If you’re involved in the Twin Cities’ small, independent film scene, you may know Dennis Steele. Aside from being involved in lots of projects, he operates www.mntalent.com, which is a good online source for the local film scene.

Dennis recently invited me to participate in a sitcom script reading this past Saturday at Metropolitan State University. The instructor, Lu, has her students write scripts for the NBC sitcom My Name is Earl, and they bring in actors to read them aloud, which helps the writing process.

Lunch was provided, and then we set to work. Every student had written their own individual version of the same episode premise, and the other three actors and I read the first act of each script. It was interesting to see, not only the differences among the scripts, but the similarities.

One of the actors was a friend of mine, Jamie Dix. She and I worked together on Commedia Beauregard’s The Jeweler’s Shop in early 2007. It was good to see a familiar face, and she did a great job reading Jaime Pressly’s character, Joy. I, on the other hand, learned that I’m not realistically castable as Earl, Randy, or Darnell.

When we were done, Lu gave us Newmarket Shooting Scripts as gifts. Mine was The Savages. I need to Netflix that.