Sophia Romma

Romma has also written plays that have been produced as films. Her film "Poor Liza", which starred the Academy Award winning actress Lee Grant and the Drama Desk award winner Ben Gazzara, won first prize for screenwriting and was best original film at the St. Petersburg Literature in Film Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia. Her 2021 film "Used and Borrowed Time" has won awards at multiple domestic and international film festivals.

Romma is the author of 14 off-Broadway plays, and her theater productions have been staged at theaters around the world. At the legendary New York experimental theater La MaMa, three of her plays were staged: In the Eyes of Hope (1997), Coyote Take Me There, Coyote! (1999) and Defenses of Prague (2004). Three of her plays have been reviewed by the New York Times: Sickle, two, one act plays (With Aaron's Arms Around Me and The Mire), and The Past is Still Ahead. In 2007, The Village Voice reviewed her play Absolute Clarity.

Dr. Romma was born in Moscow and emigrated with her parents to the United States in 1979. Professor Romma is of Romani, Romanian and Ukrainian ancestry. She earned a Bachelor in Fine Arts (1995) and a Master's in Fine Arts (1997) from New York University. In 2005, Romma received her Honorary Doctorate Degree in Philology (majoring in 19th Century Russian Literature) with a Minor in French and Slavic languages from the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute. In 2017, Romma graduated from Fordham University School of Law and received her Master of Laws. Romma was the Literary Manager of the Negro Ensemble Company and worked closely on theatre productions with Charles Weldon and Leslie Lee.