NEW LONDON — Mystic playwright Anna Maria Trusky has written something extra special for the holiday season, something which she sais can best be described as “Neil Simon meets Federico Fellini!”
“An Italian Christmas Eve Feast,” said Trusky who not only wrote the play but directs and produced calls its “a hilarious, heartwarming, at-times-zany comedy.”
“It’s a dinner theater whose main ingredient is love,” said Trusky earlier this year “and the audience gets to be part of the fun.”
There will be, she said, “moments of interaction interspersed throughout the show.”
The Synopsis: The Pescatores, an Italian-American family headed by Neapolitan immigrants who run a mom-and-pop grocery store, prepare to celebrate Christmas Eve with the traditional Feast of the Seven Fishes.
Mamma Lucia pines for Italy while planning an elaborate menu with the help of Angelina, eldest son Mario’s ex-girlfriend and the daughter Mamma always wanted. Mario, a famous singer who hasn’t been home for Christmas in 26 years, has texted that he will be home for the feast but nobody knows why.
Her middle son Pasquale, an aspiring stand-up comic, is planning to sneak away to do an open mic, while youngest son Dante dreams of leaving the family business and opening his own restaurant.
Only daughter, the free-spirited Rosanna, can’t be bothered with holiday preparations and is out doing magic tricks with Pappa’s older brother, Peppino, a magician with a fondness for grappa.
Cousins are on their way from Italy to visit the family in America for the first time! Everyone is waiting for Pappa Francesco to come home with the fish. Suddenly, things get more than a little zany, as Italian holiday celebrations often do!
Will everything be “tutto bene” with Mamma and Pappa?
Will the family have a happy reunion with Mario? Will the cousins from Italy ever arrive? And when will the family finally have that feast?
The talented cast features Christine Reynolds, Marc Cerrone, Tina Falivene, Christopher Currier, Evan Brown, Nathan Rumney, Marilyn Lowney, and Keith Eugene Brayne.
The dinner theater production will be Friday, Dec. 20 and Saturday, Dec. 21 at
the Holiday Inn at 35 Governor Winthrop Blvd. in New London. The evening will begin at 6 p.m. with a delicious buffet prepared by La Luna Ristorante, accompanied by traditional Neapolitan and Italian songs played by accordion virtuoso Rimas Polikaitis of Manchester, Connecticut.