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Playwright ~ Poet ~ Screenwriter ~ Professor
Franco
D’Alessandro is native of New York and has been educated and worked both in New
York City and Italy (Rome and Siena) and speaks fluent English and
Italian. The Irish-Italian-American
playwright has had professional Off-Broadway, Off-Off Broadway and regional and
international productions of his work.
>From 1996-2001 there were a dozen New York productions of his one act
plays at theaters such as HERE, Walker Space, and Soho Rep. His 2002 Off-Broadway hit Roman
Nights, which explores the artist/muse paradigm, vis-à-vis the
tumultuous and dramatic life of stage and screen legend Anna Magnani and her
inspirational friendship with the great playwright, Tennessee Williams, was
published in the “Best Plays of 2002” and nominated for various awards. This play was a critical and commercial
success in both New York and in London in 2004. It opened in Prague in 2006 where
it has been sold-out for nine years and is running through 2018. The play continues to be produced all over
the world; as of 2015 in Argentina and Chile, and in Italy, Spain, Brazil, Croatia
and Slovenia, and Russia, and has received special performances at theater and
universities in Italy, France, Spain and Ireland. Roman Nights has been nominated for
over 46 awards worldwide (12 for Best Play) and may soon
be made into a feature film.
Franco's
drama The Shattering -has been work-shopped at The Cherry Lane
Theatre with Olympia Dukakis and Christina Zorich and is seeking a premiere
production. Maximum Happiness (which
deals with the shattered lives of those who lost loved ones in 9-11) features
two one act plays: Venice, Again and One Hundred Dollars Worth of Change.
The upcoming trilogy The Museum Hours
examines the healing and transcendent powers of art is set in museums in
Florence, Italy.
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This had a reading workshop in July 2010 at The Circle in the
Square Studio with Gregory Abels
directing. And a forthcoming trilogy of
plays entitled The Claddagh Ring Cycle
deals with various facets of modern Irish-American life and should be completed
by summer 2015. Part One of this
trilogy, the controversial Dancing Barefoot in the Dark, a 2015
Eugene O’Neill Semi-finalist, examines education and relationships as subtext
for the British occupation of Ireland. Franco
has also been hired to adapt the acclaimed 1970 novel Out Of Place by Joseph Papaleo for screen. Other new works are White Elephants Dancing The Flamenco -inspired by the work of Ernest Hemingway- which received a Los
Angeles 2012 reading at The Working Stage. A new one-woman play entitled Solo
Anna (the life and art of Anna Magnani) starring award-winning Italian
actress Lidia Vitale has been playing in Italy since May 2012 and had a three-night
NYC festival premiere with Kairos Theater in June 2013. Solo Anna has received the Anna
Magnani Award for Theater Excellence and the Premio Enriquez for Outstanding
Contribution to International Theater. By 2016 D'Alessandro's plays will have been translated into
eight languages and performed in over ten countries.
In
addition to his work as a writer, D'Alessandro holds a Master's Degree
in
English (theater) Education from Fordham University and teaches drama,
theatrical text analysis, and creative writing in New York City
schools, is an
adjunct at several American universities and often in Rome and Prague
during
the summers. His poetry has been published in various
literary journals and most recently has been featured three years in a
row in Balancing The Tides: Art and Poetry Journal. In September 2009
“Supplications”, a book of
poetry, was published by Finishing Line Press and nominated for a New
England
PEN Award. In 2011 a collection of his acclaimed one-act plays entitled
Stranger
Love was published, it has sold 1,000 copies and is available on-line
and at NYC’s prestigious Drama Book Shop.
Franco
D’Alessandro is a 2001, 2002 & 2015
Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference Finalist, a 1998 & 2000 Edward F.
Albee Foundation Residency recipient and 2000-2001 Cherry Lane Theatre Alternative Finalist and 2001 Princess Grace Award Nominee. A
2000-2001 NEA/TCG Playwrights Nominee, a 1999 & 2000 Dorset Theater Colony Residency recipient and 2005 New Frontiers Playwright. In 2013 he was awarded a Big Apple Award for Excellence and selected as one of New York
City’s Top 50 Educators, and was received by Mayor Bloomberg at Gracie Mansion.
Mr. D’Alessandro graduated from Fordham University’s Graduate School of
Education (English, Literature and Writing) and he is a Member of The
Dramatists Guild of America (1996); The Cherry Lane Playwrights Alternative;
The National Italian-American Writers Association; Irish-American Artists &
Writers Association; and Writer's Guild of America.
Visit:
www.doollee.com www.romannights.com www.imdb.com
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