Vincent Marano

Can a man be kind and decent and still hit the heights? Vincent Marano, our guest on today’s How We Love, can answer that question. A Playwright, a High School Principal, and humble, good guy, what can Vincent’s story teach us about the experience of the good guy and success in New York City?

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Welcome back to How We Love. Our guest today is a man for all seasons. He is playwright and director Vincent Morano and also a former high school vice principal. And there is nothing in the theater that he cannot do. And I say this, having worked with him on several plays that I produced, that he directed and also stage managed. He is awesomely accomplished. And we also want to find out about his love affairs. So let's have him speak for himself. Hi, Vinny. We're so glad you could be here with us.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Thank you, Rob, and I'm glad to be here as well.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

So let's let's you have an amazing career. You've got play on, as a matter of fact, this Sunday, which in New York City in Manhattan, and you have a movie script that's winning awards. But before we get into all that, let's go back to your early life, you know, to how what how you started, and then we'll go into your first marriage, okay? Sure. So you you grew up um, I believe your parents were immigrants.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Am I correct? Yeah, my parents were immigrants from Italy, and so was all my brothers and sisters. I'm the last of eight, and I I refer to myself affectionately as an anchor baby.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

Eight children.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Yes. No TV at the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

So did your mom speak English?

SPEAKER_00 1:35

My mother or father never spoke English besides curse words.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Uh and you became and you became a master of words as a playwright. That's that's that's incredible. And so well just briefly, what was it like growing up in a family of eight? Did you have enough food to eat?

SPEAKER_00 1:53

I mean, that's a lot of people. We always had enough food to eat. Um, a lot of my siblings stayed in the house until they got married. My mother was a whiz at uh saving money. Somehow, with every child who got married, she managed to put together thousands of dollars in a gift to get them onto the right footing.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

What did your father do? Did your father was your father a big driver?

SPEAKER_00 2:15

My father in Italy was a truck driver uh and uh former uh former member of the Fascist Party and and was actually in an internment camp, uh a POW camp during World War II. And when he came to the United States, uh he couldn't find work as a truck driver because he couldn't speak English. So he became um he followed his father's profession, which in Italy or in the old time would be called a blacksmith, and here he was an iron worker. And he was an iron worker in the United States for about 17 years.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Was that a union job?

SPEAKER_00 2:49

It was a union job, but unfortunately, uh, because of his age, he came to the United States fairly within his 40s. He was laid off and was not able to get a pension. As a matter of fact, uh I had the task of sitting with my father, translating with his union rep, telling him my father that the union wouldn't give him a pension, but they would pay for his funeral. It wasn't a pleasant conversation, let me tell you.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

It's so crazy. I mean, I can't, you know, it's so far afield from anything that I can relate to. But let me just ask you something. So, with all that, how did your mom raise eight kids and then give them wedding gifts? We what I don't understand.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Well, there used to be a thing, they still have it called a Christmas club, and she saved all her pennies. Uh, we didn't have any extravagances. Uh, if my mom uh had the same coat for 25 years, pretty much, and even today my sister talks about how this coat that she got at Alexander's looks like it's brand new. And so she really did without for most of the time. Uh we all worked. I've I've been working uh since I was, I guess, 10 or 11. Uh, a shoe shine boy working in barbershops. Uh, then later on, I worked in uh discount stores like the old Johns Boggin store.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Okay, all right. Let's move on from there from there. Let's move on to. You become you grew you go you go to college, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Fordham University, yes.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Okay. Were you the first in your family?

SPEAKER_00 4:25

No. Uh first in my family was my brother who lives in California.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

Okay, so you go to university and you teach and then become what did you teach, by the way? I taught social studies in English. Okay, and then you that's interesting. You taught English and you neither one of your parents could speak English. True. How did you feel about that? That they didn't speak English.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

My father liked to say that uh it was a good thing he didn't speak English because he would be dead or in jail. Uh and my mother agreed.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Um why, because he had such a temper?

