Bringing "A Bronx Tale: The Musical" to Broadway

Steve Adubato goes one-on-one with Nick Cordero from "A Bronx Tale: The Musical" who talks about bringing this streetwise musical to Broadway.

1/19/17 #2005

Excerpt:

"That is from A Bronx Tale: The Musical, and right here you've got Nick Cordero from A Bronx Tale, playing over at what theatre? At the Longacre Theatre on 48th Street. You... by the way, you play Sonny? I do. I play Sonny. That's Chazz Palminteri's role? I know. Well he... That the role? He trusted it to me, and I'm very honored. What's that feel like? It feels great. It's a great role. You know, it's an iconic role. It's the role that people, you know, when Chazz walks down the street, they don't call him "Chazz" they call him "Sonny". And I remember one... You look like Sonny. Thanks. I get that a lot. It's true. And he turned to me once when we were walking down the street, he's like, "They're gonna be calling you that one day." And I was like, "Wow. That's a big deal." That's from Chazz? Yeah it's a big deal. It's an honor. It's, you know, it's an iconic role. And to have it accompanied with the songs of Alan Menken and Glenn Slater the way it is in this show, it's a one two punch. Talk about the transition for those of us who are big fans of this movie. Yeah. And I told you I saw Chazz Palminteri in the one man... Mm hmm. ...performance of A Bronx Tale, and then transitioning to this. Mm hmm. What can people expect? People can expect a well rounded, entertaining family musical. I say "family" even though, you know, you witness two murders in the show. [laughter] Oh yeah, that. [laughter] But it's well accompanied by music by Glenn Slater and Alan Menken. You know, the famous Alan Menken. And... Why is that important by the way? And the music is important? Yeah. But then the De Niro part? Absolutely. Well the music's important. It's a musical. And he's sort of... Alan's sort of harkened back to his, you know, Little Shop of Horror days. It's very indicative of the time. So there's doo-wop, there's a little bit of, you know, Sinatra swing in there, there's... you got some 70's funk in there, it's an eclectic mix of styles from the era, which really helps. And the De Niro part? What was De Niro? He codirected. Jerry Zaks? With Jerry Zaks? Yeah, he codirected the show with Jerry Zaks. De Niro, as you know, directed the film. And Jerry directed the production that you saw... Right. ...at the Walter Kerr. So they're both very familiar with the material, and Chazz trusted them very much. And of course, De Niro, you know, having, you know, decades in cinema, he brought a real attention to detail which became very valuable to us. And in the movie? He was in the movie. He played Lorenzo..."