ENCORE FOR 'HOW ALFO LEARNED TO LOVE WOMEN'

Robert Funaro



New York – After eight preview performances of Vincent Amelio’s ‘How Alfo Learned To Love Women,’ it has been announced that there will be an encore performance on Thursday, November 6.



After the final preview performance this past Saturday night at the National Opera Center in NYC, Amelio said that he’s reached a new sweet spot in his play. “After two weeks of tweaking the script, I think the play is at its optimum performance. Our last two shows we had people literally stacked up at the rear of the theater.”



Directed by Sopranos-actor Robert Funaro, the two-act affair has elicited a bevy of positive notices, including Times Square Gossip which said, “Amelio and Funaro have fashioned a terrific cast for this cleverly-written play (Armen Garo, Christian Thom, Danielle Guldin, Kelli K. Barnett, Gordon Silva) and, Funaro has lovingly and beautifully-directed this presentation, where some of the actors even speak from the floor before arriving on stage. We caught their last performance before their-hiatus and absolutely loved it; definitely coming from Woody Allen-land with scintillating dialogue and a universal theme almost everyone can relate to, we felt it clicked immediately. Gordon Silva as the father was terrific; channeling the best of Jackie Gleason; and, Armen Garo (a big Sorsese-favorite) just off the charts.”




Amelio says his tweaking was a combination of the cast’s and Funaro’s input. Says Amelio, “The cast was so supportive and involved every step of the way that their input was invaluable. The more we performed the play, the more we realized how to enhance certain scenes. There’s a scene in act one where Alfo (Christian Thom) is shaving and is interrupted by Gianna (Danielle Guldin). It’s a crucial scene as it telegraphs the developing passion between these two characters; and, the resolution is how the second act unfolds. I actually made the scene a bit longer because there is just so much emotion. It’s the key to the whole play.”



Adds Funaro, “I was inspired do direct Alfo by the Italian film director Frederico Fellini's film Amarcord. Alfo will make you laugh and cry which all great theater does. It's a universal theme which resonates throughout time of the passing on of one family’s legacy to the next generation. Yet more importantly without someone to love Alfo realizes he has nothing to live for.”





Comments