SPEAKER_00 5:04

He did. He had a very bad temper. And my family lived in a very insular Italian-American community in the Bronx, so they actually didn't need to speak English.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

You were embarrassed by the fact that he didn't they didn't speak English?

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Uh not really, because it was presented as fact, and I saw so many older people in my neighborhood doing exactly the same thing. Uh, what I was most embarrassed about was my inability to speak Italian better. I uh my parents, my father particularly, did not care for my pronunciation and my mistake in words, and I found out later on that that that was part of a big a little bit of a learning issue I had overall with language.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Really?

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Yeah, you're a master of words. Being a master of words doesn't make you a master of grammar necessarily, and doesn't make you a great speller. Um, a great speller is something else.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

I can't spell either, so I get that. And you're a master of conversation, so yes, no, I I I'm pretty good. I can hold my own, but I can't spell. So um let me ask you something. So you how how did you your first love affair was with whom?

SPEAKER_00 6:31

My first major love affair was with a uh person I went to school with. Uh up until then, I had just very brief uh relationships, some sexual, some not. And uh the first real relationship. When did you lose your virginity? Oh, fairly late. I was about uh 18, 19. And how did that come about? Um met a uh what would be one of the many Irish girls that would be that would come into my life, and she thought I was adorable. And uh we had uh an afternoon where I cooked for her badly. Uh and but she would she looked beyond it and we got to we went out for a bit. It didn't, we really didn't. She was much more experienced than I was, and so my first time was um pretty much a failure initially, but uh she was very patient. You mean you couldn't get it up in a way, in a manner of speaking. It you know, for a young guy, either you can't get it up or you're done before you start. So it's it's both of those things at once. Let's put to you this way my experience in talking with my friends was all their first times were lousy. Nobody, yeah, yeah, nobody was. They they have we myth mythologized about how we do things, but nobody was good. I mean, one friend talked about it, and then I his first time was with the woman he was married to, and if she rolled her eyes once, she rolled it four times.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

It was like, but she married him. He married him, so he must have gotten better.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Yeah, there he got, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Uh I sometimes we all know that there's a huge difference between just plain old intercourse and making love. Completely. Love is a it I think that comes with sophistication.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Yeah, and it comes with uh um sophistication and I think time and like a patience to understand what needs what the what your partner needs.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Yeah, it's a learn it, yeah. A man has to learn that it's about a woman. But at any rate, so you're tell so let's go back past your first sexual experience to the first serious relationship.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Yeah. And that was that was a friend of mine from college. Uh, we had um, she had had experiences and we were very good friends. And uh, and then one night we were at a bar and we went back and we had an explosive sexual experience. Wow, it was it was one of the top five, definitely in my life. Uh went on all night. It was like right out of a really good uh uh Thomas Hardy novel or a porn, and it was just went crazy. And I immediately thought I was in love and that was gonna go on, but she kind of wanted to slow down and backed off. So we didn't have sex again for a year after that. And when we did, it was after my father passed away, and uh she just was felt drawn to me, and uh we um launched into a three-year relationship. We got engaged, we moved in together. And at all that time, was the sex still so intense? The text the sex was intense for a good part of it, for a good part of it, and then uh things came up that were uncomfortable. Um you find out about your partner's history sometimes, and some of it is not pretty. And sometimes I think people make allowances or excuses for what they've endured by claiming it's what they like to do.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

And that's kind of too abstract.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

What I mean is uh she wanted a much more volatile, violent kind of sexual experience at times, and it was very difficult for me to do that because given how I experienced my father and violence in my own household, I was not into per se BDSM at the time. What does that mean? Oh uh bondage, domination, sadomasochism.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Oh my okay. No, okay, all right. So that's that that is what you wanted?

