By Bernie McAleer, Staff Reporter
In the mood to see a play? A new play with professional cast and crew, perhaps? The seats are great. The only catch is that it's off-Broadway -- off by a borough.
It is in the borough's Little Italy, Belmont to be exact. The borough's only professional theater, the Belmont Italian-American Playhouse shares a loft with a ribbon factory. It opens its fifth season on March 2 with the New York City premiere of "Son for Hire," a comedy about an estranged father and son.
"Instead of the Bronx in the mugger-and-thief light, there are actually people doing new plays," said Marco Greco, 28, a founder of the playhouse and its executive director.
Greco met Dante Albertie, 28, the future artistic director and the other founder, at a community college long ago. In 1991, they decided to quit their jobs and start a theater.
At first they were outcasts in theater circles.
"We were greeted with such negativity that it worked to our advantage," Greco said.
And not all the animosity was directed against the borough.
"I've had people from city [funding] agencies jest to me, `Oh, you're Italian-American. You have money,' -- as in mob money," Greco said. "It's hard to believe."
More believable is the warm reception that the neighborhood has given its theater. As Alvin Klein noted in his ®MDUL¯New York Times ®MDNM¯review of last May's production of "Over the River and Through the Woods," "By no means intended as an audience-participation show, the new comedy by Joe Dipietro is as interactive as one can get, in Old World terms, before technology put a new spin on the word interactive."
Even though the two like to focus about half of their work on Italian culture to serve their community, they also offer plays of general interest, like Shakespeare.
And because they specialize in Italian theater, stereotyping is a problem. Many of the scripts playwrights submit are riddled with them. "The wise-guy angle is always played up," said Greco.
"My family has a big deli here and I worked behind the counter," he said. "I talked to the community group and they said that the place needed a theater. The day after I said I was going to do it, Sal from Queler Hardware gave me $200 and said, `Good luck.'"
"A lot of people we've had, their only theater experience is gotten here," he added.
"Basically, we love what they're doing," said Frank Giordano, a supporter and neighborhood lawyer. "And it's good for the community."
Salvatore Bulfamante, theater benefactor, who owns the hardware store, said that he knew Greco as a boy. "They have come a long way," said Bulfamante. "I'm happy to see that and be a part of it."
"They compare very favorably in terms of off-Broadway," said Giordano. "They're in the same ballpark."