Based on the critically acclaimed play that inspired the now classic film, this streetwise musical will take you to the stoops of the Bronx in the 1960s- where a young man is caught between the father he loves and the mob boss he'd love to be.
A Bronx Tale is directed by two-time Academy Award winner Robert De Niro and four-time Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks, written by Academy Award nominee Chazz Palminteri, with songs by eight-time Academy Award winner Alan Menken and three-time Tony Award nominee Glenn Slater, choreography by Tony nominee Sergio Trujillo, and produced by music mogul Tommy Mottola, The Dodgers (Jersey Boys, Matilda) and Tribeca Productions.
The characters are simple, the storytelling is derivative of better-known musicals ('West Side Story,' 'Jersey Boys') and the tone is excessively sentimental and solemn. But 'A Bronx Tale,' the new Broadway musical based upon actor-writer Chazz Palminteri's coming of age in an Italian-American neighborhood in the Bronx of the 1960s, is nevertheless an entertaining crowd-pleaser and a poignant piece of theater. If it works, it works.
Menken and Ashman, who reached their greatest heights scoring animated Disney classics such as Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid, generally worked in milieus more welcoming of tenderness and whimsy than Palminteri's is here. The streets revisited in this new production are paved with a heavy-handed and, in musical-theater terms, restrictive earnestness. There is humor (much of it mobster-related, mined deftly by Zaks and DeNiro), and parental love, and a bit of romance; what's missing is the even more essential element of joy.
2016 | Milburn, NJ (Regional) |
Paper Mill Playhouse World Premiere Production Milburn, NJ (Regional) |
2016 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
2018 | US Tour |
US Tour US Tour |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2017 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Actor in a Musical | Nick Cordero |
2017 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Actor in a Musical | Nick Cordero |
2017 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Book of a Musical (Broadway or Off-Broadway) | Chazz Palminteri |
2017 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding New Broadway Musical | A Bronx Tale |
2017 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding New Score (Broadway or Off-Broadway) | Alan Menken |
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