Steven Ford’s new short film, The Perfect Stranger, deserves the Mid-Shore’s attention, and the first reason is how thoroughly local it is.
Ford drew heavily on the Eastern Shore’s acting and production community to make the 27-minute film, using local actors, crew members, and familiar locations around Easton and Talbot County. Scenes were filmed at the YMCA, in the lower level of Talbot Town and at the loading dock behind the former Star-Democrat building. Ford says that as he wrote the screenplay, he often had specific local actors already in mind for the roles.
But The Perfect Stranger is also a deeply personal film. It grew out of conversations between Ford and his longtime acting partner, Marla Singer, following the sudden death of Singer’s 24-year-old son after the New York Marathon in 2024. As the two talked about loss and Singer’s experiences with grief counseling, Ford began to see the makings of a film. At its center is a simple idea: sometimes the person able to listen without judgment may be someone who does not know us at all.
For Singer, who plays the central character, the role required her to work closely with her own experience of sudden loss. She describes making the film as difficult rather than cathartic, but also as a way of exploring something nearly universal: how people find their way through grief when no one has told them how.
The Perfect Stranger will be part of this year’s Chesapeake Film Festival, which promises to be a truly community event. But it has also begun moving beyond the Shore. Singer was named Best Actress by the Indie Short Fest in Los Angeles, and the film received an honorable mention in the drama short category.
The Spy sat down with Ford and Singer to discuss how a conversation between two friends became a film, how the Eastern Shore community helped make it possible, and what they learned about grief, acting, and the value of simply having someone willing to listen.
This video is approximately four minutes in length.
The Perfect Stranger will be screened Friday, October 9, as part of the Chesapeake Film Festival’s ‘Stories with Big Heart’ program, beginning at noon at the Talbot County Free Library in Easton. Admission to the library program is free. For more information, please go here.
Principal cast: Marla Singer as Sarah Morrison; Carley Turner as Emily Morrison; Cavin Moore as Frieda Orchid; and Tim Weigand as Albert Cronin. Steven Ford served as writer, director, and producer, with Marla Sassoon as producer.
Among the other local names Ford mentions in discussing the production are Cece Davis, Nick Richards, Shea Springer, Maggii Sarfaty, Alex Greenlee, and Judge Broughton M. “Bo” Earnest.
