Storytelling Built Humanity. Beks Roen Explains How.

Beks Roen has been reading since they were eighteen months old. Grew up the kid of a pastor. Got baptized in front of a couple thousand people and smacked the bishop across the face on the way out. None of that explains why total strangers, after watching Beks play Romeo in a New Hampshire forest this summer, kept telling them the same thing afterward: this felt different. In this episode, actor, playwright, and stage combat teacher Beks Roen joins me to talk about the one idea that has shaped every part of their life: story. Not the polished, realistic kind. The true kind, and the two are not the same thing. We get into what separates those on a stage, and in your own head, how Shakespeare's most famous lover turns out to be a kid who has no idea what love actually is, and why a ritual Beks's family built to survive its hardest years is still how they find real joy today. We also get into a car accident, a house fire that taught Beks how to actually remember lines, and the one-word answer a kid in the audience gave during the balcony scene that still cracks Beks up. If you've ever wondered whether the story you're telling yourself is true, or just realistic, hit play. And read the piece that goes with it. robhunter.substack.com