Prema Rose is a Hollywood screenwriter and acclaimed storyteller known for her deep spiritual insights and creative vision. With a distinguished career that spans Broadway and film, Rose has channeled her extensive experience into crafting The MicroCosmic Cartoon Show, an animated musical that addresses crucial issues of teen identity and resilience.
We spoke with Prema about her career, her diverse background, and the motivation behind creating The MicroCosmic Cartoon Show.
Thanks for taking the time to speak with us.
Oh, I’m so happy to.
I’d like to start by talking a little bit about your background. You grew up in New York. Can you talk about how you got into performing?
My parents were in the theater, so I grew up with all the musicals that were going on all the time.
What did your career look like early on?
Well, I started with the American School of Ballet when I was seven and I just wanted to dance. I found acting when I was about 10. I went to the King-Coit School, which was also for dance, ballet, and art. And I just took off from there. We did an off-Broadway show every year. So, we got to go from school for a week to play. Then when I was 14, I started summer stock, just peripherally, not doing too much, little part here, little part there.
Then when I was 17, I got into the American Shakespeare Festival Junior Company, and from there, it was just onward, summer stock in the summer and boarding school in the winter. I graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and got into the best company in the United States, which was the National Repertory Theater. From there, I went to Broadway, film, and TV. I was with the National Theater of Canada in Stratford, Ontario. I worked a lot. I did five Broadway shows, regional theater and then my spiritual life took over. Eclipsed everything. I had a near-death experience that changed the trajectory of my life
I wanted to ask you about that if that’s something you don’t mind talking about.
I don’t at all. No, not at all, because I learned so much through that. First of all, I learned there’s no such thing as death. We just move into a different realm. And I met a very large being of light during this. I won’t go into all the details of how that progressed to that point. But I passed through. I passed through the tunnel, passed through the light, and I was in this incredibly beautiful space. This being of light came to me and held out a hand and said, “I’m going to take you to God,” and I knew if I did, I wouldn’t come back.
But I knew in that instant that I had something that I had to do here with my husband, Hugh, and I said, “No, not yet.” And instantly, I was back in my body. I woke Hugh up and said, “You wouldn’t believe what just happened.”
Both of us were in rehearsal for a Broadway play. We went up to Detroit to do pre-Broadway tryouts, and on Christmas Eve, the beginning of the Microcosmic Cartoon Show started to press through into our consciousness and we began writing the first draft.
We took it to his brother, who’s an artist and a printer, showed it to him and said, “Will you help us put this together? He said, “Well, I’m going back to Ibiza,” where he lived, and we said, “We’ll follow you.” So we went back to New York, the show opened and closed, we packed up everything and moved to Ibiza.
I opened a little art gallery in Ibiza called the Microcosmic Cartoon Shop, because I’m an artist as well. We had been looking for the school of higher learning, because the book that changed our l
ives was “In Search of the Miraculous” by Ouspensky, about his work with George Gurdjieff. Eventually, we found the school in England. So after a couple of years in Spain, we moved up to England to go to this Sufi monastery school for a year. During this time, I knew that I was to have a baby in Auroville, India, which is a community devoted to children. I got pregnant on the way in Greece and had my baby in Auroville. It was so magical, so powerful. It was incredible.
In the back of my mind, I wanted to be a midwife. So, when we came back from India, our teacher in England had initiated a community in West Virginia and called for us to come back and start it. So, we said we would. We came back to the United States and lived there. We had a son in this community. Then, my husband and I split up. I had two children. I had to find a way to earn a living. I came out to Boulder, Colorado, and met a midwife right away and started working with her, apprenticing, and practiced midwifery for 25 years.
So, at what point did the project start up again?
It never stopped, really. Peripherally, I was still writing. Hugh pulled out of the whole thing, but I continued. I’ve won 14 awards now, and have been recognized by Dove, which is an achievement award where they put you on their roster for faith-based movies. So, I’ve just kept working on it. I have a very well-developed pitch deck with lots of elements in it. And I have been trying to find a co-producer because I can’t do everything myself.
Well, what you’ve done so far is extensive. You’ve recorded some of the songs, you’ve created the animatic and shot a love action scene. It seems like you’ve definitely laid the groundwork for sure. Can you give a little brief overview of the story?
Yes. The story is an invitation to delve deeply into the consciousness of who you are, who everyone is. It’s the journey of transformation through the Circus of Life. So, the animation portion is set in the circus. Now, it has the live-action part, which weaves through the animation. And that is his normal life with school and his parents and being bullied, etc. So, he has to bring in his incredible talent as an artist and his imagination, which is the whole animation part of the movie.
So, there are two kinds of juxtaposing ways of meeting the protagonist, Josh – in his real life, and how he’s able to filter imagination through into his real life to be able to create the life that he wants. He meets an old man who’s renovating a vintage theater, and he starts helping him do the artwork on the walls of the theater, the murals, and everything, and discovers the place in himself to be able to express through his art, which ties into the animation.
You’ve had some pretty diverse life experiences. How would you say that influenced your approach to storytelling?
Well, I see this whole thing as a movie. I mean, we are characters in our own movies. In this, he has to find out that he is able to create his movie the way he wants it to be in life, just the same as we all do. What is your movie going to look like? What choices are you making? And so, the different attractions in the circus represent and are teachings for how to make better choices in the challenges we meet throughout.
For instance, the struggle between power and greed that people come up against in their lives on some level, depending on the individual, and that’s done as a tango between Hot Mama and Dynamo, which is really fun. On the Ferris wheel, when they go way up high, they’re able to see the circus in a different light because it’s a different perspective. So it’s asking the people in the audience to bring your consciousness up to be able to see your life from a different perspective.
Why did you choose that medium of animation to portray The Circus of Life portion of the story?
Animation gives you unlimited possibilities of what you can do with characters and the fantasy world that you’re presenting. And the circus is immense. For instance, we have Nesha, the elephant in the circus, which corresponds to Ganesha, which is the aspect of the divine that is the remover of all difficulties in Hinduism.
Given your background, have you ever considered putting this on stage, or is the scope too large?
I think it’s too large because I want these layers, which can be done. I would love to have Julie Taymor direct it, who directed Frida and set Lion King for Broadway. That’s obviously a big wish.
What are you hoping teens will take away from this?
I want to be able to empower teens and tweens and young people and older people to be able to take on their responsibility as themselves. I am responsible for me. How am I going to play that out as my character of me in the story of my life? Every moment we have choices. How do we make the better choice? What prompts us? What diverts us through the circus? We’re diverted into all these other things, totally distracted in life with this, that, and the other thing.
As a midwife, having birthed over 860 babies, I’m committed to the young people coming in and progressing through their lives. So, what are the tools that they need to be able to make the choices to a higher way of thinking and being? Of course, they’re going to be confronted, as we all are, with challenges, but within those challenges, what is the inner strength that they will develop to be able to go on in life, and to be able to really fulfill their inner being with whatever they do. So, it gives tools to be able to do that through the lessons of the circus.
For more information about Prema Rose and The Microcosmic Cartoon Show, visit Prema’s website at premaroseproductions.com.