Deborah Voorhees

Deborah Voorhees has lived a colorful life-journalist, filmmaker, writer, editor, teacher, even a Hollywood B-scream starlet and Playboy Bunny. In 2015, Voorhees' screenplay Genevieve was an official selection of the Beverly Hills Film Festival. Her short film and music video Hip Hop Hamlet was an official selection of Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare Film Festival, in Stratford-upon-Avon, England and played in 2016 at the Elsinore Shakespeare Conference in Denmark, as did her short film Othello: Good Night My Sweet. In 2014, Voorhees released her first full-length feature film Billy Shakespeare, which asks, What if William Shakespeare never existed until? Our Modern Bard is caught in a love triangle of confused sexuality, cross dressing, mistaken identity, and bedroom trysts. The film won the Bardie Award from The Shakespeare Standard. The quirky, off-beat film has been compared to the indie hit Waiting for Guffman and is now available on Amazon and IndieReign.com. Voorhees wrote, directed and produced the indie film, with her company Voorhees Films (VoorheesFilms.com). The film has received many stellar reviews: "Billy Shakespeare" is a spicy little independent film by Deborah Voorhees that imagines what might happen if William Shakespeare tried to make it as a writer in today's Hollywood rather than Elizabethan England. Quirky characters, compromising situations, and the kind of deadpan humor that fans of Waiting For Guffman will recognize collide with hilarious moments of camp to create a madcap world in which young Billy just can't get a break," writes Ellen Dostal with Broadway World. "...hilarious campy romp," says film critic Robert Kirchgassner with The Examiner. "Billy Shakespeare...for any Shakespeare lover should not miss for the world," writes Germana Maciocci, Italian film and theater critic with The Shakespeare Standard. "No other Billy like it! He's out of the box!" writes Arje Shaw Broadway playwright and creator of The Sonnet Man Hip Hop Shakespeare Fusion "Jason D. Johnson's interpretation of the title role is a marvel of emotional complexity. The element of comedy is at once rambunctious and bittersweet," writes film critic Michael H. Price "Definitely a future cult movie like Rocky Horror Picture Show," Sharon Stewart, fan Voorhees has just completed editing a dark comedy she directed titled Catching Up, written by New York playwright Tom Sime, and sent it to her award-winning composer Tamer Ciray. The film is about a socialite who becomes morbidly fascinated with an ex-con's past. Voorhees' career as a writer began in 1990 at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. As a 16-year veteran journalist (mostly with The Dallas Morning News), she has covered a variety of stories: a mother on death row for killing her abusive husband, a schizophrenic psyche patient at the Austin State Hospital (who's also a nationally known folk artist), the fall of communism through the eyes of a Russian immigrant, a profile on Texas rancher Nan West (she's good with a gun, but never goes into town unless she dons a dress), a horseback adventure through the Badlands of Mexico (she rode illegally across the border for that story), master African-American muralist John Biggers' journey through the white art world. Besides shooting indie films and music videos, Voorhees also shoots live concerts and theatrical and dance stage productions. Before directing and writing screenplays, Voorhees worked in Hollywood as an actress for Paramount Pictures horror franchise Friday the 13th, Part V, CBS's nighttime drama Dallas, NBC's detective drama Riptide, the day-time soap Days of Our Lives and many others. Voorhees has also taught Acting for Film at Eastern New Mexico University as well as British Literature and journalism in Texas and New Mexico. As a journalist, she has written and edited for The Dallas Morning News, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Front Desk magazine, Modern Luxury magazine, and The Shakespeare Standard. Learn more about Voorhees and her company at VoorheesFilms.com.