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Yeah, some of the time it was, and it became uh an issue. And my opinion was want to be hurt, Vinny. Yeah, yeah, that I I and that's not uncommon. I've been with women throughout my life where some want to be choked a little bit, some want to be slapped a little bit. Yeah. So you you attract that kind of a gal? No, I'm I'm attracted to to women who are strong, who are independent, who know what they want, you know, who who have this patina of darling, I'm strong and independent, and I would never want anybody to slap me or choke me, please. I didn't say all of them were Robin, but some were. Some were. And then there I would go the opposite and go with somebody who's a little bit more quieter, and that once in a while, in a blue moon, much more rarely, they would want to be uh confined, not terribly, but mild bonded. They would want to be tied up tied up a little bit, you know, like uh like to uh a bed like sometimes it would be sometimes it would like scenarios our movie Vinny, tie me up, time me down. Yeah, exactly. Not not necessarily like harsh, but just a little bit of restraint to feel um like it's a scenario of being unwilling to whoa, you're making me think I must have missed something.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Anyhow, is that the gal you married?

SPEAKER_00 12:48

The first one had a history, and she uh wasn't her preference at all. So our relationship wasn't predicated on that, though she did have a history of multiple partners.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

Wait, wait, you're getting me confused. So the gal that you went with that was into SM and all that stuff and bondage for years, you did not marry that girl.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

No, she broke up with me.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

Okay. You didn't beat her enough, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Okay. Well, no, no, it was a little more complex, but you can, you know, I guess you could say that.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

Let's move on from there. So then you met your next wife, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Your first wife. My first wife, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:29

And what was she like?

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Uh, she has a huge personality, uh, just pops in public, a lot of fun. I met her at a bar. Uh, we got together. It was, it seemed like it was going to be very um loosey-goosey, nothing, not really a big relationship. And then it became very intense very quickly. I was initially caught off guard, and then I had backed away because uh I had been in a previous relationship uh where I became too um uh how can I say codependent. Yeah. And so I felt like it was going in that direction. But um she just she had a lot of stuff going on in her life, and part of me felt like I shouldn't walk away from this, that um she needed me, and that really overcame my doubts about the health of our relationship.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

So you got very attached to her.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Oh, very attached, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Yeah. Was was was that something that was sounds like that was something that was pretty easy for you?

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Yeah, it was. I I have I think I've always struggled with the idea that I'm not easy to love. You are not easy to love. Yeah. Wow. I'm easy to like, but I'm not easy to love. That's that's the difference.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Okay, well, at any rate, so you you you fell in love with this gal.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Yes, I did.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

Okay. And you married her.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Yes. Big wedding? Big wedding, uh, lots of friends. My former fiance was there. Uh, she was part of a group of friends from my college. Um, it was a very uh fun, dynamic wedding. Um I would imagine so. Very Italian, right? Italian and Jewish, because my first wife was Jewish. Really? Yeah, as a matter of fact, we were married three times. What do you mean? Well, we were living together downtown, and she had serious dental issues. So I needed to get her on my health plan. So, unbeknownst to neither of our families, we got married eight months before the date we had told them.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

We had a civil a civil wedding.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Yeah, civil wedding downtown.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

And then you had a Jewish wedding, and then you had a Christian wedding?

SPEAKER_00 16:04

No, I'll tell you, no, because she wasn't practicing at the time. And I uh since I wasn't marrying in a church, we ended up with a civil wedding. Uh, very ironically, though, Barbara, I should tell you, yesterday was the 32nd anniversary of what would have been our our wedding. Um and my ex-wife, as she does every year, texted me saying, Happy anniversary to the best ex-husband ever. Really? Anyway, yeah, she does it every year. Wow. Um and so uh the second wedding, I forgot the marriage certificate, so the judge couldn't marry so the judge couldn't sign it with the witnesses. So the very next day we got married on a Saturday night, on Sunday, we drove to the judge's house with two of my best friends, and we had a third ceremony, and then we got married.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

You know, it's very impressive that your ex-wife still you're it's because you're such a good guy, Vinny. So you stayed friends.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Yeah, I don't believe in not staying friends.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

No, you're such a good guy. That's not common. That is not common at all. All right, so you married, and then what happened?

