PROJECTS
74 Corridor
74 Corridor is a performance memoir by acclaimed songwriter Jean Rohe. Through the windows of a secret, time-bending #74 New Jersey Transit bus, all layers of historic time are visible simultaneously. Jean brings her band and audience on a bus tour of her late father's life in the cities that shaped him, from Paterson to Newark, all the while collecting evidence that he was more than the only written record he left behind: a pile of letters he sent his friend from prison after a wrongful conviction in 1974.
The show consists of 14 songs and interstitial improvisations, plus spoken text and a collaged “bus schedule” and map for the audience/”passengers." While Jean’s highly crafted songwriting is the musical centerpiece, she has also created improvisational structures that allow her bandmates’ expansive musicianship to take center stage, evoking motion, time, and spontaneous excitement alongside her narration. There are several opportunities for audience members to join in the singing. Jean’s own field recordings from the #74 bus form the basis for some of the songs. Full concert video available upon request.
74 Corridor's development process has received support from the Brooklyn Arts Council and Ars Nova. Future plans include a fully staged production and a studio album of the songs from the show, which can serve as a musical audio tour for listeners aboard a southbound #74.
74 Corridor live at Ars Nova
The Odysseus Agreement
The Odysseus Agreement is an in-progress performance memoir in song that tells the story of a young woman on a single-minded quest to learn about the life and tragic death of her grandmother and namesake. Does sharing a name and genetic inheritance also mean sharing a horrifying demise? In an attempt to find out, she needs to learn the truth about her mythical, mysterious forebear. Her trials send her to the bottom of a swimming pool, through the municipal offices of Northern New Jersey, to Fort Lauderdale, and down to The Underworld. She dodges sea monsters, whirlpools, and Lotus-eaters, makes futile offerings to the gods, and does battle with the Siren voices in her midst in order to find her way home.
The Odysseus Agreement has received development support from The Johnny Mercer Foundation, the Goodspeed Writers Colony, MacDowell, and The PiTCH at the Finger Lakes Theater Festival, with work-in-progress performances at Joe's Pub, National Sawdust and 54 Below.
Songs from The Odysseus Agreement live at Joe's Pub
Robinson & Rohe
American songwriters Liam Robinson (banjo, accordion, vocals) and Jean Rohe (guitar, vocals) were brought together over fifteen years ago by their mutual love of afternoon song-swaps, American folk ballads, and wordplay. Since then, they’ve written a distinctive body of original repertoire that draws on the roots music they hold dear, and engages their versatile musical and literary sensibilities as arrangers, improvisers, poets, and producers. With the release of a cinematic collection of new songs, Into the Night, on Righteous Babe Records, the duo brings us “all the vibes I love about folk music — well-crafted songs written from the heart and played with the hands, harmonies that lift the spirit — but it also features a sophistication of arrangement and production.” - Ani DiFranco
Since the release of their debut record, Hunger, in 2017, Robinson & Rohe have taken their music all over the US, Europe, UK, and Ireland, lighting up venerable folk venues and festivals from Club Passim to The Green Note and opening for Tom Paxton and Anaïs Mitchell along the way.
