We're Not The Barrymores, But We Have Fun
This entry was posted on January 11, 2008 2:33 PM and is filed under Family.
I have to tell you, I get a bit excited when I see members of my family succeed in the entertainment business.
Most of you have read blogs I have written; boasting about my kid-brother, Jim Cantafio, and his movie and television career. Later this year you'll see Jim in his 5th feature-film "The Changeling," another Clint Eastwood film, starring Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich. Jim plays the "Desk Sergeant" at the LA Police Department. His 10 and 30 second roles are now expanding. Last year he had larger roles on "ER" and "Desperate Housewives."
I'll keep you all posted to that up-coming film.
My sister, Elizabeth Sincox, can be seen on HGTV's "My House Is Worth What?" Liz is the young-Liza Minelli-look-alike, and a very successful Chicago area real estate agent who advises people on what they should or SHOULD NOT do to increase the value of their homes. She has appeared in about 7 episodes so far and seems to be an HGTV-favorite!
Liz took my daughter Laura under her wing, and now Laura works with Liz at Remax of Barrington. I love when families work together.
My brother John's son, Michael Cantafio is a budding "rock star/fabulous guitarist. Michael is away at Berklee College of Music in Boston, ... not an easy place to be accepted as a guitarist, but in my conversation with him at Christmas, he is doing very well and loves school. You'll be hearing about this kid very soon. Take it from me, the kid has very fast fingers. Michael's first public performance was with me a few years ago and he blew the crowd away.
My daughter Danielle is a very talented dancer in the ballet, tap and jazz area. I have watched her grow from a first-grade ballerina in a tutu, to an incredible dancer. Maybe it's because she's my daughter, but my eyes do well up every time I see her dance. Personally, it's so touching to watch her perform.
If that's not enough, I thought I'd brag a bit about my great-niece Molly McAndrew. Molly is the granddaughter of my sister Loretta. She wrote a play and wouldn't you know it, it was a winner and is being performed at the Pegasus Theaters Young Playwrights Festival here in Chicago. The Chicago Tribune just featured Molly and a few of her contemporaries in the great article below.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE - TEMPO SECTION
Young playwrights offer works in progress at Pegasus festival
"There is no excitement in love. Love is very predictable," observes the young William Shakespeare in Molly McAndrew's "A Rose in the Royal Court," one of four plays by teenage scribes now on display in Pegasus Players' 22nd annual Young Playwrights Festival.
Predictability is present in all the work (though a temporary power outage during McAndrew's piece on opening night provided some excitement). But so are youthful enthusiasm and an earnest desire to confront painful issues, which help make the undeniably derivative themes easier to take. And these are, of course, young voices -- not cynical old hands recycling past favorites for commercial gain.
Two of the pieces -- McAndrew's and Claire Rychlewski's "Coffee Girl" -- take on historical subject matter. The former is a fanciful look at Shakespeare in lust. The heroine, Rosalind, is the daughter of one of Queen Elizabeth's gardeners who runs into the lecherous scribe. She becomes the model for the never-seen Rosaline who first breaks Romeo's heart, rather than the inspiration for the plucky cross-dressing lass in "As You Like It." McAndrew's subplot -- Rosalind has a brother who joins the English navy -- echoes one in the contemporary "Daydream Nation," by Sarah Winters.
Winters' piece, a diptych inspired by the seminal Sonic Youth album, is the most formally ambitious. The first half takes place on a prom night when a couple on the cusp of adulthood confront fears about the future. The second features a collection of wannabe urban artists who find their relationships upended by the problems one of them has in accepting his brother's tour of duty in Iraq. It's an interesting concept, but the two parts don't mesh particularly well.
Rychlewski offers a rather standard-issue melodrama on the "tragic mulatto" theme. Here, the unknowing daughter of a slave and slave owner tries to get her shoes back from the vengeful mistress of the plantation. In the videotaped interview preceding her piece (a charming staple of the festival), Rychlewski notes that she was inspired by an actual slave narrative. But her writing feels more generic and stilted than authentic.
The evening closes with Laura Fernandez's corny but heartfelt "Blooming Flowers in Weeds," in which a pair of sassy Southern waitresses at the local greasy spoon befriend Julia, a troubled teenager. A cross between Dorothy Allison's novel "Bastard Out of Carolina" (which Julia is reading) and the late Adrienne Shelly's film "Waitress," the piece manages to be charming in its familiarity, and Fernandez shows a real flair for offhand vernacular dialogue.
Whether these writers continue to hone their craft or not, Pegasus deserves credit for providing a space where they can be taken seriously by older artists and audiences.
Predictability is present in all the work (though a temporary power outage during McAndrew's piece on opening night provided some excitement). But so are youthful enthusiasm and an earnest desire to confront painful issues, which help make the undeniably derivative themes easier to take. And these are, of course, young voices -- not cynical old hands recycling past favorites for commercial gain.
Two of the pieces -- McAndrew's and Claire Rychlewski's "Coffee Girl" -- take on historical subject matter. The former is a fanciful look at Shakespeare in lust. The heroine, Rosalind, is the daughter of one of Queen Elizabeth's gardeners who runs into the lecherous scribe. She becomes the model for the never-seen Rosaline who first breaks Romeo's heart, rather than the inspiration for the plucky cross-dressing lass in "As You Like It." McAndrew's subplot -- Rosalind has a brother who joins the English navy -- echoes one in the contemporary "Daydream Nation," by Sarah Winters.
Winters' piece, a diptych inspired by the seminal Sonic Youth album, is the most formally ambitious. The first half takes place on a prom night when a couple on the cusp of adulthood confront fears about the future. The second features a collection of wannabe urban artists who find their relationships upended by the problems one of them has in accepting his brother's tour of duty in Iraq. It's an interesting concept, but the two parts don't mesh particularly well.
Rychlewski offers a rather standard-issue melodrama on the "tragic mulatto" theme. Here, the unknowing daughter of a slave and slave owner tries to get her shoes back from the vengeful mistress of the plantation. In the videotaped interview preceding her piece (a charming staple of the festival), Rychlewski notes that she was inspired by an actual slave narrative. But her writing feels more generic and stilted than authentic.
The evening closes with Laura Fernandez's corny but heartfelt "Blooming Flowers in Weeds," in which a pair of sassy Southern waitresses at the local greasy spoon befriend Julia, a troubled teenager. A cross between Dorothy Allison's novel "Bastard Out of Carolina" (which Julia is reading) and the late Adrienne Shelly's film "Waitress," the piece manages to be charming in its familiarity, and Fernandez shows a real flair for offhand vernacular dialogue.
Whether these writers continue to hone their craft or not, Pegasus deserves credit for providing a space where they can be taken seriously by older artists and audiences.
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March 14, 2008 3:28 PM
Teresa Grace Ross wrote:
Hi -- I'm writing to see if your sister Loretta is a graduate of Providence High School. I am and we're looking forward to the 50th reunion. However, Loretta's name is on the missing classmates list, which we're trying to update. Can you tell her to contact me if she attended PHS? Many thanks!
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