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Um, we married. Uh she worked, she's in the health, um, the exercise field. Uh, we I I was in when I was with her, I was in the best shape of my life at that time. Um running half marathons and things. I was in great shape. And we had a very active life, and then we got a house in Queens, and the inevitable thing came up about having children. Uh, she was six years younger than me. Uh, that proved to be a problem because uh I cannot have children.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

Um why can't you have children?

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Uh it was a birth defect that was not resolved uh in a timely fashion. I had gone through puberty for I had done the necessary surgery to correct it, and by then the damage to my uh fertility was was uh irreparable. You know?

SPEAKER_02 18:10

Did you know that when you married her?

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Yes. Did you tell her that? Yes, I said it would be uh uh I said it would be very doubtful that I would get married. Uh I even at that time I think I lied to myself a little bit. Um I didn't want to say it, though I told many girlfriends about the problem. And before I met before I met my wife, I dated three women who I really liked, and we all liked each other. We dated for a little bit, but once I told them, like around the third or fourth date. Did you were infertile? I was infertile, uh, it didn't last. It petered up, so to speak.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

So but when you told us, so what exactly did you did was your wife really apprised of the fact that you were infertile?

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Yes, and she didn't know she said initially she didn't even know if she wanted children. But once once we got into our second or third year of marriage, uh it became evident that she did, that it was something that she felt was missing. And this, I began to notice that my my wife, who I thought was this independent, brilliant woman, and I still believe she is this independent brilliant woman, but she wanted the white picket fence kind of life that she never had as a child. And uh, she came from a family that was uh broken, uh, a lot of issues, and she wanted something, a normalcy that she didn't have, I think. And you know, we tried. I didn't know.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

What about adopting children?

SPEAKER_00 19:36

I mean, I was up for adopting.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

Hold on, many.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Okay, when you're in love, you know, I know and I know that experience. It's so profound. Yeah, anything in the world to maintain it. So why didn't what what about adopting children?

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Well, I was for adopting children, she was not. Uh her experience was that she and this is something I think came from being a stepchild and things that she learned and heard and felt that she didn't want other people's mistakes.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Uh, you know, when you hear that, and that's that's burned into you that you are that you're something wrong with you because you're not part of that original family unit, it it stays with you, I guess. Whatever. So not justifying it, just saying that's what I heard.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

But how did you I mean, you were still in love with her?

SPEAKER_00 20:43

I was, but I began to notice this change. Uh uh, I uh, you know, that she wanted to be taken care of, which was something she hadn't said before. I mean, it's not like I wasn't gonna take care of her, but it was an idea that I wanted us to have this kind of cosmopolitan life out, going out there and doing things. And when I conceded that we could adopt children and she rejected it, it was kind of like, what are we talking about now? There's only a certain kind of life so we can have together. And I was starting to feel rejected, and then I started really taking an inventory of what I was getting out of the marriage. Was it working?

SPEAKER_02 21:21

Yeah, yeah. Well, you were being rejected, yeah. Yeah, and so it when did it break up? And how did it break up?

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Um, we had a major fight over money and financing. Uh, we uh there were bills that had to be paid and things of that nature. Uh she spent, she spent a lot because she wanted certain things and wanted to go on vacation, things like that. And again, I was coming from a much more frugal background. I mean, I didn't mind going out and doing things. And I did spend on going to theater because that was my thing.

unknown 21:59

And

SPEAKER_00 22:00

And one of the big things that broke us up is that I, since she we were having children, I said, I want to do this thing about producing my own theater. I had been directing and started writing. You had you had were doing that back then? Yeah. Yeah. And I I I had the opportunity to take over the Chelsea Playhouse in Manhattan on 22nd Street, and I did. And I read it from Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

I did not know that. But the the people that are listening in, that's a pretty prominent theater. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

And it was like uh it was a and so I took it over and and that became like a big part of my life. And she felt, I think she felt ignored to a degree, and uh it became a bone of contention that all this money I was putting into a theater, which wasn't that much comparatively speaking, I was managing to break even most of the years that I ran it. Um and it wasn't until 9-11 that the the it went under because a number of theaters went under.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

Did you run it as a play, uh, a playhouse or a movie theater?

