Life Is Not A Tuna & White Bean Salad with Filmmaker & Screenwriter Sophia Romma

Sophia is a playwright, screenwriter, and a film & theater director.  She is a producing artistic director of Garden of the Avant-Garde Productions and she’s also a member of the New York City Bar Association, working in human rights.

She was the screenwriter and producer for the international arthouse film Poor Liza, which won a Garnet Grand Prix award. The film starred Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner Ben Gazzara and Emmy & Academy award winner Lee Grant. 

Sophia has written and directed three films for New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Dramatic Writing Program.

Outside of film, Sophia has written fourteen different stage plays which have been produced either off-Broadway or “off, off Broadway”.

Sophia’s latest project, which is currently streaming on Amazon Prime is Used and Borrowed Time. It is a 2020 time travel film about an aging actress who is magically returned to the year 1965 in segregated Alabama. 

Sophia penned screenplays and directed three films for New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Dramatic Writing Program.  She also wrote and directed a series of cutting-edge short films for the New York Film Academy

Pornography!" and "Commercial America in the 90’s." She wrote the screenplay for the documentary "Call Girls for Hire: The Sex Slave Trade Epidemic in Eastern Europe," for which she was honored with Moscow’s Social Awareness Documentary Film Award at the Moscow Women Make Documentaries Film Festival.  

Romma also wrote and directed a series of cutting-edge short films for the New York Film Academy: "Underneath Her Make-Up" (unveiling the stigmatized and hounded LGBTQ community in India) and "The Frozen Zone" (shedding light on the supernatural healing powers of ancient shamanism and its infinite wisdom).

Dr. Romma is the author of fourteen stage-plays, produced Off-Off Broadway/Off-Broadway, three of which were produced at La MaMa E.T.C. Her play, “The Past Is Still Ahead” which she wrote and directed, ran at the Cherry Lane Theatre, at the Midtown International Film Festival and toured Montauk, London, Moscow, Montreal and Seoul. 

The Negro Ensemble Company presented “The Mire” at the Cherry Lane Theatre; it was heralded by the New York Times for “grinding down stubborn cultural borders with love’s symphony.” Romma’s “Cabaret Émigré” was lauded by The Villager for "delving deep into the dislocated émigré’s soul in erotic quantum verse.”

Romma graduated from Tisch School of the Arts, earning her B.F.A. from the Dramatic Writing Program and her M.F.A. from the Dramatic Writing and Cinema Studies). She holds a Ph.D. in Philology from Maxim Gorky Literature Institute and a Masters of Law from Fordham University School of Law.

gardenoftheavantgarde.com
gardenoftheavantgarde@gmail.com 

Transcript

Avis: 0:09

Hey there, beautiful people. And welcome back to another episode of That's, How We Role, a biweekly podcast, where I talk with motivating and inspiring women, who are professionals, entrepreneurs, organization, leaders, artists, and so much more. This week's guest is the multi-talented and the multi-hyphenate Sophia Romma. Sophia is a playwright screenwriter and a film and theater director. She is a producing artistic director of Garden of the Avant-Garde Productions. And she's also a member of the New York City Bar Association, working in human rights. She was the screenwriter and producer for the International Art house film, poor Liza, which won a Garnet Grand Prix Award. The film stars, Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner, Ben Gazzara and Emmy and Academy Award winner Lee Grant. Sophia has written and directed three films for New York university's Tisch school of the arts dramatic writing program. Outside of film, Sophia has written 14 different stage plays, which have been produced either off Broadway or off- off Broadway Sophia's latest project, which is currently streaming on Amazon Prime is Used and Borrowed Time. It is a 2020 time travel film about an aging actress who has magically returned to the year 1965 in segregated, Alabama. I'm so glad to welcome Sophia Romma. Sophia, thank you so much for being here.

Sophia Romma: 1:46

Thank you, Avis. It's a distinct pleasure.

