Hi everyone: I am so thrilled to be coming to Austin with my project, A Brooklyn Love Story.
A Brooklyn Love Story: Emergency Used Candles is based on the decade I spent living in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn with my maternal grandfather. It is a tale of the profound impact a grandfather and granddaughter have on each other as one’s life is ending and the other’s is just beginning. Though the story is an Italian-American one, it has universal appeal. Anyone who has loved and lost will love the story of Pop and his sweetheart.
At age 20, after the unexpected death of my grandmother, I found myself living with my eighty-something grandfather in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. What was supposed to be a temporary arrangement to help my grandfather adjust to his new widower status, while I finished college at The New School, turned out to be a decade-long, life-altering experience. A Brooklyn Love Story is based on that time when my grandfather became my best friend and ushered me to adulthood.
My long term vision has always been to tell this story cinematically, however, I first wrote it as a one-woman play. It was selected by the Emerging Artists: One Woman Standing Festival. Within a few months, it was produced Off-Broadway at the historic Cherry Lane Theatre. Subsequently, it was produced in LA for an extended run at Theatre 68. When I knew this story struck a chord with audiences across the country, regardless of race, class, creed or nationality, I adapted it for the big screen.