One Night Only!

SUNDAY, JULY 21st at 6:00pm
at the 6th Street Playhouse
Free/Donations accepted. No reservation required.

Reporter Girl is Laura Rohrman’s full-length play about cartoonist Dale Messick, who created of the famous cartoon strip Brenda Starr Reporter in 1940. Directed by BRONWEN SHEARS the play is a is a sexy re-imagining of Messick’s life in the 1940’s just as her career was taking off.

Dale Messick was born in South Bend Indiana in 1906, and made her way to New York City working as a greeting card artist in the early 1930’s. In April 1940, she gained major success when her cartoon strip Brenda Starr Reporter won a contest in the Daily News and launched her long cartooning career. The strip was very popular and ran for 71 years and only just ended in 2011. Dale Messick wrote and drew the strip for 40 years, retiring in 1980 when she moved to Santa Rosa, CA to be near her daughter and two grandchildren, Laura “Noni” Rohrman — the playwright — and her grandson Curt and their mother, Starr Rohrman (Dale’s only child). She lived mostly in Oakmont, CA, and was a colorful character in the area, often sketching people wherever she went. She passed away after a long illness in 2005, just shy of 98.

Dale Messick is credited with being the first female syndicated cartoonist in the world. At its height of popularity, Brenda Starr Reporter was syndicated in over 250 newspapers worldwide and in 1945 Brenda Starr got a full-color Sunday page. In 1977 Brenda Starr’s wedding to long-time love Basil St. John was celebrated worldwide.


6th Street Playhouse
52 W. 6th Street
Santa Rosa, CA 95401
Phone: (707) 523-4185 (24-hour voice mail)

[ Map ]

Questions? Find out more here
6th Street Playhouse in connection with The Redwood Writers presents A Staged Reading Of "Reporter Girl" — a play about Dale Messick and Brenda Starr Reporter by Laura Rohrman
Reporter Girl

 
 

February 3rd, 2012 at 8PM.

Laura Rohrman is thrilled to be a part in Piper McKenzie's Dainty Cadaver this year! She is in Team A, which performs Fri., Feb 3rd @8pm at The Brick in Brooklyn.

Piper McKenzie's Dainty Cadaver is an Exquisite Corpse-style playmaking project in which multiple playwrights collaborare on a single work without knowing what the hell the others are doing. Each writer reads the previous scene, writes a new scene and passes it on to the next writer - who doesn't see any of what came earlier. Beautiful madness ensues. After a sold-out run in 2011, Piper McKenzie returns with one-night-only performances of three completely new plays written in this unique collaborative style, with results ranging from inspired chaos to eerie synchronicity – all tied together by the unique voices of 18 hot playwrights, to be staged by three intrepid directors!

Brick Theater
575 Metropolitan Avenue
between Union Avenue and Lorimer Street
Brooklyn, NY
[ Map ]

Questions? Find out more here
Piper McKenzie's Dainty Cadaver is an Exquisite Corpse-style playmaking project
Piper McKenzie's Dainty Cadaver

 
 
December 15th-18th at 8PM 2011 as part of the
Looking Glass Theatre's Writer/Director Forum.

HE SAYS HIS NAME IS JOHN is a frightening tale of young doctor who faces an all too familiar enemy.

Written by Laura Rohrman
Directed by Ashley Marie Scoles
With:
Caitlin Morris, Hazen Cuyler and Josiah Laubenstein

For more information/tickets check out the Looking Glass Theatre's Website at www.lookingglasstheatrenyc.com

422 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
(212) 307-9467


Questions? Contact us at: nonirohr@gmail.com
He Says His Name Is John will be presented in an evening with three other one-acts written and directed by women.
He Says His Name Is John

 
 
Performances: Friday, June 3rd at 8:45 pm;
Sunday, June 5th at 4:00 pm;
and Sunday, June 12 at 8:00 pm

Reporter Girl is Laura Rohrman’s full-length play about the first female syndicated cartoonist Dale Messick, who created the famous cartoon strip Brenda Starr Reporter in 1940.  Directed by Erica Gould (world premiere of Neil LaBute’s autobahn), the play weaves together a narrative spanning four decades of real family history, actual cartoon strip plot-lines and characters and fantasy to paint a vivid portrait of a creator, a woman and a mother.

Reporter Girl starts out with a sexy re-imagining of Dale’s life in the 1940’s just as her career was taking off and follows her through the decades as she broke through countless barriers and paved the way not just for other female cartoonists who followed her, but also for women in all professions around the world. Brenda Starr -- her sexy heroine -- was a woman in her own right who didn’t live by the rules society imposed on women in the 40s and 50s when the majority of women stayed at home, balancing the family and the kids while their husbands went on conquering the world.  

Yet this trailblazing came at a steep price. Reporter Girl examines what creativity and mold-breaking meant for Dale and her own family, her daughter and granddaughter, and what she may have given up to get what she always wanted. Love, betrayal, misogyny, the blurring of the line between fantasy and reality -- this play has it all.

Reporter Girl is a Weissberger Award nominee, a Princess Grace and O’Neil Finalist among other award and citations. Laura Rohrman, the playwright, is the maternal granddaughter of Dale Messick.