Avis: 1:48

Thank you. Well, first of all, I'd like to say congratulations to you and your production team on this, this film that's on Amazon prime used and borrowed time.

Sophia Romma: 1:58

Thank you ever so much. Thank you.

Avis: 2:01

Good. Can you tell us a little bit about the film and how Used and Borrowed Time came about?

Sophia Romma: 2:06

Yes, of course. So I am a child of La Mama experimental theater, but I was introduced to the late great Ellen Stewart, or as she allowed me to call her mama for the select few that she did. I had a professor at NYU who quite frequently worked with Ellen Stewart and his name was Colonel Leslie Lee. He wrote the first breeze of summer for which he was nominated for a Tony and Obie award. And he won the Obie, a wonderful African-American playwright. And he was my mentor. I worked with him for 25 years in the theater. We produced three of my plays and he was the director of them. And he basically, he went to Ellen and told her that I share this notion of what intolerance means because I come from the kind of culture. That was also, you know, hounded and persecuted and I'm an immigrant and refugee and I, and he suggested that, you know, I, I take a trip out to Alabama just to see what it's like. And I always traveled with my grandmother. So I traveled with my grandmother from New York to Alabama on the Amtrak and on the Amtrak train, there was this wonderful chef and he prepared the collard greens and beautiful scrumptious, luscious lamb. And we sat there and we got to talking and he was very personable. He sat down with us and of course my grandmother was very old and he said I want to tell you a story about my life. And he had grown up in the sixties and he had a cousin that fell into the hands of a white supremacist's family, oh, horrific, terrible tale. And, and, and what transpired because of the fact that he was in love with a with a young... she was blind, but so she was, you know, impaired in that way, a Jewish girl and they were taking this hostages and this was a true story and it touched me so deeply, but at the time I was involved in so many different projects and I decided to, to write it. And I wrote it as a short 10 minute play on a dare at The Players where I belong. It's a club in Gramercy park for writers and theater practitioners, and they, it was performed. And a gentleman from Astonia came who was a filmmaker just by accident. And he happened to be there watching. He was invited to the players and he liked, it said, Hey. I'd like to see this as a film and that's really how it came about.

Avis: 4:30

Oh, wow. That's very interesting. I did love the trailer, so I can't wait to really sit back and watch it. And it's in two parts, correct?

Sophia Romma: 4:37

It is, it had to be Avis, because it is three hours and 36 minutes. And I also had, it also could be a mini series, which we have done and chopped it up into, into six episodes. Just for fun, just in case, you know, Netflix rolls around or something.

Avis: 4:53

Well, let's go ahead and say Netflix. Okay. Netflix, Hulu. Here I come. Welcome Sophia with open arms.

Sophia Romma: 5:01

Yes. I hope so. Fingers crossed. Praying to God.

Avis: 5:05

Yes. Yeah. Well, how did you get started in the business because you know, you have this career path, you went to law school, you're a member of the New York city bar association. And, but you're, you are such a, such a visionary and such a in your multihyphenate, as I said earlier, and you have all this, this background in writing and producing and directing. So what was this path and how did you get started in the business? And which one and which one did you do first?

