Autumn Sweet part of Frank Catalano's Long Island trilogy on screen at Ohio's Dayton Playhouse

July 25, 2012 - PRLog -- The Dayton Playhouse announces a fundraising event of something very unique. Autumn Sweet was a play selected as a finalist in the first year of the Dayton Playhouse’ annual new play festival, FutureFest. While it did not appear in the festival that year, it was a play that was always a favorite of festival founder, John Riley. When he later got the opportunity to produce the play, written by Frank Catalano, for First Stage Productions, Riley decided to do extensive filming of the play and edit it for the screen. Riley has completed the editing of this moving drama and is allowing the Dayton Playhouse to host a screening of the film as a fundraiser. The story follows a small family with an alcoholic father, codependent mother, teenage daughter with artistic dreams and younger son with disabilities. Autumn Sweet and its two companion pieces The Resting Place and Nightfall  make up Catalano’s Long Island Trilogy. The common factor in all three works is that they take place in Long Island, New York. Autumn Sweet, in 1960’s Huntington, Nightfall in 1950’s, Northport and finally the Resting Place in our own time period in the town of Franklin Square.


The play’s story is both tragedy and comedy. Renown painter Veronica Colletti returns to her childhood Long Island home to relive a pivotal moment in her adolescent life and confront the person who threatened the development of her budding talent - her own father. Reviewers have called this play a dark, searing portrait of a family spinning apart with the relationship between a cruel and brooding father and his sensitive, artistically gifted daughter at its center. With his cast of all-too-human characters, Frank Catalano has written a brilliant drama filled with incident, heartbreak, tears, laughter and even a touch of the supernatural.  Autumn Sweet follows Catalano’s successful books Art of the Monologue, The Creative Audience, White Knight Black Night, The Resting Place and his newest Rand Unwrapped - Confessions of a Robotech Warrior. Rand Unwrapped is about Catalano's experience as a voice actor playing the character of Rand on the groundbreaking animated series ROBOTECH. His theatre books have been called a “great studies for would be actors or comedians of any type” by Midwest Book Review.

Mr. Catalano’s plays have been produced in New York City, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Hawaii and Dayton, Ohio including The American Rose Garden, Cyclotron (La Mama, N.Y.C.), Evolution, Waiting For to Go (Kennedy Center,    Hawaii), and Saturday Nights. His play Autumn Sweet was a finalist at the Dayton Playhouse and later optioned for film by Warner Bros. Studios. The Resting Place has had a staged reading by the Echo Theatre Company as part of a grant from the Showtime Network and his play Myths and Tangos toured in Los Angeles.

As an executive, Catalano has served in various capacities at Lorimar Studios, Beverly Hills Playhouse, and Southern California Center for the Arts and Warner Bros. where he had a “first look” writing deal for the development of television and motion picture properties. He has also written and performed in animated television series and feature films including DIGIMON DIGITAL MONSTERS, THE ADVENTURES OF DYNAMO DUCK for Fox TV, the Sci-Fi series ROBOTECH and ABC television series including LA LAW, NYPD BLUE, MURDER ONE, CIVIL WARS and UGLY BETTY.

Catalano conducts seminars on acting and writing nationwide and has been a featured speaker at the Annual Writer’s Conference and Annual Stage, Screen and Television Actor’s Conference sponsored by San Diego State University. He also conducts theatre and acting seminars at University of Southern California.  He was a featured speaker in Europe and presented lectures in Turkey, Greece and Italy.

The screening will be at the Dayton Playhouse, 1301 E. Siebenthaler Ave, Dayton, OH 45414, on Saturday, August 4, at 7:00 p.m with John Riley and other actors on hand after the screening to discuss the play and how it was developed into the film format. Refreshments and networking will follow the screening. Actors in the play include John Riley, Dodie Lockwood, Ame Clase, Jim Harworth and Micah Stock. The original play was directed by Greg Smith and the screen version was produced by John & Marty Riley.
According to Dayton Playhouse board chairman, Brian Sharp, “This is a great opportunity for us to raise funds and for our audience members to view a new play in a completely different format. We’re delighted that John has offered us this unique opportunity.”
For additional information about the screening contact the Dayton Playhouse box office at 937-424-8477.
For information on Frank Catalano's books http://www.amazon.com/Frank-Catalano/e/B0036R6IKA/ref=ntt...