A deeper dive into the world of the play and playwright Joe DiPietro
by Rebecca Wallace, City Lights’ marketing director
For a Tony Award-winning playwright whose name has been in lights for years all over the world, Joe DiPietro seems like a nice, humble guy you’d want to share a cup of coffee with.
“I was never a critical darling, but I’ve had a nice career. In an odd way, it causes me to work harder,” he once told Manhattan Digest. “I try to write shows that everyone will like. I wish that the critics would love them all but it’s not to be, so I just keep going. ”
Modest indeed — and prolific. In addition to Over the River and Through the Woods, which was developed at the 1994 National Playwrights Conference / Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center and debuted Off-Broadway in 1998, DiPietro has written numerous acclaimed plays and books & lyrics for musicals.
He’s a two-time Tony winner for the 2010 musical Memphis, which won for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score Written For the Theatre. He also wrote the book for the 2012 Broadway musical Nice Work If You Can Get It, which featured music by George Gershwin and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and earned 10 Tony nominations.
DiPietro’s other popular titles include I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change (book & lyrics by DiPietro and music by Jimmy Roberts), one of the longest-running Off-Broadway musical revues.
With Memphis and several other shows (including The Toxic Avenger!), DiPietro has enjoyed one of his strongest writing partnerships. Fellow New Jersey native David Bryan wrote the Memphis music and co-wrote the lyrics with DiPietro. DiPietro wrote the book. They also teamed up on Broadway’s Diana: The Musical.
“David Bryan and I are the same age and we both grew up in New Jersey,” DiPietro told New Jersey Stage in 2015. “He comes from a very specific world of rock and roll and I come from a world of theater, but we’re of the same DNA from our Jersey upbringing during the ‘70s. … Between me and David, we probably know every Jersey joke there is.”
And DiPietro’s Jersey stories have been popular with theater audiences around the country. Early in its history, Over the River and Through the Woods delighted audiences at the Belmont Italian American Playhouse in New York in 1994. It then went on to a successful Off-Broadway run four years later, playing the John Houseman Theatre for 800 performances.
The play is now a favorite choice, especially for theaters looking for a family-friendly option around the holidays — or anyone seeking a story about warm, well-drawn characters they can relate to, even if they’re not Italian.
“What writing has taught me is that we’re all the same inside,” DiPietro told Manhattan Digest. “We all want to have a purpose in life, we want to love someone, and we want to be loved. Everything from gender to sexuality to nationality is just the exterior. Once you can figure that out and write from the inside out, I think you can write almost any character.”
Aida
Frank
Emma
Nunzio
Nick
Caitlin
All photos are by Christian Pizzirani. View the full gallery of production photos.
What makes City Lights Theater Company special? It’s the people!
Check out City Lights’ theme song and video, which was created for us during the Covid shutdown by John Campione and Justin Keyes. The two New York actors are the creators of “Pod Help the Outcasts,” a podcasting venture that provides small businesses with original jingles to use for online, television, and radio advertising.
With a generous grant from Rotary Club of San Jose, the duo began partnering with local businesses throughout the U.S. with a focus on bringing visibility to smaller business owners affected by the pandemic.
This video was edited by City Lights’ Rebecca Wallace and includes video footage by Ron Gasparinetti, Christine Zillman, Erik Gandolfi, Karen Anderson Phillips and Ron Evans, with photos by Susan Mah, Taylor Sanders, Steve DiBartolomeo and Evelyn Huynh.
As far back as I can remember, all the way up through my high school years, most Sunday evenings were spent at my grandparents’ house in the Sunset District in San Francisco, with my parents and brothers, my uncle and aunt and my cousins. Conversation and Manhattans occupied the adults, while the kids played downstairs, until we all gathered in the dining room around the table for a big Italian meal. After dessert and coffee, an old 8mm home movie or two were projected on the wall. An accordion may or may not have come out. We all said our goodbyes until the next week when we would do it all over again. Stories were told, laughter was shared and memories were made. How incredibly lucky I was…
When I first read Over the River and Through the Woods, by Joe DiPietro, I immediately recognized in those pages my own Italian-American upbringing. While the play is set in Hoboken, New Jersey, birthplace of Frank Sinatra, these East Coast Italians seemed very familiar to me. Not just the dinners and food-focused conversations, but the emphasis on family, the closeness, and of course, the mass cards. As I continued to work on the play, I recognized that the love in this family goes well beyond my upbringing. It’s the kind of story that helps us all remember and honor those we have lost — and makes us cherish those we still have…in all of our families.
I had already started rehearsing Over the River and Through the Woods when my Uncle Bob passed away, after 96 years and a great life. (Everyone should be fortunate enough to have an Uncle Bob…) At a get-together after his Rosary, we kept coming back to the topic of those Sunday night dinners at my grandparents’ house. They had imprinted on us a sense of family that lives and thrives in each of us to this day — and still brings huge smiles to our faces. Tengo famiglia.
Please enjoy Over the River and Through the Woods…and Happy Holidays!
— Jeff Bracco
