From 'The Sopranos' to Dread Awakening: A Conversation with Robert Funaro

After "whacking himself" on the season opener of the hit HBO series The Sopranos, Robert Funaro now returns to the stage, where he got his acting start. Funaro appears in DREAD AWAKENING which brings together four of theatre's most exciting up-and-coming playwrights – Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Clay McLeod Chapman, Eric Sanders, and Justin Swain – and pairs them up with the extraordinary directors Arin Arbus, Amanda Charlton, Jessica Davis-Irons, and Pat Diamond to present 4 one-act horror stories from April 6-23 at the 45th Street Theatre.

Aside from many TV appearances, included on The Sopranos, Funaro's theatre credits include the role of Tom Moody in Golden Boy and Max in Etta Jenks with Maureen Van Zandt's "Without Papers" Company, Mr. Skin in the premiere of Eric Sanders' Faint at the New York International Fringe Festival, and many others.

Starting in the most obvious place, when did you find out that your Sopranos career was coming to an end?

I got a call last year, some time before the season began filming in early April. I was going to a movie with my son, and I got a call from David Chase, and the "Big Pussy" rule went into effect, that no one lives forever. He told me, that he had good news and bad news, Bobby. Which one did I want first? I said, 'well give me the good news.' He said that the good news is that you've got a great part, it's gigantic, the whole first show is you. And then I said, well what's the bad news? The bad news, he said is that you're dead. That's the way it was, and I was very appreciative. When I saw the script, I said wow this is a great script. Nothing lasts forever, all things must pass.

That's true, and I have to ask how did they stage that very realistic looking hanging scene?

Well first I'll just say, it was a combination of everyone, but I guess the 'main stager' was Pete Bucossi, the stunt coordinator for the Sopranos. He's great, and we started rehearsing the scene at the Bada Bing!, outside the Bada Bing! in Jersey. We were preparing for it, and we had to get neck braces, shipped in from California. So we got the brace, and it looked the right way, and it could be camouflaged and everything.  Susan Patton, kind of directed me through it, do this, do that, and I did a little research myself about how it should look. We shot for four hours, and at the end of the day, it was just a cable hooked onto the brace, and that's about it. It was really technically done with great people and everything in a garage in Jersey. We just took our time, and our preparation in getting it right. It was tough just getting up there on a box, and thinking what I was going to do to myself. The preparation was thorough, and I had to come theatrically prepared for it.

The way that they filmed that scene wass frighteningly realistic.

Yeah, I thought it was really pretty moving. I never thought it would be that long either until I saw it.

How do you look back on your time with the show?

It was a great experience for me, to be on a major show. I feel like I was a perfect jockey for the first three years, a peripheral character, who came in and out. Finally at the end, I got a good ride, a really wonderful ride, and I feel like I came in first place. That's the way that I feel about it, that it was a great experience, working with a really great bunch of people. It started with James Gandolfini, and the whole cast. They came up to me on the first day, and just introduced themselves, and you don't get on a lot of sets where people are really that friendly. There were no egos or negative personalities, it was really a wonderful experience.

When did plans for Dread Awakening first come about?

Well Eric Sanders is a friend of mine, who wrote one of the one-acts, and told me about it. We had sat down to have dinner, and he was telling me about it, and it sounded very interesting. He said, well I don't know if there's anything in there for you Bobby, but I definitely want to have you be a part of the show. Shortly after that, he asked me to audition for one of the one-acts in the show, and that's how it came about. I did a play with him called Faint at the Fringe Festival, with Eric Sanders, and we had a great experience. It's a real play about a rich circus kid, who owns a circus, and everything is collapsing all around him. It's really way out there, and it was a great experience. He's very talented.

So tell us about the Dread Awakening.

Well Dread Awakening, is I think just what the title insinuates, it's a series of horror pieces. I like to think of them as little short films, I guess somewhat in the David Lynch tradition, all set in certain realities. To talk about the piece that I'm doing, this guy's a serial dentist who puts this patient that he's in love with out on nitrous oxide and has a love affair with her in his mind. He doesn't have the courage to come out and let her know.  There are a lot of dentists out there I think that have been nailed for doing just that. It's all in his imagination, but he's really serious, and is kind of like a cross between Hannibal Lector and some of the other guys from Silence of the Lambs.

We'll get hate mail from dentists now!

