Gwen and the Stormcrow must confront the horrifying truth that destroyed her mind... ...and face a terror more ancient than civilization itself! In the rich, pulpy tradition of H.P. Lovecraft, The Stormcrow is a story about the dark terrors quietly lurking between the stars, and about the mad, reckless men who seek to know their power! screenwriting screenplay film filmmaking writing writer

  • Screenplay Writer
  • Screenwriter
Nemesis

LOGLINE: When Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance, is commanded by Zeus to slay the god of nightmares... she uncovers an Olympian web of conspiracy that could prove her undoing! screenwriting screenplay film filmmaking writing writer

  • Screenplay Writer
  • Screenwriter
Smash Girl

LOGLINE: Punk rock singer Jane Smash accidentally gives herself superpowers on a post-show bender and, with the help of her band, uses them to fight the system. SYNOPSIS: Yesterday, JANE SMASH was the broke, homeless lead singer of a profoundly underappreciated LA punk band called Smashcock. Last night, in a post-show party rampage, Jane took some suspicious drugs and fought a power transformer. Now, thanks to that cataclysmic cocktail of bad decisions, Jane is indestructible and super strong! With Jane’s superhuman talent for destruction and mayhem, the girls of Smashcock break into a bank and stage a guerrilla punk concert. The plan is simple: play awesome music to an ever-growing crowd, while the citizens of Los Angeles show up and take whatever they want from the bank vault. After all, who can stop them? While the girls are busy staging the ultimate punk show, the United States Government hatches a plan to harness Jane’s unbridled power for the good of all America. Dispatching a pair of very serious intelligence agents, the Defense Department will “make every reasonable effort” to recruit Jane as a superhuman working for the Pentagon. When those efforts inevitably fail, what other choice will our leaders have to control this superhuman threat... but to nuke Los Angeles, and to finally rid America of the gay, Hispanic, libtard media whores and the Babylon from whence they come!?! With the police treating Jane’s concert like the hostage crisis it clearly is, with Jane demanding that the LAPD lift their barricades so she can fill her “venue” with audience members, drugs, and booze, with protesters screaming in defense of Jane’s right to rock, with media coverage coming from every direction, and with our government building the plausible deniability they need to finally blow the City of Angels straight to Hell... Los Angeles needs a hero, and we need that hero right f@&in’ now! Jane Smash is not that hero, but she knows something they don’t! Punk is alive and well on the streets of Los Angeles, and she will not go down without a fight! screenwriting screenplay film filmmaking writing writer

  • Screenplay Writer
  • Screenwriter
Digit

LOGLINE: A young, untried computer program named DIGIT will save Granny's Computer from the clutches of the virus TROJAN. SYNOPSIS: From the borderlands of Hub City to the majesty of Microplex Server Central, from rampaging 8 year old game gladiators to savage internet pirates who live with their parents, Digit searches the World Wide Web for a hero to save his rural home on Granny's Computer from viral invasion. Instead, Digit finds himself! Digit is the story of our confusing, information- saturated times, told from the inside out - a huge adventure that combines electric visual satire and a hundred terabytes of heart. screenwriting screenplay film filmmaking writing

  • Screenplay Writer
  • Screenwriter
XD

LOGLINE: Cross-dimensional gene raider Jesse Rex leads her quirky, plucky crew in mutiny to seize the jumpship "Fool's Gamble" from the evil Captain Grimgad. SYNOPSIS: Spanning the pan-dimensional cosmos, massive cross-dimensional empires like the Arkadigm spread from dimension to dimension by harvesting and controlling the most powerful force in any dimension: life. Hiring privateer ships to raid uncharted dimensions for the hardiest genetic samples, these empires seek to conquer all reality... and indeed, EVERY reality! Onboard the privateer vessel Fool's Gamble, Captain Grimgad's brutal and narrow vision has cost the crew too many friends, too many times. When the death of their navigator forces the Gamble's crew to make a blind dimensional jump, the ship crashes in a fantasy dimension full of wizardry and magic. Here, First Officer Jesse Rex finds a potential replacement for the Gamble's navigator... and this may be all the chance she needs to seize the vessel - and the freedom her crew has always dreamed of - right out from under Grimgad himself! Filled to the brim with crazy characters, XD is a movie with a sense of play rarely seen on the big screen. Like the biggest, best toybox ever made, this is a film that invites the audience on a journey of whimsy, fun, and sass that will leave them feeling like little kids and hungering for more. Join the crew of the Fool's Gamble, and prepare to enter a whole new dimension of adventure! screenwriter film screenwriting filmmaking writer

