Strange with Cinematographer and First A.D.


Strange with Soupy

Strange with A. Shropshire

ARALEE STRANGE has extensive experience in production and post-production, having worked on feature films, documentaries, television movies, and commercials based in Atlanta and New York. Strange began her career in the film industry as apprentice editor to documentarian John Marshall in the early 70's. She went on to work for 12 years on such films as Smokey and The Bandit, ABC-TV's Johnny Cash and The Great American Train Story, and independent features such as Merchant Ivory's Roseland. In 1981, Strange received a MacDowell Colony Writer's Fellowship and left film to write full-time.

Moving to Cincinnati in 1985, Strange soon won acclaim for her poetry and dramatic writing. The radio drama, ETTA STONE: A Film for Radio, which Strange wrote, produced and edited, was broadcast nationally on NPR in 1990 and included in WGBH Boston's Arts and Ideas Series in 1991. dr. pain on main, a play incorporating poems about life in the inner city, was produced by The Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park's Intern Company in 1991; the Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati produced her next play, The Chronicles of Plague, in 1992. This play included the all-woman Cirkus Nefarious, and achieved great regional popularity.

In 1995 Strange wrote and directed An Evening at The Sad Cafe, a series of theatrical performances including selected dramatized scenes from THIS TRAIN's screenplay as well as original music and poetry. In early 1997, she produced and directed Mix It Up! Cincinnati Women in Performance, a showcase of diverse and challenging work including poetry, music, performance art, and storytelling at Gabriel's Corner in downtown Cincinnati. She pioneered two regional open poetry readings and organized a number of performance poetry events.

Strange participates in Ohio's Artist-in-Education program and has conducted poetry and film-writing workshops in Cincinnati and the Appalachian region of Ohio where she now lives. In support of her previous work, Strange has been awarded grants and fellowships from a number of arts organizations and foundations including The City of Cincinnati, Cincinnati Fine Arts Fund, The Ohio Arts Council, and The Kentucky Foundation for Women.