We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Romy Nordlinger. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Romy below.

Romy, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

There are actually two projects that have meant a great deal to me, and I’d be hard pressed to choose amongst them. Like choosing between children I’d imagine, although I don’t have kids. And I do think that is what creating a piece of art feels like. You are gestating, cultivating, ruminating, musing, and living and breathing with a piece that started out as simply a kernel in your mind – until it grows into something that you feel is ready to share. Even if it be a rough draft or just a part of it. And then, after you’ve shared and perhaps even performed or read the piece aloud, the REAL work begins. The editing!

I began writing a piece (GARDEN OF ALLA) about a relatively obscure actress, Alla Nazimova who was a meteoric success (not unlike the Madonna of her times from 1916 thru the 20’s). She was also an LGBTQ+ trailblazer. The Shubert’s named a Broadway theatre after her she then went on to become the highest paid silent film actress in Hollywood and one of the first female writers and directors in Hollywood. Her SALOME is noted as being a landmark film in LGBTQ+ history and her GARDEN OF ALLA on 8080 Sunset Boulevard was hailed as ‘The Camelot of Hollywood’ and a place of artistic and sexual freedom for the greatest of stars, writers, directors, composers. It was easier to say who didn’t check in than who did! You could really see the stars ‘come out’ there – and the place is legendary. But her story has been all but written out of the history books.

Link: https://theatrewest.org/on-stage/2023/garden-of-alla-the-alla-nazimova-story

I feel that now more than ever, while we are again under censorship for our sexual choices and identities, we must regain our history and tell stories of these trailblazers that have paved the way long before there were even words for it. We are standing on the shoulders of giants! I’ve watched so many varied audiences be very moved by the show – and I hope they feel empowered to tell their own stories. That is the power of art. And what a great feeling that is!

The show has gone through MANY incarnations (over a five year period) and at last, it is in the form I’ve always imagined it to be in. A marriage of film and theatre and a solo show – Nazimova comes back and ‘directs’ the story of her life via film – a beautiful silent film that unfolds behind me created by Adam Burns and a sumptuous original Soundtrack by Nick T. Moore. It has played at many terrific NYC theatre’s and at The Kennedy Center, and now will be having its West Coast debut in Los Angeles this July at Theatre West. I’m very excited!

It’s going to sound like an afterthought now but equally, my short film THE FEELING PART (based on my full length play) has just wrapped. It’s the first film I’ve written and it’s about an entirely different subject – loss, suicide and addiction. It’s a surreal and hopeful story and I worked with a talented film team (Hissy Fit Films). I believe that speaking of subjects, such as depression/suicide, have such a stigma that just by merely entering the world and presenting the subject – gives people permission to feel (perhaps) less alone, Less stigmatized. It should be in the festival circuit by winter and I’m VERY excited about it. There were parts of it based on different aspects of my own life (dealing with the loss of my Mother), and suicide within the family. It’s just so empowering to find ways to tell stories that might, hopefully, make a difference in this world. As a storyteller I am committed to bringing our shared human condition (all aspects of it) to the light.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am an NYC based actor/writer/producer and audiobook narrator. Just as it sounds, I wear a lot of hats! Basically, I’m a storyteller.

I graduated from the University Of The Arts with a BFA in Theatre and went on to perform at top regional theatre’s as well as numerous Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway productions.

My film/tv credits include many supporting and leading roles in independent films and co-star/guest starring roles on Law & Order, BULL, MANIFEST and FBI.

I began writing plays about 8 years ago and some of them include THE FEELING PART, BROADVILLE, SEX & SEALING WAX, LIPSHTICK and currently I’m working on a play called MOTHER OF ALL CHOICES (for which I received a grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Center) that deals with choices in mothering/or not mothering and societal influences that seek to limit a woman’s choice.

My short film based on my play THE FEELING PART (and which I also acted in) will be in the festival circuit this winter.

I’ve also recorded over 400 audiobooks and numerous commercials/voice overs.

I firmly believe that the telling of our stories and our shared human condition, is one of the most vital things we can do to build empathy and awareness – and hopefully cultivate more of an understanding of our similarities, making us feel less isolated.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

The most important lesson I’ve had to both learn, and unlearn by breaking habits – is to be true to myself.

When I first arrived in NYC after college (and even during college), I always felt that I had to ‘be’ a certain type of person I guess. To please everyone. To try to fit in and and be approved of. It led to much ‘compare and despair’ and to not being authentically IN my own body. When you’re thinking of what others think of you, you can’t really act/write fully. You’re too in your head. I think a part of me felt I had to hide who I really was. And there’s always so much emphasis, particularly as a woman, to LOOK a certain way. As I got older, and it took MANY years to do this, I finally whittled away the mask. Now I believe in success on my own terms. Being the best person I can be. For myself. That is not to say that I still don’t feel pressure sometimes to ‘be more’ but, I’ve cultivated a sense of – myself. It’s really true, that thing you hear in acting school or what someone told you sometime or another – YOU are what makes the part or the text special. Your particular viewpoint. And no one else is exactly like you. Now I don’t try to hide my imperfections, they are part of what makes me human and makes me – me. I think my work has grown enormously for that reason. And I also just feel more comfortable in my own skin in general. 

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.romynordlinger.com/ and http://www.gardenofalla.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/romy.nordlinger/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/romy-nordlinger/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/RomyNordlinger
• Other: INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/nordlingerromy/?hl=en IMDB https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3700861/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

Image Credits
Charles Chessler Photography David Wayne Fox