It was a one-woman show which she called 'The Italian in Me" and while we normally avoid one-woman shows (or one-man shows) this one literally knocked our socks off.  Those interested in having brains, beauty, talent and personality bundled in a dynamo need look no further than Ms. Morrone.

RP       When I saw your first one woman show a few years back, did you say you were born in Italy?

DM      I was born in Canada in a small little town.  My parents emigrated from Italy and they never became Canadian citizens until much later, because the plan was that they were going to come to Canada – stay there for a few years, maybe five, and then go back to Italy.

RP       But did they ever go back?

DM      No – because – life takes over!

RP       So you grew up in Canada?

DM      I ended up growing completely Italian.  My first language was Italian until I went to kindergarten and we spoke Italian in the household.  We were one of those Italian families where we were forced to be Italian.

RP       That must have been interesting growing up.

DM      My mother’s sister, who also emigrated around the same time, and her husband decided that their family would grow up Canadian (they said American) and they were supposed to speak English at home.  So we had a situation where my father said, “We’re Italian and we are going to speak Italian”.  However, my uncle said, “We are in America – we’re speaking American!”

RP       Did that bring about any family problems?

DM      Well, as it turned out my sister, my brother and I are very Italian. We speak Italian, we grew up watching Italian television, listening to Italian music – everything we did was Italian, even though we were in Canada.  My cousins on the other hand – they can’t really speak Italian.

RP       So now do you consider yourself a Canadian Italian? An American or an Italian?

DM      I’m like the moose in the play – I’m completely displaced! (laughing) I don’t know what I am!  It’s funny you should ask this question because the other day I was reflecting on this.  Since the show started I’ve been invited to different events to speak so I went to the Italian Cultural Institute where almost everybody there is from Italy.  When I’m there I’m Italian because I’ve lived in Italy, worked in Italy, I speak fluent Italian, I have an Italian passport I feel like I’m those people – but then I think – “I’m really not! I have another tier to me – I’m from Canada!”

RP       You feel a tug of your heredity pulling at you?

DM      Well, then I go to the Sons of Italy, who also invited me to speak and a lot of them are coming to the show.  Most of them are Italian Americans from New York and are five generations removed from Italy.  So when I’m there I think, “They’re Italian – and I’m Italian, but I’m not like these people!”  Then when I’m in Canada I think, “I’m really not that Canadian – I’m Italian- but then when I’m in LA if I’m around Canadians, I think – “Oh, it feels so comfortable to be among Canadians!  They understand me!” So I have to ask WHAT AM I! 

RP       That’s quite a dilemma!”

DM      Then I’ll be in Italy and I’ll feel so Italian, and I’ll go to my mother’s village but when I look around I think – “I’m really not Italian!”, because everybody is so different there.  One of the things about the show with the metaphor of the moose representing displaced people is really about how I feel and how I’ve always felt growing up.

RP       How did you get the idea to write the play about a moose being on the loose?

DM      The way this whole thing started was one day I called my mother, and we were talking about some natural disaster that had just taken place – I think it was the fires in Malibu – it was something bad and my mother said, “We’re lucky here.  We don’t have those kind of fires.  We have a lot of snow and rain and the worst that happens is that a moose gets loose and wanders into the city”  I thought she was kidding, but then she told me about the Polish lady who lived a few doors down and the moose got stuck in her husband’s trailer.  It’s one of those camper trailers that attach to the back of the truck and the moose was stuck in there and the authorities had to close down the neighborhood.  I got off the phone with my mother and thought to myself – “That poor moose must have been scared to death!  He didn’t know if the were going to shoot him or what, and he had nowhere to run!  But at the same time, he’s really in his element – it’s like where I come from.  It’s a city but a hundred years ago it was a wilderness and first nation people.  That’s all it was – just wilderness and the aboriginals.  It was the rivers, it was the tepees – that’s what was there until the fur trade came along and there were moose running around in that area.  If fact, the area where I come from had only a few homes and there were trees everywhere.  It was considered “the bush” when we moved there, but now it’s a residential neighborhood.

RP       So things have changed a lot since you lived there?

