HOW ALFO LEARNED TO LOVE WOMEN Continues at National Opera America Center Tonight

After 4 previews of Vincent Amelio's How Alfo Learned To Love Women, the cast, with actor/director Robert Fuanro at the helm is fine-tuning the production for a final run of shows beginning tonight, October 9.

Amelio says of the play, "The play is about romantic and family love. People in the audience feel that the play is their story. The play shows a man who adores women but can't commit to one. He treats them with deep respect but he's lost and lonely because he can't find the one. He feels emptiness deep inside, which is something many of us may feel but are too private to say."

He continues, "The play comes down to one statement: A man who adores women cannot find the one woman he is meant to love forever."

Funaro, whose multi-season run in HBO's Sopranos elicited rave reviews (as well as in his follow up films: Ridley Scott's American Gangster and David Chase's Not Fade Away), has had direction in the play praised.

Says Funaro, "I was inspired do direct Alfo by the Italian film director Frederico Fellini's film Amacord. Alfo will make you laugh and cry which all great theater does. It's a universal theme which resonates throughout time of the passing on of one family's legacy to the next generation. Yet more importantly without someone to love Alfo realizes he has nothing to live for."

With a cast including Armen Garo (Sopranos; The Departed); Danielle Guldinl ; Kelli K. Barnett Gordon Silva; and, Christian Thom in the main role of Alfo, Amelio wants to bring this production to an Off Broadway residence later this fall.

Both Funaro and Garo are participating in the forthcoming Marty Scorsese/HBO project.

"I wrote How Alfo Learned to Love Women in a burst of energy in 5 weeks when I was 37 years old and a lost, searching, confused bachelor living alone in my studio in Manhattan. The play healed me of my commitment issues. I simply wrote my pain and my passions into the play. Years later, I am married with a family."