Bruce Hickey is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and film director. His career started as an actor, playing Danny Zuko in the original cast of GREASE in Chicago. He shifted his focus to directing and wrote and directed his play, ALL I WANT, based on his casework experiences. The play ran for two years at The Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago, winning Jeff Awards for Best Play and Best Director. Moving to LA, he directed theater, a feature film, and wrote network TV movies. He has been actively creating new content. He wrote and directed BLIND FAITH, winner of five Best Short Film Festivals in 2022. His film trailer BLINDSIDED BY LOVE won seven film festivals in 2018, and his feature script, BLOOD TATTOO, won two festivals in 2022 for Best Unproduced Script. His play LAST CALL received glowing reviews in a production at The Hudson Guild Theater in NYC in 2017. Times Square Chronicle, “Fine writing, a premise that I’ve never seen and an ending I didn’t see coming.” Bill Saunders of the Chicago Sun-Times described his work as “Tennessee Williams saw through the eyes of Martin Scorsese.”

BLOOD TATTOO,

feature/backdoor pilot.

LOGLINE - Jada, a black female Iraq veteran in LA suffering from PTSD accepts a dangerous crime-solving job that would pay enough to regain custody of her estranged mixed-race daughter Josie living with her domineering white grandmother in Orlando.

In the story, Jada’s daughter Josie hides for her life in a closet during a mass shooting at high school in Orlando, FL. and Jada suffers from PTSD from the war, so ironically, mother and daughter are victims of our culture of violence. It’s the story of a mother and daughter’s journey to heal their injured relationship and rediscover love as Jada chases down an elusive killer. The project organically addresses hot-buttoned issues dealing with race, police, and mixed-race families in America. All wrapped inside an edgy, neo-noir mystery story set in LA.

View proof of concept pitch trailer

PRINCE OF CHICAGO

LOGLINE - A young gang member, placed on the Chicago Police Force as a mole, makes a moral choice when he breaks ranks with the gang to protect the small girl who witnessed a drive-by shooting and her attractive, young single mother.

BASIC CONCEPT - Pearl Washington, charismatic head of the Vice Lords, meets Jamal as a 13-year-old fatherless boy. Pearl recognizes in Jamal a natural-born leader and the heir apparent to his Empire. Jamal studies computer science in college and later creates encrypted software for the gang, but stays clear of any direct gang activities. This changes when Pearl orders Jamal to join the Chicago Police Force as a mole for the gang. Armed with hi-tech know-how, Jamal is able to do damage for the gang, working from the inside. Dalton Ellis, head of the anti-gang task force, becomes Jamal's mentor on the force.

Kiss Daddy Goodbye

LOGLINE - New Orleans cop who breaks "the code of silence" discovers the son of his estranged daughter is kidnapped and the two confront old emotional scars as they race against a ticking clock to find the boy.

KISS DADDY GOODBYE is a character-driven thriller that pushes sexual boundaries. Like BOYS DON’T CRY and BOUND it confronts psychosexual roles in modern culture a features a leading hot, transgendered character. KISS DADDY GOODBYE revolves around RONNY DUPREE (the late 40s), a seasoned, yet secretive New Orleans cop who lives a double life and his daughter KATLIN, who is a young single mother and part-time college student.

Dupree is struggling to confront demons that have haunted him for years, as reconnecting with his estranged daughter KATLIN and her 5-year-old son JASON. In the midst of his emotional quandary, Dupree breaks the “code of silence” over the bad shooting of an innocent black suspect by his partner. Soon after Jason is kidnapped. When the police in charge act indifferently to Katlin, she reluctantly reaches out to Dupree. Brought together to find the missing boy they’re forced to confront deeply seeded emotional scars that have festered for years. Their chilling journey to hunt for Jason against a ticking clock takes them from seedy New Orleans underground nightclubs to the treacherous swamps of the Bayou.

BUZZ

I created, wrote and directed a pilot presentation for a TV series called BUZZ, with actress-producer Sharon Lawrence that we developed at the AFI Digital Content Lab. It stars SHARON LAWRENCE, (One Tree Hill, NYPD BLUE) CASSIDY FREEMAN (Longmire) and MICHAEL STEGER (Beverly Hills 90210.) BUZZ is about a college online paper and deals with its young staff learning life lessons as they become reporters in the new era of journalism. SERENA, the vibrant young editor has her world turned upside down when her estranged mother ALEXIS becomes managing editor of Buzz.

Buzz Presentation Pilot

Click here to Watch!