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

Hi Rori, thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

My original rock musical, “Siren’s Den,” which developed over a number of years. I have kept journals since I was 8 and I started writing songs at 16. It was my therapy and the way I dealt with high school heartbreaks and betrayals. This was long before social media. I had no aspirations of sharing my music with the world. It was just for me.

A decade later, I had a meaningful and complicated relationship with a Broadway actress. She was also a singer/songwriter who often performed her own music and even starred in her own musical. I admired her artistry, and we had many deep and soulful discussions about what it meant to really be an artist and persevere in the face of a cutthroat industry. After 7 years, the friendship ended in a sudden and crushing falling out. There was no opportunity for defense, no further contact, and no closure.

What do you do when your entire world comes crashing down? You write. Song after song after song. And then, the songs started to tie together into a plot. 6 years and many rewrites later, I thought, “Maybe I have something here,” and began submitting to festivals. In 2014, 15 minutes of my musical, “Sirens Den,” appeared on stage with a live band and a talented cast of singers and dancers. When I heard my own work out loud for the first time, something came alive inside of me.

Up until this point, I was an actress who got paid to say and sing other people’s words. Now, I got to see my own experiences reflected back to me. I saw how my specific trauma became universal and resonated with so many others who had experienced similar hardships. I heard audiences gasp and even cry at my melodies and lyrics and characters. It was addictive and I knew that this was something I would do for a long time to come.

With the help of incredible music engineers and orchestrators, Frank Perri and Jaden Nogee, that musical grew into the full length “Siren’s Den: A Rock Musical,” which went on to appear in various festivals, staged readings, an Equity showcase run at the Gene Frankel Theater, and a concert at the prestigious Cutting Room, thanks to a grant from City Artist Corp. One of the songs was selected out of over 200 submissions for UNC Greensboro’s, “Hear Our Voices: A Song Cycle.”

Some incarnations of the show I produced from the sidelines, while others I performed in. My mother asked me, “Why would you want to live the worst thing that ever happened to you over and over again?” I responded, “Because, I get to relive the good parts too.” The whole experience was truly cathartic, and I got to work with and employ my friends and fellow performers.

The synopsis reads as follows:
“‘Siren’s Den’ is a dark, modern twist on the myth of the ancient Greek sirens who lured sailors to their deaths with their songs. Here, the turbulent sea is the music industry, and the siren is Skylar Cole, a seductive indie rock singer in NYC who performs at the popular music venue, The Siren’s Den.

Skylar’s biggest fan is Remy Morgan, a young, aspiring singer who finds that her songwriting is fueled by her time spent with Skylar. Although Remy and Skylar form an immediate bond, their attempts at connection are thwarted by Skylar’s hungry fans known as Vultures, her possessive personal assistant, her suspicious boyfriend, and her own sordid past.

Soon, Remy finds herself drawn into a world of drugs, lust and empty promises, where some idols don’t deserve pedestals and some dreams come with dire consequences.

Will Remy find success, or will she fall prey to Skylar’s siren song forever?”

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 was very much a homebody as a little kid. At 7 years old, Mom enrolled me in dance class just to get me out of the house. Attached to my dance school was a musical theater program, the Long Island Performing Arts Center ( LIPAC), which had its students participate in a recital at the end of the session. I was given a solo in a “Whole New World.” The moment I opened my mouth to sing on stage in front of a packed house, that was it for me. I knew what I was going to do for the rest of my life.

I grew up in a household where Mom always played records of “Godpsell,” “Hair” and “A Chorus Line.” I really wanted to be in a musical, but I found that even in community theater, no one would cast you if you didn’t have anything on your resume. But…how do you get something on your resume if no one will cast you? It was a Catch 22. I decided to stick with LIPAC in order to be in their end of year production. I was thrilled to play a villager and a toy clown in “Pinnochio” at the age of 9.

A few months later, there was an ad in the newspaper for a “Joseph Choir Challenge.” There was going to be a “Joseph…Dreamcoat” revival on Broadway and they were seeking actual children’s choirs to be in the production, which… we were not. We were just a bunch of misfit children in a musical theater class. However, the instructors were stealthy. They pulled in siblings and friends and whoever they could find to carry a tune, until we were the requisite 25 kids, aged 10-14. (I was technically still too young). They drilled us like we were third world factory workers, with our school work and health taking a back seat to the rehearsing.

We auditioned on the Broadway stage with acapella 4 part harmony. 6 months later, we received a callback. The next morning, the call came, and I was going to be on Broadway. That was that.

I could write a novel about those next 5 months which provided both the most beautiful and the most traumatic core memories of my life. Nonetheless, that’s how I got my start in the business.