DM      There’s still a lot of bushes right across the street.  I keep thinking about the poor animals – we keep pushing them and pushing them.  There was a beaver damn across the street!  A beaver dam!  But then they got rid of the beaver dam and they killed the animals because they were wreaking havoc on the neighborhood.  Then they wonder why the bears come in and why the moose wanders around.  Poor animals! They have nowhere to go for food, no wonder they come in!  So when the moose came everybody was saying he was in the city –that he was in the wrong place.  These people are from Calabria- they shouldn’t even be living there!  They’re out of place!  I myself was out place and out of my element growing up there and I think of all the people who feel like that – it’s not just the Italians or the Mexicans.

RP       I think that anybody who is living someplace other than their native home feels out of place.  How long did it take to write the show after your mother told you about the moose?

DM      That was quite a few years ago and I jotted it down more like a 20 minute pitch for a pilot.  There was someone at CBC in Canada who said – “Oh, this is very racist!”

RP       What did they say was racist about it?

DM      It was and English lady who was at CBC, because you might know that Toronto was once called the “City of York”.  It was very English, until all the Italians and everybody else started coming there.  Anyway, this lady said to me, “It’s very racist the way all these Italian people speak!”  I thought that obviously this woman had missed the point.  I’m Italian and I’m not going to write anything that makes fun of anybody. This is the way these people I knew speak.  If you live in downtown Toronto you might be in denial, but if you go to the rest of Canada, especially old cities around the major metropolitan areas, you will see that they are full of immigrants who don’t speak English.  They are all first generation!

RP       Much like it is here in California with the Mexicans.

DM      I thought that was kind of strange at the time. But then I got really busy and put the idea of the moose aside and I worked on other things.  I worked on my voice-overs, I worked on my writings, I did other shows but a little less than two years ago I decided it was too good an idea to let go.  I put it up and brought it in to Theatre West for a reading and everybody said- “This is a play! – There’s a story here.  This is a full length play.”  So I started developing it and when I put it up a year ago it was more or less what it is today.  I restructured it to make so elements come in sooner, but it’s really in the last six months that we were doing the table reads and fleshing it out and working on it and now it’s up on stage!

RP       Do you have another project coming up in the near future?

DM      I actually do.  I have a one woman show that is about my grandmother’s last name.  I actually have all the elements and it’s been sitting there but now I’m working on it.

RP       A play about a last name?

DM      Yes – my grandmother’s last name was M – A – R – A – N – O and my dad’s last name is Morrone.  Her last name was Marano and the maranos were the Jews that fled Spain during the Inquisition.  The whole village where my grandmother was from had the name Marano.  So my grandmother’s name was Marano – my grandfather’s last name was Marano – a lot of Maranos married and it was many years later that I learned that “marano” meant “swine” which is what they called the Jews that stayed in Portugal during the Inquisition.

RP       Yes – it was definitely a derogatory word to identify them.

DM      I started doing more research and learned that a lot of the customs I grew up with in my house were ancient Jewish traditions.

RP       Really? Like what?

DM      Well, like not doing anything on Friday night.

RP       Like the Sabbath?

DM      We grew up where on Friday night you couldn’t do anything.  My grandmother never left the house on Friday night – in Canada after she emigrated there!  And my Zia, who is in Canada is the same.  When I ask her, “Zia, do you remember why nothing happens of Friday night?  Why no one can get married or do anything?” she says, “Oh No No.  Nobody can do anything.  It’s very quiet, very somber – everyone stays home of Friday night.”  And they had their weddings on Sundays.  They had a custom where the bride and groom had to stay in for seven days after the wedding

I started writing this monologue about my uterus – about the uterus not being a religion, because people talk about conversion.  I started writing it years ago and thought – “this is going to be something and I started typing in the uterus not having a religion and how do you convert a uterus?  So I put it all together and I came up with this show which I’d like to get out.  And I have a play at Theatre West with six characters that I’d like to do and maybe get that out at one of the next festivals to see where it’s going.  I’m always doing something and coming up with something and working all these crazy ideas.

RP       But they seem to pay off, apparently.

DM      I try not to do anything just for the sake of getting a laugh.  I won’t put up something on the stage unless I’m emotionally invested – unless it means something to me.

RP       I see where Peter Flood directed your show and he also directed you in “The Italian in Me”.  You have a long history of collaboration.

