Action Thriller at Strasberg Theater.

HOLLYWOOD -- Frank Chindamo's Screenplay Workshops (www.ScreenplayWorkshops.com) will be holding a staged reading of the award-winning script, "The Jewel of Africa" by John Culton on Tuesday, July 27 at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute, Hollywood. The reading will begin at 7:30 p.m.

John Culton's story of today's Africa, opens with the dark stratagems and terse commands of Angolan rebels preying on rural villagers. The drama then turns to a genteel New York setting where rich and famous customers of Metro-Manhattan Bank are invited on an all-expense-paid safari to Zambezia, a country of fabled beauty with an abundance of wild game -- It's known as the "Jewel" of Africa.

The safari gets off to a good start, but in nearby Angola, rebels pressed by government troops, pillage to survive. Unfortunately, safari camps in peaceful Zambezia present the only stockpile of supplies in this remote wilderness. The story converges on a fast-running climax that thrusts the viewer into a setting replete with the dust, smell, and bloody violence of a continent in conflict with nature and life itself. It's a bell-ringing race for survival where the camera might as well be the point of a gun.

The staged reading will be cast with professional actors and is open to the public.

Culton, who is chairman of FilmStew.com as well as a screenwriter, has won several notable screenwriting competitions including the Austin Film Festival, LA Scriptwriters Network, Independent Feature Project-New York, and Houston International Film Festival. Frank Chindamo is a professor of screenwriting at USC. www.ScreenplayWorkshops.com is the writer's arm of the Filmmakers Alliance. Fourteen scripts have been made into feature films from these workshops thus far.

The Strasberg Theater is located at 7936 Santa Monica Blvd., one block west of Fairfax in West Hollywood.