My Personal Blog

This last part of a series about performing in the musical Footloose in 2004 will, as promised, aim to answer some questions asked in the previous entry. First, what occurred in the aftermath following the final curtain call on April 3, 2004? The following afternoon, we had out wrap party at Lenny Labriola's house in Fox Chapel.  I rode there with Michael J. Mainier and Emily DeWald, accompanied by Emily's parents.  My biggest regret from it was that I wore perhaps the ugliest outfit you can imagine, a suit with a denim shirt and a necktie.  The female cast members who boosted my morale the previous four nights received balloons from me.  Dinner happened.  Karaoke happened. But the final time we were together as a cast came on Monday of finals week where we took a break from cramming for our final exams so we could have a screening of the DVD of our production.  All of the female cast members would receive balloons from me.  We would receive our copies...

In the first entry on this subject, I talked about the plot of the Footloose movie and the people I worked with in the musical production in 2004.  In the last entry, I talked about the plot of the musical. In this entry, I shall retell the stories from our production at Robert Morris University in 2004. After an audition and callback process, there was an initial list of 37 people who were cast.  Although most roles were filled, some were not yet filled by the time we had our first practice on February 9, 2004 in the Massey Theater.  However, by then, the initial list of 37 was trimmed to 27, but still there were some roles that were not yet filled (e.g., the roles of Wes Warnicker, Principal Harry Clark, Jeter Stevens and Sheriff Jim Deakin).  That's the reason why the initial list of 37 people included Bethany Gallagher and myself in the ensemble.  Our Sunday practices were held at the Pittsburgh Musical Theater studios on the West End of Pittsburgh (with the...

In my last entry, I talked about the basic storyline for the Footloose movie and the people I worked with in a stage production of the musical Footloose in 2004 at Robert Morris University. Before I begin retelling some of the stories from our production, I want to reveal the storyline of the musical.  Note that the names in parenthesis are of the folks who portrayed those characters in our musical production and the titles in brackets are the musical numbers. Ren McCormack (Michael J. Mainier) is at a nightclub in Chicago after putting in eight hours at work on a Friday.  Sadly, it is his last visit to that club as his father has abandoned him and his mother Ethel (Tansy Fortner).  They are relocating to the small town of Bomont, ten hours away [Footloose].  Upon their arrival in Bomont, they attend the local church where Reverend Shaw Moore (Lenny Labriola) preaches of the dangers of sex, drugs and rock music, much to the chagrin of his wife Vi (Heather Lazzini) an...

How is it that the movie Footloose celebrates its 40th anniversary this year and I performed in a musical production of Footloose 20 years ago at Robert Morris? As I look back on this moment in my life, I still continue to say that to this day, it was the most fun I ever had doing theater. Before I do that, let me explain the storyline for Footloose.  A big city kid named Ren McCormack moves to a small town called Bomont where the church leaders and the town council put a law on the books that forbids public dancing because of the death of four young people in a car accident where they were returning home from a dance outside of Bomont (one of them was the son of Reverend Shaw Moore).  Ren and his schoolmates want to do away with this edict and are determined to take on the church leaders and the town council and boost the morale of the repressed townspeople. The movie that starred Kevin Bacon in his breakout role debuted in February 1984 where it spent its first three weeks a...

I write this entry with a heavy heart as within the last 24 hours I learned that my uncle Edgar Wright has passed away. 😢 This is the first such death in the extended Mondak-Corsaro family since July 2017 when aunt Sandy Mondak passed away. My uncle Ed would have been a good teammate for a Ryder Cup-style golf match pitting members of the extended Mondak-Corsaro family against friends of the family.  The family team would have not just consisted of uncle Ed and me, but also would have had uncle Mark, my father, cousin Evan Wright, Richard Order, as well as Justin and Jackson Filson. Rest easy, uncle Ed.

Here I sit writing this entry, 38 years old and still a bachelor. I don’t want to be a bachelor no more.  I hate being a bachelor.  I’m tired of being a bachelor.  Bachelor life is boring.  I don’t want to enter my forties without committing to a long term relationship with a single white Catholic female between the ages of 21 and 28 who shares mutual interests as me.  I might need to see a dating coach up in Cochranton to get me back on the dating scene. But here are where the problems lie:  Given my schedule, and that my said schedule will get busier when the weather gets warmer, I do not have time to see a dating coach or get out on the dating scene.  It’s like what Alex Trebek said back in the late 1980s when he admitted to the tabloids his lack of time to devote to a long term relationship away from the Jeopardy! set.  His former High Rollers colleague Ruta Lee tried to remedy the situation, but none of the dates were right for him, which pro...

There are some of you game show fans out there that never knew about game show personalities. So without further ado, here they are. According to Vicki McCarty Iovine, Wheel of Fortune letter activator Vanna White was one of the first game show personalities to embrace the role of computers in daily society as early as 1989. Mark Goodson tried and failed to convince Bob Barker to host Beat the Clock for syndication in 1969 because Bob was hosting Truth or Consequences in syndication which prevented him from hosting Beat the Clock. Also, Bob Barker was not the original choice to host The New Price is Right in 1972 until CBS picked up the show for its daytime schedule.  Dennis James was the original choice as host.  When Barker was hired to host on CBS daytime, James was hired for the syndicated nighttime edition. According to Richard Dawson's son Gary, William Shatner was the original choice to host Family Feud in 1976 until Richard Dawson's agent intervened by ordering Mark Go...

Before I begin this entry, let it be known that I do not believe in most sports-related curses. I have been doing research on sports-related curses and there are some cities whose sports curses have claimed to be broken.  However, I must let it be known to those cities that the curses have NOT been fully broken.  In my book, the only way a city's sports curse is fully broken, each of their sports teams must win at least one championship. Detroit has been fortunate to have champion teams with the Red Wings, Pistons and Tigers.  However, the Lions need to win a Super Bowl to break their own Curse of Bobby Layne (which is the only sports-related curse I believe in as a Steelers fan). Cleveland sports fans claim that their city's sports curse was broken in June 2016 when the Cavaliers were crowned the new NBA champions.  But that is not fully true.  The Cleveland Browns still need to win a Super Bowl (which in my book will not happen until after I am dead), and the ...