DM      I met Peter in an acting class when I first came to Los Angeles. Peter was my up and acting coach and he’s always about getting truth out in acting.  He is not into shtick – and I’m not really into that either – I’m more a reality person.  So when I did the show The Italian In Me I liked what we did and that’s why I asked him to do this show now.  I wanted to keep it simple and I didn’t want the actors to get all complicated. I had one actress who was really shtick-ee but she’s not in the show anymore.

RP       How did you get together with Theatre West?

DM      I belonged to another company where Peter Flood was the moderator.  There was a woman there in the group with several writers and each would read his or her piece and I read something I wrote about a woman who has a meeting with Alfred Hitchcock.  I’ve never done anything with it, but it could be part of a series or something.  This woman came up to me and said that I should do a one woman show.  She said she liked my work and I thanked her, but then she also said she would like me to read something she was working on at Theatre West.  She said she really wanted me to be in her play, so I thought I was going to Theatre West to work with the actors but then I found they had this great writers’ group, so I asked to be in that group and that’s when I started to bring all my stuff to them.  I still do.

RP       So how soon do you think when we see you in a new production?

DM      I’m hoping – really hoping that I can do something by December, it won’t be a full blown production – more like maybe three shows.  I could be the play that I’m working on with the six characters or maybe it will be that one-woman show I mentioned.  Theatre West is doing a Christmas show two weeks of December and they mentioned that they’d like me to put something up, so it might be a Friday – Saturday – Sunday matinee.  It won’t be a finished production but it will be something to push me into my next project.

RP       Sounds like it will be a fun thing.  Do you have any thoughts on the current production?

DM      I have a great cast – We got so lucky! You know the actress who plays the lead Maria, Connie Mellors?  She stepped in literally at the last minute because our original lead became very ill at 5:30 p.m. on opening night and Connie was at the dog park walking her dog.  She had never seen the show – she had never read the play and someone suggested that she come in on Thursday night, the night before the opening because our lead actress was still not feeling well.  However, she said she would just rest a day or so and would return on opening night.  Connie was just walking her dog on Friday when the lead actress collapsed on stage just before the show.  They called Connie, she came in, got into makeup, they did her hair and the show opened with her doing the part script in hand – she didn’t even know the blocking for the show.  She performed opening weekend with the script in had and got incredible reviews.

RP       When I saw the show it seemed she had been doing it forever.

DM      I’m so happy you came this week because this week was the second week she was off script. I was a bit worried because just five days after memorizing the play the timing is going to be off a little bit.

RM      I think she did a great job!

DM      Oh she did!  She’s a pro – she looks just right and she’s perfect for the part.  I think it’s my ancestors – the Italians helping me.

RP       Someone is looking over you?

DM      I really believe that.  I think it’s the angels  - my grandmother and my grandfather and all that their hard work, and they wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to put just anybody into the role.  That’s how Connie Mellors came along – and to make it even better I found out she’s Sicilian.

RP       You think it’s fate stepping in to help?

DM      I thought Connie was Jewish because I remember seeing her name in a play last year about a Jewish social activist.  So I asked her and she said her grandfather was Sicilian, so it must be the dead relatives up there helping me.

RP       Well, if that’s the case they are doing a good job.  Thanks for taking the time to talk about you and your work and I’m sure that the moose will continue to be a big hit.

DM      Thank you for coming to see the show, and I know that you can relate to it – you can see that it’s not just about Italians – it’s about every family and how they deal with each other.

RP       Yes it is. Thanks again, and I look forward to your next show.

So we closed the interview with Dina Morrone – an interview that took many side trips which we did not include here, but Dina touched on theatre in Canada and how the people are supportive of even the smallest shows.  She mentioned how people seem to devour the printed word in newspapers in Canada, as opposed to the more hyper-driven business here where casting directors, PR people and others in the arts are more anxious to read on-line interviews and click to open links than to actually find and search for articles in the print media.  Dina is blessed with a high energy level and a contagious enthusiasm for her work which comes across even over the phone.  The Moose on the Loose will play another two weeks at Theatre West and you can find out more by visiting the website.  You can also learn more about Dina at www.dinamorrone.com

 MOOSE ON THE LOOSE PLAYS THROUGH July 10, 2011 at Theatre West, 3333 Cahuenga Boulevard West, Hollywood, CA 90068.  Reservations at: 321-851-7977 or online at: www.theatrewest.org

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