’Big Pussy’ to appear in Hoboken June 6-7

Sopranos stars Vincent Pastore, who played Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero, and Maureen Van Zandt, who played Gabriella Dante on the HBO series “The Sopranos,” are appearing in New Artists Theater Company’s reading of Hoboken playwright Louis LaRusso’s 1980 off-Broadway play, Marlon Brando Sat Right Here, at the Hoboken Historical Museum on Hudson Street on June 6 and 7.
The cast includes several other actors who have appeared on the Sopranos, Nicholas Giangiulio, Joe Lisi, Garry Pastore, Tony Rossi, Anthony Ribustello and Janet Sarno. Other actors are Gerard Canonico from the Broadway hit, Spring Awakening, as well as Sedley Bloomfield, Ernie Mingione and George Palermo (a Hoboken native who starred in the ABC soap opera, “Loving”).
The reading, which will take place two nights only, Friday, June 5, and Saturday, June 6, at 7:30 p.m., near the Hoboken Historical Museum in the vacant retail space behind Starbucks, at 12th Street and Shipyard Lane, is a benefit for both the New Artists Theater Company and the Hoboken Historical Museum. Tickets are $25. Reservations are strongly recommended; please call 201-656-2240, ext. 6, to pay by credit card, or stop by the Museum at 1301 Hudson St. to reserve your seat.
According to director Frank Licato, Artistic Director of New Artists Theater Company, the play is set in a grittier Hoboken in 1955, a year after the excitement of hosting silver screen icon Marlon Brando and the multiple Oscar-winning cast of “On the Waterfront.” The regulars who frequent Gracie’s restaurant, the very longshoremen depicted in the movie, try to recall the glamour days when their hometown was a movie set. The plot centers on Beep-ity Beep, a failed singer who wants to reclaim Gracie’s affections. Their relationship is complicated by a double murder and a secret Gracie’s kept for 18 years.
The story is a prequel to Lamppost Reunion, LaRusso’s taut, realistic play about a famous singer with a score to settle in his hometown, which Licato directed two years ago at the Museum, with Pastore and other Sopranos actors. This led to a full production in New York at the off-Broadway Arclight Theater last fall, which played to sold-out houses.