Reporter Girl will perform Friday, June 3rd at 8:45pm; Sunday, June 5th at 4:00pm and Sunday, June 12th at 8:00pm as part of The Comic Book Theater Festival at The Brick Theater.

Tickets ($10) may be purchased online at www.bricktheater.com or by calling 866-811-4111.   

Brick Theater
575 Metropolitan Avenue
between Union Avenue and Lorimer Street
Brooklyn, NY
[ Map ]

Questions? Contact me at: nonirohr@gmail.com
The Waverly Writers Collective Present a workshop of Reporter Girl as part of The Comic Book Theater Festival, June 2 – July 1, 2011 at the Brick Theater (575 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn)
Reporter Girl
Brenda Starr image ©Tribune Media Services, Inc.


 
 
8:00 PM, November 10th, 2010
THE WAVERLY WRITERS COLLECTIVE is pleased to announce its upcoming production of “A DELIGHTFUL NIGHT OF SOCIAL ROMANCE” — an evening of short plays presented as staged readings with some songs written by its members. The theme is celebrating the holidays with a twist.

“A DELIGHTFUL NIGHT OF SOCIAL ROMANCE” includes staged readings of two new one-act comedies by Laura Rohrman and one new one-act play written by Aurin Squire. Two new songs will also be presented, including “The Face Book” song written and performed by SARA ADLER.

In Laura Rohrman’s “Geisha School” directed by LI MURILLO, girls go wild online and off when studying to be Geishas in New York City.

“Cyberia” By Aurin Squire, directed by BRIAN HANSCOM goes into the deep blue mist of e-love, e-trade, and e-scape.

Laura Rohrman’s “How Don Draper Saved Christmas,” directed by MICHELLE PACE, might remind you of why you love Mad Men and Santa.

The performances are free. Manhattan Theatre Source suggests a donation of $10.00. For reservations please call 866-811-4111. 

Manhattan Theatre Source
177 MacDougal Street, corner 8th street
New York, NY


http://theatresource.org/now_playing.php

Questions? Contact us at: nonirohr@gmail.com
The Waverly Writers Collective To Present A Delightful Night Of
Social Romance
— a benefit for Manhattan Theatre Source
A Delightful Night Of Social Romance

 
 
6:00PM, Friday October 8th, 2010
HOBOKEN is a dark, psychological love story about Erica, a lost actress on the wrong track and Jack, an Irish immigrant with some very dark secrets. The play travels on many levels — addiction, love, dependency — and is both funny and scary. This is a play about needing people to hold us together, no matter what they do to us in return.

RSVP at
nonirohr@gmail.com

The Dramatist Guild of America
The Frederick Loewe Room
1501 Broadway , Suite 701
New York, NY



Questions? Contact us at: nonirohr@gmail.com
The Dramatist Guild's Friday Night Footlight Series
a reading of Hoboken by Laura Rohrman
Femme Feast

 
 
May 10th, 11th and 12th, 2009
Waverly Writers & Wanderlust Productions with the Playground Development Series at Manhttan Theatre Source are pleased to announce the upcoming production of “FEMME FEAST”, a veritable feast of women playwrights, directors and actors, dancers, and musicians.

Performances are:
May 10th at 3:00 pm, and May 11th and 12th at 8:00 pm.
All tickets are $15.

For reservations please call
Ovation tix at: (212) 501.4751 or
order online: Order tickets

The Manhattan Theatre Source is located at
177 MacDougal Street,
between 8th Street and Waverly Place.


“FEMME FEAST” includes six new theatre pieces by women writers. In LACONIA KOERNER'S “TRUTH OR DARE”, directed by KATIE CARTER, two women consider labels and attraction during a seductive game of truth or dare. Women with surprising secret identities discuss marriage in LAURA ROHRMAN'S hilarious “MONSTERS BALL”, directed by MICHELE PACE. Playwright BEKAH BRUNSTETTER takes the audience on a train ride of her quarter-life crisis in “CONNECTICUT”, directed by MICHELLE BOSSY. Sisters contemplate a trip the zoo in “PANDA”, written by LISA EBERSOLE and directed by MICHELLE BOSSY. In “SENSES”, written and directed by LARA GOLD, two women deal with loss and remembrance with a pair of contrasting monologues. Writer and performer KEISHA ZOLLAR presents her whacky, original take on Martha Stewart with her very own “MARFA STUART SHOW”, directed by LARA GOLD, a ghetto way to get food in your tummy. Included with these theatre pieces will be a dramatic Butoh dance by STACEY LYNN, as well as musical guests Nikki and Irena.

Questions? Visit nonirohr@gmail.com


Waverly Writers & Wanderlust Productions Present “Femme Feast”
Femme Feast
June 4th-7th, 2009
"Without" a 2004 Samuel French Finalist will be presented as part of the Looking Glass Theatre's Writer/Director Forum June 4th-7th 2009.

422 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
(between 9th and 10th Avenues)
(212) 307-9467
For more info, visit The Looking Glass Theater website


Questions? Visit nonirohr@gmail.com
Looking Glass Theatre's Writer/Director Forum
Without postcard