Sophia Romma: 5:36

You taught me a new word. I didn't know, multi-hyphenate cause you said it, well, you learn something new every day. How did I get started? So I, I immigrated from the former Soviet union as a refugee. So I may have of Romany and Jewish ancestry from Poland and Ukraine. In Romania. And we were basically hounded back in the back in the day. All my family members as is typical, pilgrims and what have you. And when I came to this country, my mother So all the money she had and told me to go to the movies with my friend, cause you can come with me. She was, you know, she was cleaning other people's homes, even though she was a microbiologist back at home. And I, and she said go, you seem to like television. We had a little television set with those antennas back then. No really rural controls and very bad picture. And I went with a friend when I was about, six, seven years old and I watched ET. And I didn't leave the theater. She had to drag me out. My friend, I was glued to the chair to the point where she was like, the credits have rolled, everyone's left. Your mom is going to be worried. And I just, I couldn't get myself away from there. And I knew that I had. Love for the allure and sort of the, the lurid part of of what cinema and what celluloid had to offer. When I saw those images, those frames, the, the human stories, the humanity about cinema. I fell in love with it, with such a passion and such art or that I that's all I ever wanted to do. And, and then there was a traveling troupe. My father had. Had the pleasure. He was in the, he was in the arts and he had gotten together a group of people from all over the globe to perform here in the United States and tour. And I fell in love with theater because these were theater troups, and I got to go behind the scenes. And I was with them all the time. So they lived a very caravan, like a very kind of, you know, not a piece of term of very gypsy lies. I won't say it, but you know, very kind of Romany life. Like my, my grandmother on my father's side and who, who was an actress. And I just sort of fell in love with that life. I wanted to be a part of this majestic kingdom that I, that I thought was, you know, theater. The only, the only closeness that you would receive was from the audience and God, so I, I fell in love with all of that.

Avis: 8:03

Majestic. That's not really what most of us describe as theater, especially just when you're just doing some off Broadway or off, off Broadway pieces. So that's how you got started. So your father was artistic, so that's what you did. And, and how old were you at the time that you decided that when you started writing your pieces, like when you decided this is what I'm going to do.

Sophia Romma: 8:26

You know I really was quite young and this may be the story of most writers or most writers that write for theater. And I spent 25 years glued to the theater with both heart, hands and eyes. But I I clawed my way into the theater, but my real beginnings were, I think at the age of about eight, when I was in and school and sponsored for a refugee program because, and that time we did live in the refugee home on the Upper West side with all these eclectic different people, a very diverse community. And I had had this, this notion to put something down on paper about the immigrate experience and my father who was not allowed out of the former Soviet union he came two years later. He, I had asked about my grandmother and he had said that she was that her three children were shot on a train in, from Eastern Poland, during world war II, when she had lost her first husband. And I thought that I wanted to write stories that have historical context, but always put some folklore in it. And so I sat down to write about her story and I brought it to my teacher and it was about the last exit about that last train ride, where my grandmother had lost most of her family at the hands of the Nazis, she was spared because she had had a hidden in the, in the compartment while next to the bathroom and they didn't check. So that Gestapo tale and everything that the atrocity that humanity can unleash upon the, up upon other people just simply because they're different propelled me to write an and my teacher said, Hmm, kind of rhyme when you write, you sort of have talent. She came up to my mother and said, I think your daughter might be into poetry. Pay attention. So that's really how I, how I came to be, but very, very young. I was.

Avis: 10:12

Wow. That's a very interesting story too, about your, your grandmother. So yeah, I can see how by you being creative, that that would be something that a creative tale that you would tell.

Sophia Romma: 10:23

Yes. Yes. I felt really, really compelled. I had this, this genuine compulsion to tell it.

Avis: 10:29

So that's what you did first. So you did the, so you started writing and so you're in New York. How did the law, you were writing before you went to law school, but what made you decide to go to law school?

