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.
New York gangsters sing and dance successfully in 'Guys and Dolls,' and uptown street punks do the same in 'West Side Story.' 'A Bronx Tale' recalls both if only to illuminate its comparative limitations. Palminteri's semi-autobiographical story at the heart of this show remains compelling, but 'A Bronx Tale' is ultimately much better (and more inexpensively experienced) as a movie.
The musical is handsome and reasonably well performed, especially by Bobby Conte Thornton as Calogero and Nick Cordero as Sonny. And it still has, in précis, that timely and timeless set of concerns. In a corrupt society, is the working man 'a sucker,' as Sonny maintains? How do we make moral sense of the good qualities of bad people - and vice versa? That A Bronx Tale, as a musical, never answers these questions is fair enough; that it lacks the subtlety to raise them seriously is very nearly a crime.
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