My Personal Blog

At 5 minutes after 9 o'clock this morning, while in my duties as a home call center agent, I received a phone call from a frantic woman living in New York state needing to report suspected welfare fraud.  I took the woman's name and zip code as is standard operating procedure.  The caller (whose name I will not reveal to protect her privacy) told me that her children had been kidnapped by someone who took them to Luzerne County in Pennsylvania where they attempted to fraudulently obtain medical coverage and food stamps for themselves and the children.  Because I am not authorized to directly report suspected welfare fraud of any kind, I had to refer her to the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services help line to report this suspected welfare fraud.  Also, I had to defer to the people with the Department of Human Services help line because they are the ones who are mandated by the laws of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania to report suspected welfare fraud to casework...

With the pending closure of JCPenney in the Shenango Valley Mall, it allows the city of Hermitage to implement its Hermitage 2030 plans to redevelop the area where the mall currently sits. If I had a say in what stores should be included in this new redevelopment plan, they would be, in no particular order: Retail stores: Ames Party City Shop 'n Save Marshalls Best Buy Among eating establishments: Red Robin Tim Horton's Coldstone Creamery The existing Wendy's would remain as part of the redevelopment plan. Until next time, please remember to help in the fight against childhood cancers by contributing to the Four Diamonds Fund.  And please take care of yourself and each other. 

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.