The Script That Waited Nearly Three Decades

The Story Behind The Circle of Secrets – The Curse of Evelyn

Every project has a beginning.

Mine began almost thirty years ago.

Back in 1997, while I was still training as an actor, I wrote a one-act stage play called The Witch and the Vampire. It was intended for the one-act theatre festival circuit, (a great training ground for any new actor) but something never felt right. I wasn’t much of a writer then, and after several rewrites over the following years, I quietly put the script away.

Life moved on.

I spent years involved with the film and theatre industries in some way, mostly unpaid, learning every part of production—from performing to producing and working behind the scenes. In 2018, I revisited the story with the idea of turning it into a short film, only to discover the digital files had disappeared after several computer changes. I knew there was a printed copy somewhere, but even that had vanished.

Then came a move across the country.

After relocating from Queensland to Tasmania around the time of the pandemic, I was still unpacking boxes in 2022 when I finally found the original script. Reading it again with years of theatre and film experience behind me, I realized just how much it needed to grow. The idea was still there—but the story wasn’t.

I rebuilt it from the ground up.

The stage play became a screenplay. The characters became richer. The mythology expanded. But something was still missing. Although I understood traditional screenwriting, the story never quite found the format it deserved.

Everything changed when I discovered vertical microdramas.

While producing the Tamar Valley Film Festival in early 2025, one filmmaker submitted a vertical short film. That single submission introduced me to an entirely new storytelling format. The more I researched, the more I realized this fast-paced, cliffhanger-driven style was exactly what The Witch and the Vampire had always wanted to be.

The story was reborn once again.

It became a 22-episode vertical microdrama, eventually retitled The Circle of Secrets – The Curse of Evelyn. I even held a table read with actors, but recognized I still had more to learn. So instead of rushing into production, I spent months studying the microdrama format, writing shorter practice series, and launching my Vertical Drama Scripts website.

Then something unexpected happened.

In April 2026, I was invited to apply for Anamana’s 100 Creators Incubator Program. They were looking for projects aimed at a younger audience, so I pitched The Circle of Secrets.

They loved it.

Within two months, the screenplay had been refined into a 20-episode series and, instead of waiting years to finance a live-action production, I was given the opportunity to produce it myself as an AI animated series through Anamana’s very own AI filmmaker studio.

If someone had told me back in 1997 that this little stage play would one day become an internationally supported AI animated microdrama, I would never have believed them.

Sometimes stories simply aren’t ready when we first write them.

Sometimes they spend years waiting for us to catch up.

This one waited nearly three decades.

Follow Circle of Secrets now on the following sites to be kept updated:

• https://www.facebook.com/circleofsecrets

• https://www.instagram.com/circle.of.secrets

• https://www.tiktok.com/@circle.of.secrets