SPEAKER_00 23:02

I ran it as a playhouse. It was a um it was a 78-seat house with a balcony level. All kinds of shows were there. Uh Upright Citizens Brigade took it over for a while. I mean, I had a lot of good people in there. Uh I had a I had a lot of friends in the theater community and in the uh uh gay burlesque community, and I used to have shows there. It was really a nice, it was becoming kind of a hub. And uh this became like an issue.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

And um you wanted two very different things out of life.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

It became very apparent, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Yeah, yeah. And when you broke up, were you was was you were you heartbroken?

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Initially I was. I I felt like this is what was meant to be. I was always meant to be alone. A lot of my own personal, as they say, mishigash came back. And really, I beat myself up for a while. And then about four months into our separation, I began to realize while I missed her, I didn't miss being with her, if that makes sense. I didn't miss the the arguments, the uh the the barbs. Uh when we got together, it was much easier. So we it became very evident within six months that we were destined to be friends. The other thing that came up was she almost started dating other people immediately, and I struggle with that. I did this, I did, I had all the horrific kind of online dating experiences you can imagine. It was horrible, Robin. I especially in the uh uh um early days like match.com, I called it muck.com because that's what it was.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

You called it what?

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Muck. Muck.com. It was it was terrible, and so I um I you know I wasn't jealous. And when I realized that I wasn't jealous of her going out with other men, the only thing I was jealous of is I wasn't getting laid and I wasn't having meeting people, then I realized it was over. And she came to me about a few months after that, almost about a year, and she wanted to get back together, you know. And I said, and I kind of like laughed. I said, You're kidding, right?

SPEAKER_02 25:27

Yeah, it's over.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

No, it was over. And I and I said, actually, what I did say to her was I said, if in the future we do get back together, it's gonna be completely different because we'll be completely different people. But right now, no. And the odd thing about it is, um uh I met my cur my current wife, uh, who I call my forever wife, and um, and we got engaged, and she got engaged with another man and got married, and we went to her wedding. Wait a minute, you you who got engaged? My first wife got engaged.

SPEAKER_02 26:05

Oh, and you have went to her wedding with your current wife.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Yeah. After after our divorce was settled, she can she could get married. She had been engaged, and then she could get married. Yeah, but she stayed friends. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:17

You do know, as I said before, you do know that is very unusual.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Yeah, and I actually I'm gonna give you one beautiful little thing about my ex-wife that I think you should know. So we went to her wedding, and it was very odd. And her father pulls me aside, he says, You know, it's not too late, you two can still get back together. I laughed him. I said, Are you kidding? And he was only half joking. Uh, and about eight months later, I was getting married, and I invited her and her new husband to our wedding, and she turned down, and she was like one of the few people who turned down an invitation. I said, What do you mean? And she said, Vinny, your wife is this is her first time getting married. I'm not gonna be there and spoil it for her.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Oh, very sweet.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

And I'm sorry, and I know you want me, but this is the right thing. She deserves to be the bride, yes, and nobody else. Yes, she was right. Yeah, yeah. So you see why I lied to. She was at her core a beautiful, wonderful soul.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

Yeah, but that's not what she is probably because you she was great in bed. Don't give me that. Come on, okay. All right, so how did you meet Michelle? Um, I had met her, she was a friend of how long had you been on your own when you met her?

