From press release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – June 5, 2013
MAKING LOVE WITH ESPRESSO serves up dark
sexual roasts
and full-bodied humour
Lorenzo Pagnotta’s Fringe debut mines Italian and gay culture to tell a tale of modern love
A young man tries to navigate his way through the dating rules of the gay community and the rituals of his Italian heritage in MAKING LOVE WITH ESPRESSO, the exciting debut work by local playwright and performer Lorenzo Pagnotta which premieres at the Toronto Fringe Festival July 3-14! It’s a unique take on the coming-out story, as the author presents a quasi-autobiographical journey as a young Italian-Canadian growing up in the Prairies and finding himself and his community through virtual connections with other gay men, which leads to a real trip around the world!
Pagnotta plays a half-dozen characters in this charming coming-of-age tale, including classic characters from Italian literature who helped form the narrator’s views on masculinity.
“The play is about a guy who is trying hard to discover who he is by forming himself around the other gay men he meets online,” Pagnotta says. “Eventually, he realizes that to know who he is he must search much deeper within himself – and not in others.”
MAKING LOVE WITH ESPRESSO was developed with the help of b current Theatre and dramaturged by Thomas Olajide, an actor who’s torn up the Toronto stages with impressive performances in Ruined, The Whipping Man (Obsidian), This Must Be The Place: The CN Tower Show (Passe Muraille), and in the Fringe Festival hit SIA. The show is directed by Tony Babcock, who most recently appeared in Escape from Happiness at Red Sandcastle and is a well-known improv and acting coach and television host for YTV.
For Pagnotta, telling a story about being gay and Italian was important both because his heritage gave him a sense of otherness that alienated him from the wider community while also informing his own attitudes about masculinity and sexuality.
“I wanted to speak about my unique experience as a gay Italian-Canadian from western Canada – far from the milieu of the large Little Italys. Nothing I had read really reflected upon my reality,” he says. “Sometimes the values and history of our cultural heritage can be a burden on our shoulders. It can negatively inform our preconceived notions of people and places, but it can also be the key to understanding who we are.”
MAKING LOVE WITH ESPRESSO makes its debut at the Toronto Fringe Festival, and will also be seen at the Edmonton Fringe later this summer.
WHO: Writer/Performer Lorenzo Pagnotta, Director Tony Babcock, Dramaturge Thomas Olajide,
WHEN: Toronto Fringe Festival July 3-14
WHERE: Robert Gill Theatre (214 College St., 3rdFloor)
Showtimes:
July 4, 10:30
July 6, 5:45
July 7, 2:15
July 10, 7:45
July 11, 3:30
July 13, 3:30
July 14, 1:00
Photo by Dahlia Katz