Sophia Romma: 10:41

Yeah. Right, right. Well, so I finished. I graduated from Tisch school of the arts. I always wanted to do film. I had some wonderful professors. We were always under the influence of Marty Scorsese who came around quite often showed us his very first film at NYU. And then I had the professor Spike Lee, who just, no, I hate to use the term blew my mind. Literally the gentleman is so di divinely talented that I have no words. Really. He renders his films render me speechless. So I, I. I knew I was in the right place and rulemaking, you know, at that time we use 16 millimeter and we use a Steenbecks to splice film. It's now we're all digital, you know, we are we're in the digital world, but before that it was human connection and all of the plays that I wrote for La Mama and the later online looked the cherry lane. And the lion theater down the theater row, they were produced either by La Mama or by Negro Ensemble Company, for which I served as literary manager under Charles Weldon for who was my great, great friend and, and directed two of my plays, one at the lion theater and then one that cabaret immigrate and then one that Cherry Lane Theater which was called a sweet word of advice. And the Meyer. And I started to develop this notion that the world is, is, is so biased and there's so much intolerance. And I wanted to, I knew that, I always wrote about immigrates. In fact, three of my cycle plays at La Mama were about the immigrate experience as was cabaret immigrate, although it was a satirical. philosophical work. And I decided that it would be a good fit for me to work in human rights. I had worked in European countries before where the LGBTQ community was continuously harassed, especially in the arts and in sports. I wrote a play about the, the constriction of the 2014 Olympics. And So chi down at 13th street, I tried to expose, you know, the victims of this perhaps even often unconscious bias, but nonetheless, a bias and prejudice, very strong enough to marginalize people who were already marginalized. And so I said, okay, let me check out programs that dealt with human rights. And I found Fordham University. And that's why I went to law school I was the oldest student there, actually. Yes. So that's how I found my way to law.

Avis: 12:54

And knowing law or learning law is, is great in this business too, because there are always contracts and things like that that you have to read in order to, especially now that you are, because Amazon is not the end for you. So as you go forward to, to the other, to the other digital streaming services, being a lawyer and knowing certain things without being an entertainment lawyer, you still need to know some of the terms and those contracts are hard to read. So at least they'll be easy for you. It's just like flipping in a magazine to you. I'm sure. So that helps you a lot.

Sophia Romma: 13:32

Right? I mean, yes, you're absolutely correct. And Avis you and I both know, you know, fighting for women's rights in, in the right to have gender equality in the theater in film is always an uphill battle because you belong to such prominent organizations, yourself, the deal with, and center around promoting women as do I, that it's important to be able to know how to read a contract. It's important to understand that if a man is getting a better salary than you, then you have to speak up. It's important that if it's vital, that you speak up, if there is harassment in the workplace. Because you are a female it's vital. And those organizations such as, you know, the League of professional women in theater, where I was on the board and, you know, we have a connection and you being such a grand part of the Women in the Arts and Media Coalition, right. Those are the very organizations that deal with protecting women. Protecting women from, from what faces them in the workforce. And I don't think that especially women of color or minority women, I don't think people know what goes on. And so therefore I think that it's, it's important to be able to read your own contract and stand up for yourself or read your fellow's contract, read your girlfriend's contract and help her out. And I've done so much of that. So yes.

Avis: 14:47

That's great advice to have someone that an accountability partner, the other side of that is have someone that can help you get some kind of meaning and understanding out of whatever it is that you have in front of you, because we all need that.

Sophia Romma: 15:01

Precisely so well spoken. That's exactly what I meant.

Avis: 15:05

Right. Right. And it is important for women to bring this along with what you said, just bringing the plight of women and women of color, just bringing this plight to people's, to the forefront because people don't realize until they actually know about something, they don't realize that it's an issue. And that can, that goes with.

Sophia Romma: 15:27

Right until it's it's overblown until, you know, the paparazzi have overtaken it. And then there's somehow it's watered down and diminished from the actual, the actual decrepitness of this issue, how it torments people and how it torments women in the industry.

Avis: 15:43

Yeah, very true. What motivates you and what keeps you motivated? We're just coming into like our actual a real summer. Cause we didn't have that last year where we could be around people, be present with people. What motivates you and what keeps you motivated?