SPEAKER_00 27:45

Uh actually, I'm gonna say re-met her because I had met her early on when I was with my first fiance at various parties among friends from college. And then we didn't see each other for almost two decades. Um about 15 years, I think. Uh so she um was the friend of uh my one of my my good friend's wives, or who became his ex-wife, because that's what was in the ether then, I guess. Everybody was getting divorced at some point. It's not it's it's constant. The divorce rate is so high. Well, there was a whole group of people who got married who didn't get divorced, and all of a sudden uh this one friend got divorced, and and I got divorced, it just became like a cascade. Anyway, what happened was um they wanted to go to this little Italy section of the Bronx where I'm from, and they wanted to eat Italian food. And of course, me being Italian, I had to be the uh the uh host. So my wife was there with the friend, and we ended up sitting next to each other, and around the table was my friend, his ex-wife, her current boyfriend, and they were all crazy. I mean, it was just we were looking at them saying, What is wrong with these people? And so my ex-my current wife and I bonded over our friends' um idiocies, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

Lunacy.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

Lunacy. And uh we started dating, and and things seemed very easy with her. Uh, but I was very reluctant, having just got out of the marriage a few years before.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

That's what I want to know. So, how long were you on your own? Because you you grew up in a family of eight. So we're used to being in a family.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Yeah, but I'm I was always an outsider, Robin. I I always felt as an outsider even in my own family.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

Yeah, but that's why you're an artist.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

Well, it's the language, it's the sense of my interests were different, uh, you know.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

Vinny, I never met a creative person who did not feel like an outsider. No.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

Yeah, I suppose it's very hard to create when you're when you're in the middle of something, when you're always uh uh worried about what other people think. Exactly. So um, you know, it we talked about it. It was very upsetting for her because she was used to dating. My wife had a much less dating experience. You're currently Michelle. My my wife, yeah. Yeah. She had a much uh she wasn't as uh she wasn't a whore like me. How's that sound? Uh a proud whore. Let's put it proud whore. And uh she uh uh you know was she wasn't she was upset by the me saying we have to take it slow, we have maybe we should see other people. But I went to uh Argentina that summer that we started dating to see an uncle I had never seen and cousins I had never seen. And all I could think about was her and wanting to share this amazing city of Buenos Aires and everything I was seeing with her, and uh you knew you were in love, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:06

And so when you came back, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:09

As a matter of fact, just to uh just to bookend that with my first wife, I knew I was in love because during our early part of our relationship, I would I went to Japan, and again, I had the same thing where I I wanted to get back to her as fast as possible. Yeah, so it seems I need to be physically removed to really have perspective to know that you're in love, huh? I guess so. I guess so.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Well, you're in the theater, so you need a little bit of drama.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

So, anyhow, you come back, you come back from you come back from the trip and and we started dating in earnest.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Uh she lived in Jersey City at the time.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

Is she Italian?

SPEAKER_00 31:54

Pardon me? Is she is Anne Michelle Italian? No, she's Irish, Finnish, and Scottish. Uh-huh. She's about as white as they come. You know, and so uh I met her family. Her family met my family.

SPEAKER_02 32:09

My family real family like yours of eight.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

They were very, they were very religious, Irish Catholic. Actually, they're more Catholic than my family was.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

No, but how big of a family was she from?

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Oh, family of four. Four. But she had a multitude of cousins, a lot of cousins. It was a big Irish community there. She had a whole community, a whole family there. And it felt very comfortable. It felt I have had this and uh family was originally from South Philly, and they lived outside Philly in a suburb called Upper Derby. And I've always had an affinity for Philadelphia because I have friends who live there and I visited the city regularly, and it just felt very comfortable. And uh so I just and my first fiance was from Philadelphia as well, ironically.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

But you know what, Vinny? You know, you say that you're an outsider, but even as an outsider, because I know you, you are a you're a community person, you're someone who's always involved with lots of people.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

Yes, I am. I I because I believe that in community uh is where things continue. Uh that you know, I could write the great American play tomorrow, but if I don't have a a theater group to workshop it, if I don't have um uh a set of actors that I can I can have in my mind while I write. And I learned that, Robin, that um I write better and I finish plays because I know so many actors and I borrow from them their who they are, their loves, their lives, everything to create what I want to create. So your whole life has been very much engaged with people.

