The Italian in Me - Dina Morrone

Ciao a tutti,

I am going to dedicate this entire post to a one woman show I had the pleasure of seeing as part of a special presentation at the Italian Cultural Institute organized under the auspices of the Honorable Diego Brasioli, Consul General of Italy in Los Angeles, and Lingua Viva

The show is "The Italian in Me," written and performed by Dina Morrone, an Italian-Canadian I had the pleasure to meet just a month or so ago. At the time she tried to describe to me what her show was about but we concluded that I just had to see it to understand what she meant, because she promised it was nothing like any shows I have ever seen.

The opportunity finally came and she invited me to this special showing which included a catered Italian dinner after the show catered by Ms. Barbera. Well, the publicity reads that the show is of one woman's "accelerated, full immersion Italian lesson about Cinema, Sex and Saints," and the show lives up to its own publicity.

"The Italian in Me" follows a doe eyed aspiring actress as she leaves her overbearing, old fashioned Italian grandmother in Canada and moves to Rome in search of "La Dolce Vita." She quickly learns the that Eternal City is "Holy" or as romantic as she imagined.

As she pursues her Roman dream, everyday becomes a sexual obstacle course filled with perverts, priests and pinches until - when all seems lost - she meets the "Maestro," Federico Fellini at Cinecitta Studios, and this chance meeting will forever change her life.

A semi-biographical story, Dina takes the audience through the humor, the perversion, the hopes, lies, successes and "failures," all the while showing her abilities as an actress to not only play her parts but those of the other "characters" in her story, including the "Maestro" himself.

It is indeed an adult show, not only in content and language, but in spirit, dealing with real issues in a way that was realistically and matter-of-factly presented, leaving the audience to ponder and make their own conclusions about the story presented, as worthwhile art often does.

It was thought provoking, interesting, funny and sad all at once, and not to mention entertaining in many ways, including watching Dina change characters, or even, modestly change costumes, right in front of us, or behind a screen, thus activating the imagination even more.

As you can see from the pictures above, the stars came out to see Dina. Above is a picture of two lovelies, on the left, film actress and TV host Brigitte Nielsen and on the right, the star of the evening Dina Morrone. Just below that a picture with Brazilian-Italian singer, author and television personality Bianca Rossini, Dina and myself.

Below that is a Italian Film Director Gabriele Iacovone who proudly sported his Sicilian made Birrettu. Gabriele happened to be here having meetings with Producers about his next project.

Directly above is a picture of la Neilson, the Consul General of Italy, Diego Barsioli, Dina, and myself.

Just as I was enjoying the company I was keeping, I had to trade places with the "photographer" of this picture and let him shine. This man gets to shine lots however without my help since he is one of Hollywood's most sought after Film Editors and Producers with films like "Pirates of the Carribean," under his belt. Need I say more? It's Stephen Rivkin next to Neilson, Brasioli, and Morrone, below.

Finally, below is one last picture. And with that I say, brava Dina and I look forward to seeing your show again when you do your next run in Los Angeles before you take it on tour across the US and Canada.

And speaking of Canada, I know you are off to visit family for the Holidays in the great Country to our North, so Buon Natale e felice ritorno.


Filippo

P.S. And speaking of experiences in Italy, here is a montage of rarely seen videos and photo clips of the Supremes singing with an accompanying sound track of them singing "You Keep Me Hanging On," in Italian.

Who knew? I bet you didn't, and neither did I!