About Franco D'Alessandro

Playwright/Screenwriter

Franco was born in Yonkers, NY and has been educated and worked both in Italy (Rome and Siena) and New York City. With nine professional Off-Off Broadway and regional productions of his work and six major workshops/staged readings, Franco began his professional career by directing a successful production of his first play "The Song of the Crickets" at HERE Arts Center in New York City in November 1996. In November and December of 1998, he directed the workshop production of "Mothers' Day (Half the Story)", at the John Houseman theater. In May of 1999 "My Little Love Gun" which has gone on to win four different short play competitions, and "Dying from the Details" were produced at The Flatiron Theatre. In June of 2001 Mr. D'Alessandro's Three One Act plays entitled The Sweet Life: Odi et Amo premiered with a completely Sold Out production at the Soho Rep/ Walker Space in New York. These three plays: "Love Gun", "Jesus, Mary and Joseph" and the acclaimed "Waiting Station", will be published in the Fall of 2001. In December of 2001 Time to Storm presented an Off-Off Broadway production of three new one-act plays (Is That You?, And On… and Before And After) entitled Worlds Collide…at the bottom of a glass at the HERE Arts Center in Manhattan. Franco's dream is to be part of the theater's voyage into the next millennium and is experimenting with the incorporation of live music and film into traditional dramatic theater.

"Roman Nights" a new theatrical play that explores the artist/muse paradigm, vis-à-vis the tumultuous and dramatic life of stage and screen legend Anna Magnani and her inspirational friendship with the great playwright, Tennessee Williams. This play will have a September 2002 World Premiere Off Broadway at the Daryl Roth's DR-2 Theater in New York. Mr. D'Alessandro is currently adapting his stageplay for a feature film script. Another new play "The Shattering" is a family drama that deals with the phenomenon of an immigrant mother and her American daughter and the unspoken tragedy that has driven them apart. This play is currently being work-shopped with Olympia Dukakis and Christina Zorich and presented at the Cherry Lane Theatre in November 2001 and will seek a 2002 production. Throughout 2002 new plays such as "The Tale of Hot-House Flowers" and "Elephant Bones" will be work-shopped. Franco's screenplay "Italian Lessons" is in negotiations with several film studios. Franco has two other screenplays "Open Season", "The Bet" and is at work on "The Villa of a Thousand Yesterdays" which is being developed for Sophia Loren. In 2002 D'Alessandro translated into English Oriana Fallaci's controversial essay "The Anger and The Pride".

Franco D'Alessandro is a 2001 Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference Finalist, a 2000 Edward F. Albee Foundation Residency recipient and 2000-2001 Cherry Lane Theatre Alternative Finalist and 2001 Princess Grace Award Nominee. A 2000-2001 NEA/TCG Playwrights Nominee, a 1999-2000 Dorset Theater Colony Residency recipient and a recipient of the 1998 Edward F. Albee Foundation Residency. Member of The Dramatists Guild and The Cherry Lane Playwrights Alternative. Franco is a founding member of Time to Storm, a new theatrical company.

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