FANIA IN THE FOREST is a fierce coming-of-age television pilot about a rebellious 16-year-old Jewish girl who escapes the Vilna ghetto and fights to earn her place among the male-dominated forest partisans. As she confronts both the brutality of the Nazi occupation and the resistance’s rigid ideas about what a girl can be, Fania discovers the cost and the power of refusing to stay in her place.

A Top 5 ScreenCraft Fellowship finalist and Austin Film Festival Pitch finalist, FANIA IN THE FOREST was most recently named to the 2026 Women’s List, recognizing the year’s top unproduced screenplays by women.

The reading runs approximately 75 minutes with no intermission, followed by a Q&A. FANIA IN THE FOREST is written by Lisa Kenner Grissom and directed by Genevieve Fowler. The team includes Noam Dromi, Executive Producer for Reboot Studios and Lauren Schaffel, Co-Producer.

Lisa Kenner Grissom is an award-winning screenwriter and playwright whose work engages dynamic social issues, often through a female lens. She's known for creating multi-layered characters, exploring the complexity of human emotions, and finding levity in discomfort. Since visiting Vilnius, Lithuania, she’s been exploring Jewish themes more deeply, including resistance, resilience, memory, and legacy. Her TV pilot, FANIA IN THE FOREST, is a Top 5 ScreenCraft Fellowship Finalist and an Austin Film Festival Pitch Finalist. Most recently, it was named to The 2026 Women’s List of top unproduced scripts. Originally from Boston and based in Los Angeles, Lisa is a graduate of Wesleyan University. lisakennergrissom.com IG: @lisa_kenner_grissom.

Noam Dromi (Reboot Studios) is an Emmy® Award-winning writer/producer, marketing executive, and digital strategist with a track record of creating innovative content across film, television, digital media, and immersive experiences. As the Managing Director and Executive Producer of Reboot Studios, the content arm of the arts-and-culture nonprofit Reboot, he leads the development and production of original projects that explore Jewish identity and culture through contemporary storytelling. In 2015, he won the first-ever Primetime Emmy® for Virtual Reality as Producer of the Sleepy Hollow Virtual Reality Experience for Fox Broadcasting. He received another Emmy® nomination in 2018 as Executive Producer of The Walking Dead: Red Machete, a groundbreaking digital series for AMC. A committed industry leader, Noam is an active member of the Writers Guild of America (WGA), the Producers Guild of America (PGA), and the Television Academy. He has also served as an adjunct professor of screenwriting at Loyola Marymount University’s School of Film and Television, mentoring the next generation of storytellers. Driven by a passion for meaningful and boundary-pushing storytelling, Noam continues to champion diverse voices and create impactful content that resonates with audiences worldwide. IG: @noamenclature and @rebootstudios

Lauren Schaffel is an actor, writer, and producer and has been acting professionally since she was five years old. Her television credits include The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Will and Grace, Still Standing, and the voice of Lucy in several Peanuts films and series. She’s worked at numerous theaters, most recently at the Road Theatre in North Hollywood, Geva, Arizona Theatre Company, The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, Playwrights Horizons,The Barrow Group, and Urban Stages. Lauren is a recent graduate of the Improv and Writing Lab tracks at the Groundlings School. As a filmmaker, she wrote, produced, and starred in the award-winning short, musical comedy film Catalogue of Noses and developed an educational curriculum to accompany the film in partnership with Reboot Studios. Lauren is a co-founder of the production company LMC Productions, which supports new script development focusing on amplifying female voices. She’s also the Executive Producer of the Los Angeles Jewish Playwriting Contest, in partnership with Jewish Plays Project and Holocaust Museum LA.  She’s also  on the board of Jewface Theater based in LA, which produced the play version of Catalogue of Noses in their inaugural short play lab development in 2023. IG: @laurenschaffel111