Brooke Berman on Crossing Frontiers to Write in Different Media
May 18, 2020
Although Brooke was initially trained as an actor, she felt a voice inside telling her that acting was not her calling. Today, she has worked as a playwright, a screenwriter, a director and a memoirist. In her interview, she tells us about how classical music, journaling and her training as an actor shaped her career and her life.
“(Journaling) is how I process the world.” (Brooke, ~09:00)
Brooke also shares with us her insights on her creative process. She is a firm believer in letting the page do what it wants to do. She lets herself go and drift away while writing her first drafts, she allows her characters to “audition” and then decides who she is calling back for the second draft. As a result, she encourages anyone who is writing or trying to find their voice to keep exploring without judgment.
Spalding Gray, Holly Hughes, John Leguizamo, Sandra Bernhard, Anne Bogart, MarĂa Irene FornĂ©s, AnaĂŻs Nin, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, Aristotle, Adam Rapp, Marsha Norman, Natalie Portman, Kate Hudson, Tripp Coleman, Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Mike Leigh, Nicole Holofcener, Michael Chernus, Peter Stormare, Peter Hedges, Jessica Goldberg, Jill Soloway, Merritt Wever, Ingmar Bergman and Mike Nicholls. I kid you not, all of these names came up in our conversation!
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Brooke Berman is an award-winning playwright, filmmaker and memoirist. Her films have been recognized by such prestigious festivals as the Savannah Film Festival, the Tribeca Film Festival, and the Aspen International ShortsFest. Her plays, which include Hunting and Gathering (Primary Stages), Smashing (The Play Company) and Until We Find Each Other (Steppenwolf), have been seen across the US and internationally, and she is the author of three nonfiction books, including the memoir No Place Like Home. A graduate of the Juilliard School and Barnard College, Brooke lives in New York City with her writer husband and their upstart son.
brookeberman.net
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