SPEAKER_02 34:01

I mean, you grew up in a family of eight, then you go on to teach, and then you're in the theater. So your whole life has really been involved with lots and lots and lots of people.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a dichotomy. I I I go through these these things where I need to be around people and then I need to be alone. It's very, you know.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

Well, you need to be alone to write.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Yeah. Of course. Well, definitely. But more than that, I need to like in the play I'm writing now, I've got I've gone for long walks because there's so much complexity. And I I'm dealing with uh issues of faith and how faith is twisted and manipulated.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Well, uh, the play I'm writing now is uh deals with uh events that happened during World War II, prior to World War II, specifically Kristal Knock, and current events that deal with the kind of Christian right movement that uh warps uh what we believe and who we believe in to such a degree that we suspect our neighbor when we should be embracing our neighbor.

SPEAKER_02 35:15

Any too abstract.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

Well, I mean, I'm just I just think that uh your your faith is either for people or not. And if you do anything that's excludes people in your faith in your faith. Yeah, any faith.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

But you're not talking about so you're not talking about belief in God.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

Yeah, belief in God, but any God, whatever you believe in, whether it's whatever, if the part of your belief is the destruction of another group, it doesn't work. It's not real. It's not really faith. It's not a religion in a in my way. Definitely not uh a Judeo-Christian faith by any by any standard.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

So the play is about what these two conflicting ideas, these two conflicting this, yeah, this conflict of faith and how people use it, how people use faith and to get their way in power, and how it's how they're doing and in so doing diminishing another group.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

Diminish another group and diminishing themselves.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right, so let's go back to you. Let's move let's move, let's go back. So you you fall in love with Michelle, you get married, and the marriage is there's no problem with the fact that you can't have children.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

No, she because we got married in our 40s, and I think Michelle at that point had already had decided not against it, and um and she I not that she had perimenopause, but it it would have been difficult. And again, I don't think it was uh I did float the idea very early on if she wanted to do in vitro fertilization, and it wasn't as important, it was more important for us to build the family that we had instead of creating another one.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

You mean the family between the two of you?

SPEAKER_00 37:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 37:11

Okay, all right. So, and so how long and how long have you been married?

SPEAKER_00 37:15

This November will be 18 years.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

Yeah, and and you oh you it's a great marriage. Yes, yeah, everything we wanted.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Yes, I mean, I there's there's there's things that you want and there's things that you need. We always want more than what we need.

SPEAKER_02 37:34

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_00 37:35

Well, I mean, would I would I've like would I like more consistent acrobatic sex? Yes, I would. Acrobatics. Absolutely, acrobatics, but then I have to also confront the fact that I'm 65 years old. And you know, uh I'm more I mean, I I don't want to, I'm I don't want to create a death wish for myself or my wife. And and the fact is when someone's with you through all because we've we we've nursed each other through very s uh recent illnesses, and we've buried people close to her, her parents, my brother, uh a brother and sister on my part, friends, family. It makes a difference, it reprioritizes what love actually looks like. It re-jiggers it. It kind of like you say, like it doesn't have to be this, but it must be that. And we thought more specifically and not in such abstract terms. It doesn't have to be about the physical dynamics being perfect all the time.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

But it does have to be about in plain English, it doesn't have to always be about electric sex.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

Yes. Absolutely not. But it does have to be about uh respect, affection, regular affection, uh patience, and listening.

SPEAKER_02 39:02

Those seem to be Yeah, well that's what forms deep attachment.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:07

So that's that so the marriage has evolved so that there's a profound attachment between you.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

Yeah. Well, I've definitely evolved. I think I'm definitely a a better person at this than I am than I ever was when I was younger, which makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 39:22

You think the marriage has changed you to be a better person in general?

SPEAKER_00 39:26

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:27

How?

SPEAKER_00 39:29

I'm more patient, I'm less judgmental.