  • Screenwriter
  • Writer
Quantum Theory

LOGLINE: Two women of science build a device with the power to alter reality itself... and a sinister defense contractor steals the prototype! SYNOPSIS: For Dr. Chelsea Barrington and Dr. Gertrude Monroe, quantum theory represents an opportunity to change the world. Their research pits mind over matter, their work has made them renegades... and their experiment is a complete success! For Loki Defense Initiatives, quantum theory is the key to controlling reality itself. When Barrington and Monroe refuse to sign LDI's defense contract, LDI steals their data and uses their own prototype against them. Trapped in an alternate reality of LDI's design, tricked into working for a dummy scientific institute called Fulcrum Laboratories, Chelsea and Roe are tricked into perfecting their research for military applications... ...until the girls uncover LDI's deception! To reclaim their technology and their world, Chelsea and Roe will have to steal the prototype from a company with unlimited resources, the ability to monitor their every move, and power over the very fabric of reality. No problem has ever been so complex that Chelsea Barrington and Gertrude Monroe could not solve it. Nothing has ever held them back for long, and nothing has ever come between them. Now, LDI is using their own research against them to make their worst nightmares come true. Can Chelsea and Roe save the universe from the technology they created, and the defense contractor who wields it? screenwriting screenplay film filmmaking writing

  • Screenplay Writer
  • Screenwriter
St. Augustine's Ice

LOGLINE: When a catastrophic accident cripples the space mining vessel St. Augustine in the far reaches of the asteroid belt, the crew struggles to survive with no air, no heat, no power, and no help. SYNOPSIS: When the captain and surrogate father of the motley crew manning the deep space ice mining vessel "St. Augustine" finds the motherlode that can change their lives forever, he never imagined that this would be the mission where everything went wrong. During the mining process, a rogue piece of asteroid collides with the ship and knocks out power and life support. With no air, no water, and no heat to rely on, the crew of the St. Augustine will have to dig deep within themselves to find the one thing that space can't take from them. screenwriting screenplay film filmmaking writing

  • Screenplay Writer
  • Screenwriter
Sam Bailey

LOGLINE: Sam Bailey is a 600 year old man racing to destroy the last evidence of his extraordinary life before he is discovered. When he receives help from a Boston cabbie, a friendship is kindled that will finally teach a man who has survived for centuries... how to live. SYNOPSIS: Over the centuries, Sam Bailey has been chased and tortured by those seeking to understand his seeming immortality. Now, an illuminated manuscript written hundreds of years ago is the last remaining evidence of Sam Bailey's extraordinary life... and a mysterious collector buys it during a Vatican auction. Following the ancient tome to Boston, Sam hires a local cab driver to help him find the book and bury his secret forever. screenwriter film screenwriting filmmaking writer

  • Screenplay Writer
  • Screenwriter

“Jump Rangers” is a storytelling universe centered around kid space commandos fighting for humanity’s survival against an empire of giant alien dinosaurs - as well as giant alien robots, and all the other giant threats that wait for us among the stars. When the Saurian Horde invaded Earth, our world had no interstellar travel of our own. The only way humanity could survive was by colonizing the unkept corners of their vast and cavernous motherships, and spreading out amongst the stars like an infestation of bed bugs. While the grown-up refugees of Earth struggle through their ragtag, “bandages and blasters” existence, clinging to the last little pieces of human civilization, a number of brave kids have taken it upon themselves to sneak aboard alien vessels and steal technology, to carry news between worlds and star systems, to fight back against the aliens, and to lead humanity into the future!

Download the prototype of the Jump Rangers TTRPG Corebook, here: https://www.twine.net/signin

Jump Rangers
  • Game Designer
  • Game Developer
  • Writer

Work experience· 8 roles

Script Doctor · Script Reader ProApr 2020 – Present · 6 yrs 8 mos

In addition to supporting clients with coverage and other script development services, Stead has ghostwritten more than thirty features and pilots in every conceivable genre since the summer of 2020.

Head of Development · Lady of the Light ProductionsApr 2019 – Present · 7 yrs 8 mos

Under the direction of producer Lucinda Bruce, I assist and supervise the development of film and television properties for Lady of the Light Productions.

Screenwriter · Emagine ContentFeb 2019 – Nov 2019 · 10 mos

Under producer Lucinda Bruce, I developed the dark future gladiatorial tentpole film Atlas: Uprising for Emagine Content.

Screenwriter · Picture PerfectJan 2014 – May 2015 · 1 yr 5 mos
Screenwriter · Unified PicturesFeb 2006 – May 2006 · 4 mos
Development Executive · Unified PicturesApr 2005 – May 2010 · 5 yrs 2 mos
Screenwriter · FreelanceNov 2002 – Present · 24 yrs 1 mo
Game Developer · 8 Sided EntertainmentMar 2000 – Present · 26 yrs 9 mos

Education

Diploma · Phillips Andover Academy1991 – 1996
Bachelor’s Degree, Theater · University of Massachusetts1998 – 2002

Certifications and awards

Geekie Awards2013 – 2026

In 2013, my tabletop roleplaying game Jump Rangers won the first annual Geekie Award for Best Crowdfunding Campaign in Gaming.

LA Web Fest Awards2012

At the 2012 LA Web Fest, my science-fiction webseries The Starmind Record won Outstanding Achievement in Directing, and Outstanding Achievement in Editing.

6th Annual Stage 32 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Contest2022

Quarter-Finalist, for Quantum Theory

2nd Annual Stage 32 Happy Writers Screenwriting Competition2016

Semi-Finalist for The Powerbroker

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