With unwavering devotion, I pursued musical theater. I went to NYU’s Lee Strasberg Institute and received a BA from SUNY Cortland’s musical theater program. I went on to perform leading roles in regional theaters, national tours, Off-Broadway shows and Cabarets all over NYC, while simultaneously working a million day jobs to pay the rent. I FINALLY received my Equity card in May 2019, ready to take things to the next level. I was lined up with an Equity Off-Broadway show and a new agent, and then… we all know what happened next.

The theater industry took a catastrophic hit during the pandemic that it has yet to recover from. It has never been more important to “create your own work,” in order to be able to practice your craft. While I continue to audition for jobs that are few and far between, (opening up Union membership to everybody certainly did not help the job scarcity), I have found writing and performing in my own works to be so much more artistically fulfilling. I hope to be the next Lin Manuel Miranda, Sara Bareilles or even Shaina Taub.

As I’ve gotten older, I have amassed more heartbreaks and more stories to tell: I have toured the country, had flings with celebrities, survived scandalous and gut wrenching affairs, received offers for dream roles on the spot, been fired from dream roles for sickness beyond my control…I have endless life experience to draw from. And I’ve only just begun! While I can’t say that I enjoy producing, it is a means to an end to get my work seen and heard. I write about unrequited love, raw emotions and flawed, relatable characters who chase after their dreams and make a lot of mistakes.

On March 28th, I will be starring in my original play, “Aftershocks,” at Theater for the New City, for a 3 week run. It is all thanks to crowdfunding efforts and is a 90 minute psychological thrill ride that deals with the latent effects of childhood trauma in adult relationships. Other projects in the works include “The Impatiens,” a folk rock musical which focuses on the 20 year reunion of a band that had a falling out and hasn’t spoken in the years since, and “Merry-Go-Round,” a play about the vicious cyclical nature of narcissistic abuse.

I never worry how something is going to be received. I write what I know and what I feel, and if it happens to resonate with people, that’s just icing on the cake :) Besides, they say that success is the best revenge!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I know that it’s cliché and I know a lot of people had it much worse, but I can’t think of a better example of resiliency than being a freelancer and performer who made it through the pandemic. I didn’t have a remote job. I was a tour guide, a brand ambassador and an actor who lived paycheck to paycheck on live gigs and odd jobs. Every single one of those jobs disappeared. Broadway shut down for the longest time in history. Singing with other people was considered the most deadly thing you could do. I was a single woman alone in her one bedroom apartment in Queens for a year and half. Many people said, “Think of all the time you have to write!” I couldn’t write. Inspiration stems from life experiences, relationships, unexpected moments out in the world. Staring at my walls did not breed inspiration. And what was the point of writing anything if there was no hope of it being produced? Live theater no longer EXISTED. My livelihood. My passion. My REASON- was gone. Indefinitely. I slept all day and stayed up all night. I drank a lot. I cried a lot. I went on anti-depressants. I dropped down to 104 lbs. I didn’t want to be here anymore. I watched as so many people “pivoted” their careers. Fellow actors moved away, went back to school, trained for entirely new professions. I thought long and hard about what I could pivot to. The answer was: Nothing. It didn’t matter how long I had to wait. There was no giving up on performing and creating art. I knew it at 7 years old and I knew it now.

So I stuck it out. I eventually got to do that Off-Broadway show. I fell in love again when I didn’t think it was possible. (It’s not reciprocated, but it’s a start!) And soon I get to star in my own play in the East Village in NYC, embodying a story about trauma and healing. I’m still here for a reason and I plan to sing and dance and put art out into the world for as long as I can. “I’m gonna spend my time this way.”

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

Writer’s Groups! Many writers starting out might send their drafts to trusted colleagues to read and offer feedback, but hearing the work read out loud by actors is an invaluable experience.

The only reason I was able to finish “Siren’s Den” was because of R.C. Staab’s writing group. This was a weekly group that met in person to present chunks of new works in progress. We would read the scripts aloud, then offer up constructive feedback. After every session, not only was I inspired by the other works, but I had a clear direction for rewrites and tweaks on my own pieces. It was also a great networking opportunity; Playwrights would often invite me to perform roles in their workshops and festivals because they liked how I read a part in the group; I invited members to be on my creative teams; We would donate to each others projects when possible and offer our support from the audience when a script made it into production.

There are plenty of expensive playwriting classes that offer the same opportunity, but these groups needn’t cost money! I started my own virtual writer’s group during the pandemic, free of charge. The bottom line is accountability. Art is not made in a vacuum.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sirensdenthemusical.com, www.rorinogee.com
• Instagram: @roareen, @sirensdenmusical, @aftershocks_play
• Other: Sneak peek of a song from “The Impatiens”- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VecRh_WsSSQ

Image Credits
Main Headshot Image: Photo by Michael Hull Image 3. Photo by Greg Callan (Siren’s Den) Image 4. Photo by Greg Callan (Aftershocks)