The Conversationalists

James Harrison Monaco and Jerome Ellis

The Conversationalists is a movie James and Jerome have written together, but which the audience never sees. Rather, the film is passionately described for the audience, shot by shot, by the performers, while a chamber ensemble on stage plays the acoustic and electronic score live. In this way, the spectacle of the movie occurs in the minds of the audience members. That "movie" itself is an international melodrama about the triangular friendship (and sometimes enemyship) between a Colombian-born Mexican-raised pop-ranchera star, her teenage son, and a Palestinian-born Jordanian-raised owner of a chess shop in Greenwich Village. The Conversationalists is experienced at once as a theater piece, a concert, a sort of radio play, a night of storytelling, and a movie dreamed together.

World Premiere Run Date: November 7 – 9, 2019

Performed by James Harrison Monaco, Jerome Ellis, Michelle J. Rodriguez, Delaney Stockli, and John Murchison
Written and Composed by James & Jerome (James Harrison Monaco and Jerome Ellis)
Directed by Annie Tippe
Additional music by Michelle J. Rodriguez, Delaney Stockli, and John Murchison
Lighting Design by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew
Stage Management by Kelly Kirby