Mary-Ellen Ashley to Lead Staged Reading of THE HOUSE OF NUNZIO in NYC, Nov 2014

The House of Nunzio was named a semi-finalist in both the 2003 Mill Mountain Theatre New Play Competition and the Twenty-Sixth Annual Mildred and Albert Panowski Playwriting Award. It was given a Workshop Production at ManhattanTheatreSource and was under production consideration by three regional theaters in the past decade. It now has interest from several Broadway Producers and investors and Producer Barbara Bemelmans in association with On PAR Productions, LLC will present an AEA 29 Hour Staged Reading at one of Ken Davenport's theaters this November.

Director Stephen Nachamie (Foreverman) will helm the reading and Jamibeth Margolis is Casting Director. Broadway veteran Mary-Ellen Ashley (Annie Get Your Gun, Yentl) will play Mrs. Monacelli. No other casting has been announced at this time.

The play is described as a contemporary humorous drama about an extended Italian family struggling to deal with generational differences and secrets. The play confronts the issue of homosexuality and prejudice from the family perspective.

Playwright Patrick Riviere is a professional actor, singer and playwright whose first full length play was produced by The Emerging Artists Project in Chicago in 1993. He has written numerous plays and children's stories and now resides on Cape Cod where his newest One-Act play has just received a reading at the WOMR Davis Room in Provincetown, MA.