Yeah, just the serial dentists though. It's called Pearls, and it's written by Clay Chapman, who's a good writer. That's the piece that I'm doing, and the other piece I don't know much about. I saw it during the first read-through, and it seemed very interesting, very shocking. They're both all about having a little fun too, because theater's about having some fun too, as opposed to always going to see a melodrama. I mean there are tons of musicals out there, but I think for Eric this is a really fun venture, to go back and to work with some great writers, to produce horror flick kind of stuff. It's a fun one-act, and I think it's really a fun night, too.

Speaking of theatre, what is it that first sparked your interest in live performances?

Well I guess that I got the buzz from my uncle, who used to put on musicals for Church. He did a lot of shows including Hello Dolly!, Finnian's Rainbow, and Carousel. I think that I got the buzz from him to get up there on the stage. As a kid I liked going to the plays and I was always into that. I remember going to see Pinocchio with my friends in Brooklyn and they all left me there. I remember suddenly looking around, and realizing that they weren't there. I stood and hung out and watched the whole show though, with a bunch of Bowery boy kids! (laughter)

Did you ever have any interest in musicals yourself?

Well I'm not opposed to doing musicals, but I'm really not a trained singer for musicals. I can carry a tune, I did Godspell in college, and I had a great time with that show. I'm not opposed to it, but I don't think that I can do a show like Rent, that really takes a lot of hard work. People don't realize the hard work that you have to go through, with a lot of pain and suffering sometimes. You deserve that money, I think actors do.

What was your first time acting on stage?

My first time, professionally was actually in A Street Car Named Desire in Europe.  I did the play with James Gandolfini in Europe, and it was really my first professional job. We toured Scandinavia, Finland, Sweden, and Norway. He played Mitch, I played Stanley, and we had a great time. They have wonderful theaters over there in Europe which are subsidized by the state, so they have saunas, coffee shops and everything all in the theatres. I remember some actors complaining that they wanted to do film, and they wanted to do other things. It seemed to me like it was great though, because you wake up, you live at the theater, you have your coffee, you eat at your job, and that's it, you're an actor. Here in America it's a different story, it's much more job to job.

The European way seems like a nice life!

Yeah, I think that's a pretty good life…

How do you approach stage work in general verses screen work, do you have a preference between the two?

When I first started working in films, I thought of it as just a different medium. I had a very good friend and mentor who told me, and I believe what he said, that if the work is personal enough that you never have to worry about the medium that you're working in. When a lot of actors complain, "oh the friggin' film stinks," I think about my friend, Richard Bright, who really was a great actor, we lost him a couple of weeks back. He told me, and I believe what he said, that if you can personalize it, and make it your own that it's worth doing. The same holds true in different mediums, theatre included I think.

That's a good way to look at things, very interesting…

Yeah, it is interesting, because you know, there are technical things that you learn in film and TV, but when it really comes down to it, you still have to keep your own juices flowing, to try to let it happen, and have the courage to take risks. I think that you take a lot more risk when you take on stage, but the good actors on films and TV, take risks on film and TV too.

And what are you looking to do next? More stage work? Film work?

A long time ago I was sitting with acting teacher Herbert Bergoff, whose class I used to take and he always talked about doing things that are true, meaningful and interesting. So, anything that's true, meaningful and interesting, I'm willing to do. I love to do stage, I love it, and I love film, and I like TV too, a long as the roles are challenging. Hopefully, I'll get a few roles that are little more challenging now, that I got this great show behind me and everything, and people look at me a little bit differently.

I also hear that you're doing some directing these days as well?

Right now I'm working on a play about Michael Bennett, written by Lewis Lorusso, who wrote Flashdance with Vincent Pastore, and Maureen Van Dam from the Soprano's. It's in development, it's a play that's written, but there are certain things that have to clear before we can really get into production. The play basically covers three months in the life of Michael Bennett when he was offered A Chorus Line. When he was given A Chorus Line to do, and was given eight million dollars to do it, he tried to back out of the project because he felt he was compromising his ideals. I think that every day, as an actor, that you're always challenged with that. You need to make money, sometimes do commercial work and it's a really big question, because you want to do good work. That's a really exciting play, and really well written about Michael Bennett, a very a positive play about him. So hopefully that will go up, and we'll see what happens.

Best of luck with all those projects, and we look forward to seeing them!

DREAD AWAKENING begins performances on Thursday, April 6th, 2006 at 8pm at the 45th Street Theatre (354 W. 45th St., btwn. 8th and 9th Ave.). The performance schedule is Monday-Tuesday and Thursday-Saturday nights at 8pm and Sunday nights at 7pm. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at www.smarttix.com, by calling (212) 868-4444, and at www.dreadawakening.com. The running time is 90 minutes without an intermission.