KCU Pitchfest Showcase 2025 (Top 50)

The Gilded Hour

As the ward of one of New York‘s richest railroad barons, Nettle Patterhorn lives a sheltered life, savoring glimpses of another world the nights she acts as the Baron’s spy.
When thieves break into her manor home and take nothing, Nettle is tasked with uncovering the perpetrators. Her biases are challenged when she learns the culprits are concerned factory workers. They plan to steal the designs of the Baron’s revolutionary train engine, set to be revealed at a grand New Years ball. While the engine has raw power, its volatile construction has a high chance to malfunction—putting hundreds of workers’ lives at risk.
Nettle has to choose between a heist to save hundreds or saving the man who raised her, as the clock ticks down to midnight.

My Why:

My grandmother raised me on a strict diet of murder mystery and heist related television. Ever since then it’s always delighted me to see a team come together, and thieves slipping away just in the nick of time. The genre is dear to me. As I grew up with these stories, I started to realize how intrinsic differing socio-economic backgrounds were to a good heist story. I was enraptured by the critique of capitalistic individuals, their wealth redistributed to those in need by ‘Robin Hood‘ characters. Living in poverty made these thieves heroes to me. With a sense of justice at its core, the stakes of a heist are personal. Nettle’s struggle to learn about that justice and find the strength to implement it is the heart of the story.