If you live in New York City or will be visiting towards the end of September, here’s something you can’t miss. A Tomato Can’t Grow in the Bronx, the new play from Gary Morgenstein, playwright, novelist, radio host and director of communications for Syfy, debuts with a preview on September 22nd and runs for the following week at the Producers Club Theaters located at 358 W 44th Street. Directed by Carlo Fiorletta, A Tomato Can’t Grow in the Bronx is about a dysfunctional blue-collar Jewish family languishing under the thumb of a patriarch, who employs emotional tyranny over his fragile middle-aged daughter to keep them in line. Her dreamy-eyed husband dares to assert himself by buying a home in the suburbs. His unlikely ally is his teenage son, who dares challenge his grandfather in an ultimate generational battle of wits and will.
The play is a co-production with Bravo Productions in association with the Guild of Italian American Actors (GIAA) and stars Alyson Linefsky, Simcha Borenstein, Troy Dane, Donna Castellano, Bruce Levy and Jessica Renee Russell. Tickets are available online from Ticket Mania or by phone at 212-352-3101 or 866-811-4111.
Gary Morgenstein’s prophetic play about white-collar crime, Ponzi Man, premiered at the 2005 New York Fringe Festival. Co-host of the popular Sunday night Media Blvd Purple Haze radio show, his novels include Loving Rabbi Thalia Kleinman, about a man who falls in love with a beautiful woman rabbi; Jesse’s Girl, the story of a father’s desperate search for his adopted teenage son; Take Me Out to the Ballgame, a political baseball thriller, as well as the baseball Rocky The Man Who Wanted to Play Center Field for the New York Yankees and the relationship book, How to Find a Woman…Or Not. By day he is Director, Communications, for the Syfy Channel.
Carlo Fiorletta directed Mara Lesemann’s Fertility Factor at the Producers Club and Acts of Contrition at the Houseman Studio. He wrote and directed two award-winning short movies: Nipple Nazis and Calamity 666. His film The Last Supper just wrapped post-production. Fiorletta is President of GIAA.