Sophia Romma: 16:01

I, I, I really would have to say. Human stories, you know, though it sounds perhaps the now, or maybe it's definitely not contrived people that I hear talk in places in cafes when cafes were open. And now, like you said, they're opening up and I heard that in your last podcast, which was wonderful all about rebirth and, you know, the re-emergence of going back to our former normal, which should be our new normal now. Right. And going back to humanity, I'm inspired by what I read. If I read a New York times article, or if I read something that's going on globally, or if I have a case in court that deals with somebody desperately running from persecution, harassment in their own country, or being limited to not being able to, to marry the same sex or religious persecution or those stories moved me because they're not only worth telling, and it's not about being political or by partisan it's humanity, trying to carve a slice of life for themselves. And I think that those stories inspire me, but also folklore and legend and. Those are inspirational stories. You know, the cosmos is vast and I recently wrote a piece called the virus Corazon. I think we, we did a zoom kind of play about it. And I only wrote the first act, but it was about people that had suffered through a similar virus, but it was like a love virus, not the, not the virus that unfortunately we were having a pandemic. But but it, it, it, everybody ended up in, back in, in a space kind of situation. And as we were floating up to outer space and they were putting colonies because they were forbidden to love. The emotion of love would cause them to outbreak any virus and that they were living in colonies, but they still found love. And it's. I'd say star Trek kind of concept because I was very inspired by the by the story Sartre, Le Jeux Sont Fait, which is the die is cast where no matter what you do with sort of predestined, so you can try to fight against life, but you're going to end up in a similar space. I was inspired by that story to live out the reverse. So let's not end up in that space. Let's change. Let's change the world. Let's really not just say to make it better, but work inch by inch fabric by fabric to so a beautiful conglomerate world one, where we have this understanding of people that we all, we all. Need similar, similar things, love, you know, compassion, tolerance, understanding. That's what inspires me most.

Avis: 18:43

Nice.

Sophia Romma: 18:45

It's true. It's really true. You bring out the truth in me because I have an affinity. I think you feel very similar. You know, I think you feel similarly to me about that.

Avis: 18:56

Right. I do I do. Do you have anything coming up aside from the Amazon prime, anything in any other pieces or anything that, because now that the world is opening up, so, you know, so are stages so are small places that can have these events that were on zoom for the past year and a half, now they are opening up and we can actually be present. So do you have anything come up that you can actually talk about. Cause I know so many times we are not able to mention projects that we're working on for confidentiality reasons, but anything that you can talk about is something that you're writing or something that you're working on, that you can share.

Sophia Romma: 19:33

Yes. So I am working on a commission project and it is about, it is a, it is the reaction to, I will say to Lolita by Nabokov, but from by Vladamir Nabokov of from a female point of view and, and I hope to finish it by the end of the summer. And hopefully we'll be able to shoot by October, November. And it's an important stance with you know, my former film was really again it was it was a call to tell people, Hey, look, anti-semitism is on the rise globally. People are desecrating, synagogues and desecrating the religion. Also the African-American community suffering desperately, especially under COVID-19. I led the project that there was such disparity among how, how the healthcare system had affected the COVID-19 crisis in minority populations, especially African-American and Hispanic population. I was, you're heading that project for the New York city bar association these days. I just want to concentrate on the Me Too movement and project what, what happens when men solve size, very young ladies and that's my project. And I think that hopefully it will bear some meaning to people that have been harassed that have been violated in a very, very bad way. Oh wow. You're going to be very busy and I am so glad. I mean, that's such a great undertaking that you're, that you're doing with the, you know, being a lawyer. I love that. So, you know, and just FYI. I'm going to include everything that Sophia is talking about. All her links to her projects and any events that she is having. It's got everything is going to be in the show notes. So no one misses anything that you're doing, because it's going to just be fabulous from here on out.. Thank you Avis.. Thank you so much.

Avis: 21:25

What advice can you offer, or can you give to like to upcoming writers and multi-hyphenates like yourself?

