Interview with Brooke Berman "There's More to It Than Kegels"

I’ve known Brooke Berman since she was a first-year at Barnard College. This was soooo long ago that, at our women’s college, she was referred to as a “freshman.” Gotta admit, it still feels less clunky to say than “first-year.” Ah, but I’m showing my cranky vieja side….

Now. Brooke has a vibrant Substack called Ramona at Midlife, sharing a name with her feature film, available to stream on Amazon Prime. Brooke cultivates and supports the creative pursuits of women across genres through her workshops, her Substack, and her own writing and directing.

Here’s a taste of our conversation:

“BB: Tell our readers about your background. How did you become a writer and performer?

AV: I think in some sense, I’ve always been a performer, but growing up, I was taught to tamp that part of myself down in favor of the more “success-ensuring” pursuit of academics. I wrote a lot of poetry as a mopey teen and college student and got some small recognition for it, even considering graduate school in poetry. I also did some singer-songwriter stuff after college, opening for bands in my hometown of Portland, Oregon, and then, when I moved back to New York City for grad school in film, I performed at coffee houses in the East Village and the now-defunct CBGB Gallery [Editor’s note: RIP CB’s Gallery! We loved you! My friend Jen Dollard used to perform there on the regular, and it was always a joy.]

During film school, we had to take a class called “Acting for Directors,” to make sure we wouldn’t mistreat the talent, and I loved it. A few people started casting me in their work. Though people told me not to, I cast myself in my thesis short and ended up winning an acting award for it—a real surprise. I finally started to acknowledge and embrace my love of performing.

After film school, I was hired to adapt a YA novel into a screenplay. On the strength of that, I moved to LA in search of similar work and ended up selling a pitch to a major studio for a teen musical comedy when I was about 6 months pregnant. I also studied at The Groundlings in Los Angeles.” Click HERE to read the rest of our conversation!