SONGS FOR A SUNDAY AFTERNOON at Garibaldi-Meucci Museum
By: Courtnie Mele
On Sunday, July 27 at 2 p.m. on the museum's Great Lawn, John Gatti will present "Canzoni di Domenica Pomeriggio" ("Songs for a Sunday Afternoon"). Introduced by Professor Louis Leonini, Gatti and his company-Broadway veteran PJ Nelson, and community theater veterans John Mangini, Charles Milo and Al Pica-will perform songs in tribute to Dean Martin and Connie Francis, along with Broadway classics, excerpts from operas, and a preview of Gatti's upcoming cabaret show, "PJ Plus 4."
Over the last 35 years, veteran performer/director John Gatti has been involved in more than one hundred community and regional theater productions, at local venues such as the Staten Island Civic Theater, Seaview Playwright's Theater and Monsignor Farrell High School. He has played leading roles in everything from "Hamlet" and "Requiem for a Heavyweight" to "That Championship Season" (which won him a Staten Island Register Acting Award), "Grease," "Bye Bye Birdie," "Fiddler on the Roof," and most recently in the acclaimed production "Friction," at the Producer's Club in Manhattan.
Gatti is credited with introducing the musical revue to Staten Island audiences on the high school level with the 1977 production of "You And The Night And The Music," and to community theater audiences with the 1978 production of "Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance." Since then he has produced and directed numerous revues and cabarets at several Island venues including the Ocean Breeze Theatre, Saint Simon's Church and Lorenzo's @ the Hilton. He has also directed local productions of "West Side Story," "Jesus Christ Superstar," "Lost in Yonkers" and "Italian American Reconciliation." As resident producer/director of the Farrell Players from 1982-1995, he staged 30 musical and improv productions, including the rarely-produced "Runaways" by Elizabeth Swados, "Fame," and "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." Broadway veteran PJ Nelson has appeared in six productions of "Hello Dolly" with Carol Channing, as well as "The Music Man" with Dick Van Dyke, and appeared Off Broadway in "Company" and "Godspell." She made her debut as a 15-year-old Annie Oakley in the 1967 St. Peter's Boys High School production of "Annie Get Your Gun." She has appeared in "Gypsy" and "Follies," as well as several musical revues directed by Gatti, including "An Evening with Gershwin" and "That's Amore."Videos