Playhouse Square Will Host A BRONX TALE Screening Featuring Chazz Palminteri

Join actor, director, producer and writer Chazz Palminteri for a once in a lifetime event, Saturday, August 4th, at Playhouse Square, as he shares an intimate look at his life and the events that have shaped his career. After a screening of his autobiographical film, A Bronx Tale, Palminteri will share stories about his life growing up in the Bronx and his prolific career as a film and stage actor. Find out why his personal story is truly "one of the great ones" and how it evolved from a one-man show to a feature film directed by Robert DeNiro, to its most recent incarnation: a hit musical on Broadway, currently starring Mr. Palminteri in the role of Sonny (and making him the first actor to play the same part in the film, play and stage musical). Palminteri's career spans more than 50 film credits, including The Usual Suspects, Bullets Over Broadway (Academy Award nomination), Analyze This, Faithful (actor/screenwriter), Poolhall Junkies, and Final Recourse. Tickets for this special screening and talk will go on sale Friday, June 29th, at 11 a.m., and will be available online at playhousesquare.org or by calling 216-241-6000.

The stage version of A Bronx Tale, Broadway's New Hit Musical, will come to Cleveland April 23 - May 12, 2019, as part of the KeyBank Broadway Series. Tickets to the musical are currently only available as part of the 7-show season ticket package. For more information, call 216-640-8800 or visit playhousesquare.org/broadway.

About Chazz Palminteri

Bronx-born and raised Chazz Palminteri was a natural choice to continue the long line of prominent Italian actors in the film industry. In the tradition set forth in the 1970s by such icons as director Martin Scorsese and actors Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci, Palminteri has brought grit, muscle and an evocative realism to the sidewalks of his New York neighborhood, violent as they are and were.

Born in 1952, Palmintieri grew up in a tough area of the Bronx and it gave young Calogero (Palminteri's given first name) the life lessons that would later prove very useful to his career. He started out pursuing his craft in studying at the Actor's Studio with Lee Straussberg. He appeared off-Broadway in the early 1980s while paying his dues as a singer in his own band.

Well known for A BRONX TALE, Palminteri originally wrote the script for the stage and performed it as a one-man show in Los Angeles. It became the hottest property in Hollywood since ROCKY. Mr. Palminteri was offered over a million dollars to walk away from the project and with $200.00 left in the bank he refused. He wanted to play Sonny and write the screenplay. One night Robert DeNiro walked in to see the show and as they say "the rest is history." He then moved the production to New York, where it played for four sold-out months and earned him nominations for the New York Outer Critics Circle for both acting and writing. While in New York he completed the screenplay of A BRONX TALE and soon found himself starring opposite Robert DeNiro, who chose the script for his directorial debut. Currently A Bronx Tale the Musical is on Broadway at the Longacre Theater. Chazz is the author of the book, a producer and currently starring in the role of Sonny.

Chazz received the 1996 Leadership in Entertainment Award from the Coalition of Italo-American Association, Inc. and was honored by President Clinton with a Special Achievement Award for the Performing Arts from the National Italian American Foundation in Washington, D.C. currently resides in Weschester County, NY with his lovely wife, Gianna and their two children, Dante & Gabriella.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos

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