When her web of reality moves a young environmentalist Midwestern school interior designer to venture employment as an interior home decor designer in New York City, she enmeshes herself among peers whose mismatched goals create a sense of poetic and ironic situational comedy.

SYNOPSIS:

Almost By Design – Rom Com Series Pilot by Roberta M Roy

Script Synopsis

Opening: Midwestern environmentalist Alyssa May Lang (25-30, Germanic descent) introduces her mother, Fran (60s), to the importance of avoiding Nano plastics when drinking water when she opens a box of water bottles with caps in which to store tap water. By doing so, it avoids the Nano plastics prevalent in water from plastic bottles. Fran asks if Felix (25-35, Spanish English, Puerto Rican descent, bilingual former New Yorker) will be moving, too.

Planning for the Future: Alyssa May shares with her friend and work buddy, Carlie (30s Midwesterner), how instead of working designing the interiors of schools, she would like to design for luxurious private residences in a climate-aware manner using water-saving devices, antiques, and reclaimed used furniture. Originally from New York City, Felix shares that if Alyssa May moves from Iowa to New York City, he will also move there and initially live with a cousin’s family. Alyssa finds employment in New York City, where she rents a two-bedroom apartment with a woman from North New Jersey.

Balancing Act: Gianna Leonetti (30s Italian with a North Jersey/New York City accent) moves in as Alyssa May’s apartment mate. Gianna likes everything new and has her own definition of elegant, which contrasts with Alyssa May’s ornate antique couch and coffee table. Alyssa May’s new work-a-day friend, Piper (25-30 Irish with Irish speech lilt here on student visa), likes Alyssa May’s glass bottles and supports Alyssa May’s Meatless Mondays, but until Felix’s friend, Matteo Garcia (30-40 bilingual Spanish English Cuban with accent), begins to also enjoy the Meatless Monday dinners, Gianna typically goes out for steak on Mondays. Piper and Alyssa May also support growing fresh herbs for Felix’s meals; he is the only one among them who can cook. And somehow, Gianna comes to accept Felix, his cooking, and his moving in with Alyssa May, and, except for the bamboo toothbrushes, probably because it is Matteo who installs it, Alyssa May’s low-flow shower head. Gianna agrees to visit an open-air market with Felix, Piper, and Alyssa May.

Mixed Reviews: Felix, Piper, Alyssa May, and even Gianna enjoy a visit to an open-air market where Piper purchases the ingredients for a Meatless Monday Vegetarian Irish Stew she will prepare. Alyssa May purchases an old darkly colored, beat-up Victorian sideboard which she and Felix refinish and, while disliking the smell of paint, Gianna comes to like it. Irish Piper, who is attending the New York School of Design in a student exchange program with Ireland, will be working part-time, which will permit optional practical training for twenty hours a week in the school year, anticipates working with Alyssa May at Sanders Design. Gianna, inspired by Matteo’s presence, brings artificial flowers for the sideboard and will prepare an antipasto for Thursday night. The question is, however, Piper’s Guinness or Gianna’s Chianti. Chianti wins, and Thursday night, in an effort to engage Matteo, Gianna opens one of the doors to the sideboard and becomes enraged to find it filled with Felix’s shoes, a hairbrush, socks, and a shaving kit. Piper plans vegetarian Irish stew and Guinness for Meatless Monday; Alyssa May purchases an antique display cupboard which she, Piper, and Felix refinish.

New Horizons: Felix finishes the refurbishing of the display cabinet by screwing on its pulls, accidentally stepping back onto Piper’s foot. Gianna enters, disliking the smell of paint but noting that it coordinates with the other furniture. Matteo shows a mild interest in Gianna, but when asked if she would like a drawer in the new display case, the inference being that in time Matteo might use it, she declines. Felix begins a new job in hotel management and invites James Gollard (30s, Black American New Yorker, hospitality IT, former Air Force member) to an apartment game night; Piper is enthralled by him. In playing Would You Rather, the gang’s personal similarities and contrasts are made clearer. Everyone enjoyed it, and the plan is to be sure to invite James to the next game night.

ALMOST BY DESIGN - SERIES PILOT