Rose McAleese is a writer and storyteller.

“I’m Nora Ephron if Nora Ephron listened to Kendrick Lamar.”

Rose has a quick wit and a sparkling personality.

“I’ve been a writer all my life. I did poetry then (music) journalism and then screenwriting. So obviously I like jobs that don’t pay!”

She wrote and published a book of poetry called Strong. Female. Character. She has written for BET’s The Quad. She has been through the Universal Pictures Emerging Writers Fellowship program where she worked with mentors, wrote punchlines and gave notes on scripts.

“And I just became a playwright!”

There is a clarity, rhythm and mischievousness to the way Rose speaks, and it’s mixed with deep awareness, compassion and humor.

Her first play was recently performed, and it is titled A Phrasal, Likewise Me. It’s a cool name. Clever too. It’s an anagram. Think about that. And I’ll tell you the answer later.

“I’ve had my words said in a TV show that I’ve written for… and short films. But in theater,  it’s just completely different.

“There’s this magic … ‘on this Saturday we’re all gonna witness something great together and all we can do is try to, you know, describe it to people before it slips away.’”

Rose says her play is a Shakespearean mixed tape.

To remake or remix something requires knowledge and insight into the original thing. In this case: Shakespeare. Rose — raised in Seattle — says she has slept through more Shakespeare plays than most people have seen. (There is a Nora Ephron Sleepless in Seattle reference I should insert here, but I can’t think of one.)  Sitting in the audience to watch her own play A Phrasal, Likewise Me come to life in Los Angeles, however, Rose was wide awake, nervous, excited. 

“It was a series of monologues that were written from the point of view of characters in Shakespeare that Shakespeare writes about, but doesn’t give lines to. For instance, in Romeo and Juliet, the girlfriend before Juliet is Rosaline. Rosaline gets mentioned seven times in the play.

“So I kind of gave Rosaline a speech towards the end of the play. She finally gets to talk. She talks about how Romeo wasn’t really her dude, but she might be jealous, but like, it’s fine.

“So that was one of the monologues. Another one was Miranda’s mom from The Tempest. Obviously Miranda had to have a mother. The mother character never has a name. Her opening line is, ‘I never had a name in any of these stories.’ So it’s from her perspective.

“I feel like every writer has the first storyteller that sparks their imagination. And for me it was Shakespeare. My mother read everything to me, explained to me that if you don’t understand it, that’s the beauty of it. It’s poetry. It’s always up to interpretation.

“When I was 11 or 12, the Seattle Shakespeare Company had a summer camp called Camp Bill. We just put on plays. So I’ve played Romeo, I’ve played  Juliet, I’ve played Puck, which was my favorite. I love Puck because Puck is the quietest meddler.”

The Trouble With Words

To re-imagine the work of her earliest inspiration required empathy, interpretation and imagination. But it also required a great handle on language, and in Rose’s earliest years of childhood, words on paper and the order of the letters…puzzled her.

“I used to be very embarrassed by it, because when they tested me for dyslexia, I was a seventh grader with a reading level of a third grader. But I had an immense vocabulary. I knew what words meant.  I just couldn’t spell the words.

“That’s why I got into spoken word poetry — because no one sees your writing. It was really calming to be like, ‘Oh, I just have to memorize it.’ Memorization comes easy. Most people who have dyslexia or a reading disability have a superpower to do something else.

“I didn’t think I could be a writer if I was dyslexic. I mean, literally, ‘you want to work with words, but you can’t even read.’ But then I got the right resources, had the right mentors, had a really loving family that supported me. And then was introduced to this world that didn’t require actually anyone reading my jumbled up letters or words.”

Once you’ve seen Rose perform spoken word (Google search), you will see what a huge talent she possesses. Her delivery has a powerful cadence.

“Everything is a poem,” she says. “Everything has rhythm. Everything’s a song.”

Diversity in the Writers’ Room

Our personal pasts have a rhythm, a song…. once we choose to see our individuality as something magical. Because we are all unique, a variety of voices are needed to bring drama or comedy to life on screen. All of our favorite scripted TV shows have writers’ rooms. Those writers tell the stories we see.

“I was taught this in the spoken word poetry community: Every single human being has about 10,000 poems that live inside of them. Maybe sometimes you and me might have similar poems. We would write them completely different. You and me might have similar life experiences, but we saw them from a different POV.

“Diversity is important because that’s the natural thing. It just sparks a whole new point of view.

“It’s really important to have people that don’t look like you and don’t sound like you and don’t come from the same city as you to really bring that heavy texture and layers that we need in storytelling.

“I grew up thankfully with a lot of amazing programs that taught me media literacy when I was really young. I was part of a group called Powerful Voices, and they have this program called Girls Rap where we basically went into middle schools and high schools and we learned media literacy. We learned how important ads in magazines are to be, like, ‘What is this telling you? What’s the truth of the matter?’ Like, you don’t have to be skinny. You don’t have to be fair skinned. That is important.”

Rose is a huge fan of Insecure on HBO and Issa Rae.

“Everyone watches TV. Everyone watches film. So you have to have diverse voices to really make these stories sound authentic, to really have this point of view come through where it’s like, no, this exists.

“Being a white woman, my diversity lies in the fact that I’m a woman. But being white in America, that is a privilege. And understanding your white privilege is really important. But then on top of that, I didn’t really grow up rich, you know? And so class was a huge theme in my life.”

Class & Character

Rose is taken back to her childhood in Seattle.  “I guess I didn’t realize that growing up in a bar gave me character.”

Rose’s grandparents own Kells Irish Restaurant & Pub.

“When I was little, my dad was a bartender and even managed the restaurant with his family. My sister and I, we just grew up there.  No wonder I became a storyteller. I was in a bar! It’s music meets oral history.”

Career Path of a Storyteller

“If anyone’s gone into my apartment, they enter it and they go, ‘Oh! This must be what the inside of your brain looks like.’ Because there’s Post-it Notes everywhere. It’s really random and eclectic, and there’s twinkle lights constantly. My dad says, ‘Life is a matter of lighting.’”

There are two quotes that for Rose are guiding principles.

“One, on the fridge, is the Jimmy Breslin quote: ‘Go ask the gravedigger.’”

That is in reference to It’s An Honor, the extraordinary article written by Breslin that highlighted the perspective of the last man to serve President John F. Kennedy: the man who dug his grave at Arlington National Cemetery, Clifton Pollard. The message: See what others are doing, and don’t do that. Do something else. Be original.

“And then the second one, because I love Kendrick Lamar, is: ‘Careers take off. Just gotta be patient.’”

Rose makes it clear that it is quite literally a ‘note to self.’

And it reminds me of a quote I read in Busy Philipps’ book This Will Only Hurt A Little which is similar and applicable to all of us: ‘Be grateful in that waiting room.’ And in that writers’ room. And in that room of your own soul.

Which brings me back to the beautiful juxtaposition of Rose and Shakespeare.

William Shakespeare (whose language perplexed many of us) threw off convention to craft his own bedazzled words and phrases, and he utilized language to his pleasing. And to the benefit of those who are inspired by it. And not unlike her earliest inspiration, Rose McAleese found her own brand of true expression when she was bold enough to unravel the complexity of words so she too could utilize language to her pleasing. And to the benefit of those who are inspired by it.

A Phrasal, Likewise Me is William Shakespeare through Rose-colored glasses.

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Follow Rose:  Instagram: @rose_ettastone  Website: http://www.rosemcaleese.com