RIALTO CHATTER: Galluccio Bringing MAMBO ITALIANO & 39 STEPS Musical to Broadway?

As BroadwayWorld reported back in July, Le Journal de Montreal broke the news that the musical, Mambo Italiano, may be headed to Broadway in 2013. Today, Pat Donnelly of the Montreal Gazette reveals that confirms that plans are very real and very much in the works. 

Mambo Italiano's film scribe and playwright, Steve Galluccio told Le Journal in the summer: "The project is very serious. I work with a producer that is packed and everything could be finalized this fall. They would bring it on Broadway in 2013."  Galluccio will reportedly not be adapting his film into a musical, commenting that for that he's going to reply "on the experts."

"If I rely on the success achieved at present La Cage aux Folles," he says, "it goes without saying that the life of Angelo does not bother me. We work hard to make this a reality and I do believe we are close to this dream. "

Donnally writes this week: "When I ran into Galluccio at the opening of Vittorio Rossi's Paradise by the River at Centaur Theatre last week, he confirmed that things were moving right along in New York. So I'm expecting official announcements soon."

Donnally's report also reveals that Galluccio is currently at work on a stage musical adaptation of The 39 Steps, the play interpretation of which is currently playing at New World Stages off-Broadway following a successful Broadway stint. Galluccio is expected to premiere the musical in Montreal sometime "soon."

To read Donnally's full report, click here.

Mambo Italiano was famously adapted for the screen in 2003 by Steve Galluccio and director Émile Gaudreault based on Galluccio's theatrical play by the same name. The play/film is based on Galluccio's own life and experiences and tells the story of Angelo Barberini, the oddball son of Italian immigrants Gino and Maria, who inadvertently ended up in Canada rather than the United States of America. Angelo shocks his parents - and his sister, Anna - by moving out on his own without getting married, and, shortly after that, shocks them further still when he reveals that he's gay. But his boyfriend (and childhood best friend), policeman Nino Paventi, isn't as ready to come out of the closet - especially not to his busybody Sicilian mother, Lina.