Interview with Paul Rome & Roarke Menzies, Writer & Composer of "Philadelphia And Other Stories"
Text by Paul Rome
Music by Roarke Menzies
Directed by Mark Jaynes
Performed by Paul Rome, Roarke Menzies, Katie Schottland, David Kammerer & Katie Mullins
Additional Music by David Kammerer & Katie Mullins
Dramaturgy by Rachel Levens
Writer Paul Rome and composer Roarke Menzies return to the stage with their signature brand of performance literature, delivering new works of fiction accompanied by original music. The centerpiece of this latest offering recounts a spur-of-the-moment day trip to the City of Brotherly Love.
Taking cues from audio storytellers like Ira Glass, Jad Abumrad and Garrison Keillor, as well as innovative monologists like Joe Frank and Spalding Gray, Rome and Menzies draw equally on the traditions of radio drama, literary readings, performance art and theatre in this intimate new stage work.
1. How do you take your coffee?
Roarke Menzies: Espresso. Thereâs nothing quite like it.
Paul Rome: Black, although Iâve heard coffee with butter is delicious.
PR: As a kid I had a running mental list of my favorites. I remember shish kebab was one of them. Although thatâs two words, I guess. Yesterday, I came across the word lassitude in an essay. I think thatâs got a great ring.  Â
RM: Feminist. Iâm a feminist. I feel like a lot of people who are, in fact, feminists are afraid of this word. But I say, call it what it is. I support womenâs rights and gender equality, so I think itâs important to really own that notion and to celebrate this word.
PR: By the end of college I became really wary of the word dichotomy.
RM: Feminist. Just because you label yourself a feminist, or you walk around wearing a t-shirt that reads âThis is what a feminist looks like,â does not mean you get a pass. We are all taking part in, and in many cases benefitting from, a social context that, given any honest assessment, is grossly misogynistic. Using the word feminist and thinking itâs going to change anything is like claiming youâre not racist because you listen to NPR and are âprogressive.â  There are a lot of words like that.
4. What inspires you creatively?
PR: Anxiety, depression, love, deadlines, and most of all, the self-imposed and somewhat inexplicable struggle to see a momentary thought or idea realized. Also, James Baldwin and Louis CK.
RM: Espresso. Thereâs nothing quite like it.
5. Early bird or night owl?
RM: I donât know what Iâm worse at, going to bed or waking up.
PR: Night owl, as any of the early morning customers at the Wyckoff Starr can confirm.
6. How did "Philadelphia" develop, and what led you to combine its various elements (songs, stories, etc.) into a full-length show?
RM: If one knows nothing about the history of the humanities, the combination of such disparate and unrelated genres might strike one as novel. But the idea of combining music and stories may be nearly as old as each of those mediums. Sorry, was that too pretentious? Seriously, though â Homer in Greece, Virgil in Rome, the griots in West Africa, Troubadours of medieval Europe, Calypsonians of the West Indies, story raps â the precedent has been set. Our particular combination just seemed to work intuitively, plus weâre both fans of the great radio noirist Joe Frank.
PR: We actually started this particular project by talking about making an album together. Roarke and I had done a couple of stage shows together in the past. This time we wanted to make something with shorter forms but still a sense of cohesiveness and flow. I wrote the title story, Philadelphia, first and wanted to use it as a jumping off point: to do a series of stories about trips to different places. Sort of a concept album. This thing led to that, and we wound up pitching the idea to the Starr. And now, here we are.
7. Best road trip experience?
PR: Driving down this old Southern highway from Atlanta to Milledgeville with my friend, Christi, to see Andalusia, the farm where Flannery OâConnor grew up and returned to when she got lupus and wrote all those short stories that changed everything for so many writers. There were peacocks walking around. You could feel her presence.
RM: I grew up doing multi-day road trips with my family all the time. There are far too many to differentiate, but stopping in the Badlands in South Dakota was one highlight, as was moving to New York City where I no longer have to spend so much time in a car (thank god).
Paul and I have a tradition where whenever one of us has access to a car in the city, weâll pick up any friends who are around in close proximity and go on what we call a pizza excursion. Weâll drive to one of the classic joints like Totonno in Coney Island or Di Fara in Midwood or even Saraghina in Bed-Stuy and get a couple pies. Itâs scrumptious. We always blast tunes on the way there and back and sing along. Itâs really nice because it has a lot of the fun elements of a road trip -- the sense of adventure, the shared collective experience, the music -- without any of the boredom or cabin fever of being in a car for too long in the middle of nowhere.
"Philadelphia and Other Stories"
December 18-20, 2014 at 8pm
207 Starr Street, Brooklyn, NY 11237
Tickets $18:Â https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/94087