Sophia Romma: 21:35

You know, I would say, and life is not a tuna and white beans. Life is, life is very complicated. And if you, but if you, if you really aspire to write or to act or to dance, Or to go into space, explore, become a scientist, whatever, from wherever you are from whatever walk of life, whether you're an immigrant or refugee like me, or whether you're, you know, not of the color that everybody else you know is, or whether you have any kind of handicap. I think that it's important to realize your dream. If a professor tells you you're not good. A fellow neighbor tells you you're strange. If there's a kid in school that makes fun of you, which is really my story. Just if you could really rise above that because I think people are so worthwhile. It's such a worthwhile investment in humanity. Every single soul was an individual game with something to say something to portray, whether it's in baking a cake for somebody's birthday or whether it's sewing a dress or whether it's making films. Really adhere to your aspiration because it might take 50 years. It might take after your lifetime, but it will, it will take if you're persistent pers perseverance is everything. If you believe, if you have faith in yourself, there is no end to what you can achieve. I know that for sure.

Avis: 23:09

Very true to. Just to just keep going, no matter what. And most of the world, a lot of us that made it through 2020, we've done just that we've reinvented ourselves. We have changed directions, not forgetting about any direction or any path that we decided to veer from, but just broaden a lot of things that make up that will make us. better and that will make us better for others as well.

Sophia Romma: 23:36

Absolutely. You could definitely see the humanity even through this crisis, the way that people came together, the way that bells were wrong, every time at seven o'clock for those lives lost in Manhattan and the way hospitals worked and healthcare workers work, and actually the way liquor stores worked, they cater to your needs. And there's a fabric of beautiful worthwhile rhythm to, to human life. And it needs to be harnessed and fortified and protected.

Avis: 24:10

And I hope that we don't lose that the coming together and that helping each other. During the hard, one of the hardest things that we've gone through, you know, in the world, I'm hoping that we don't lose that.

Sophia Romma: 24:24

I, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think less blame and more positivity, you know, less, less trying to blame each other, pointing fingers and more coming together and working on something that happens for all of us. Something that uplifts all of us, at once.

Avis: 24:43

Hmm. Do you have any words of wisdom that you can leave with us today?

Sophia Romma: 24:50

Words of wisdom, you know, it was a very, very difficult year. I'm sure for everybody. And we crawled out of it like snails, but the light of the tunnel, you know, the, the old biblical saying this too shall pass there's truth to that. There's the, the igniting of a bonfire in your soul with the prospects. The future holds some sort of kernel of hope. And I think that was also what you had mentioned in your last podcast. Hope is everything and hope really does die last. I mean, I had a play by that title at LA mama, but it was the first work I'd ever done in '97, gosh I'm so old. But you know, who counts the chronological years? I think that if the words of wisdom would be that. Please, please. Don't give up hope you know, the day that you hear the birds singing that day, that you go out and see the blue sky and you see the horizon and you see the tequila, sunset, you understand there's hope in life. And if that's everything, so keep to your dreams and, and keep striving. I think those are my words of wisdom.

Avis: 25:58

Well, they're beautiful words.

Sophia Romma: 26:00

Thank you. Thank you.

Avis: 26:03

Well, Sophia, I just want to thank you so much for being here with me today and thank you for sharing your words of wisdom and thank you for sharing your craft to, to all of us, to the people that get to and, on Amazon prime, you know, check it out. Thank you so much for sharing your gift because what you bring and what you are and what you direct and, and write and produce, they're all gifts they're coming from you. And thank you for the heart that you put into each and every project that, that you put out. And I really appreciate you being here and sharing that with us.

Sophia Romma: 26:37

Oh, thank you so much for having me, you know, the crystal clarity of your voice, your beautiful soul shines through. And I. I would have to say, I would implore everybody to listen to your podcast. You are so very uplifting. Thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure, such an honor.

Avis: 26:54

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Sophia Romma: 26:56

Thank you.

Avis: 26:56

And you're very welcome. So everyone please like subscribe and share the podcast with your friends. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen, checking out the podcast. Thank you for inviting me into your space. And until next time I hope you will continue to thrive, grow and be kind to yourselves and be kind to others.