SPEAKER_02 39:33

I've known you for such a long time, I have never seen you as a judgmental person.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

Because you you and I have not been in a situation where we're in conflict. Most of our judgments come up in romance, in our relationships. That's true. You know, that's where the judgments really rear their ugly head. Not not in uh, you know, we're sitting in a room. I can I when I was in school, I can manage hundreds and hundreds of kids and their emotions and what they needed. I can manage actors very easily. That's easy because I have no skin in the game. Not really. Because when I leave that rehearsal room, when I leave that classroom or that school, I have my own life. But when I go home and I don't listen and I don't uh you know exert a little patience and and uh deference to somebody else who has issues and is struggling and wants to be heard, then there's a problem. And luckily, I learned how to be better at that with her.

SPEAKER_02 40:40

Interesting. It's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So okay, so let's move on from your happy marriage to your you know, to your I'm not gonna move on from my happy marriage. I'm gonna stay right there in terms of what we're gonna talk about, in terms of your other great love, which is the theater.

SPEAKER_01 41:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

So tell us a little bit about what you I know you have a play on this Sunday, which I'm looking forward to, and um you have a movie script that's winning awards, but let's uh how did you just you tell me how you in any in whatever form you want to tell me about it? Well, I mean starting early, starting early.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Well, early on, I just I had this feeling, uh, you know, I was very I was always entertaining my family, so that always seemed to indicate that that I had to do something. I initially wanted to be an actor, and I was trained um early on and uh found it very frustrating because I uh I was I had a very thick Bronx accent for a number of years. Uh still comes out when I'm angry or tired, and I wasn't getting work, I was getting extra work as a gangster, this and that. Um, but I I just didn't uh like it. And so I pivoted towards directing first, and that happened. And I became involved in a number of groups off off Broadway down in Indie theater. Uh Terry Schreiber Studio, who just Terry Schreiber just passed away recently, among others, and uh uh Ellen Stewart, A La Mama.

SPEAKER_02 42:18

Um and no, these are very renowned people in the off-Broadway community.

SPEAKER_00 42:23

Yeah, and uh I I I did a lot there, and I learned a lot by doing it. And I got a master's degree, and and because I wanted to write, I felt, you know. The funny thing, my friend says to me, you know, you always talked about wanting to do film because I have like an encyclopedic knowledge of film, and I do love film, but I found that the um being on movie sets was torture. Uh I my ADD kicked in and I said, could I ever do this? And I and I found that being that theater is much more dynamic. Yes, especially theater, and I love theater, like the living theater. There's so much, there was so much at the time that was breaking out that I was just uh overwhelmed with the opportunity to express ideas in all kinds of ways.

SPEAKER_02 43:21

When did you know that you could write plays?

SPEAKER_00 43:25

Um, I ironically, I wrote my first play when I was uh a young teacher, and uh it became a play that uh did very well at uh the New York International Friendship Festival years ago, but it took 20 years. A lot of my plays gestate for a while, you know, and I I found that I could write dialogue, and I think I now later in life, in the second career I'm trying to have, I'm trying to sell myself as a dialogue. Dialogue writer because I write good dialogue. I have a good ear. And I can write dialogue for a lot of different people. One of the benefits of being an assistant principal for so long, I can write for a young audience. I'm open to them. What do you mean poetry young people have? The way people, the the new slang and things that people do, it it's fascinating to me. Give me examples. Well, um, you know, there's a whole group of terms like uh um deek and dep, and all kinds of things that uh people use in terms of their relationships, in terms of online personas and what they do and uh and and how they express themselves, that people my age are you know even younger than me might find like stupid. Well, it's very hard because I wasn't prepared to talk about the the linguistics of uh of uh Gen Z, but um they just I like the way people talk amongst themselves and what they're what they're what's important to them in their frame of reference. I've never lost that interest. So I feel like I can always write for different audiences.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

You don't so you're saying that there's an actual different vocabulary.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

Oh, absolutely there is, and and and you people sometimes are afraid that that would make their plays dated, but I don't think so. I mean, does is Shakespeare's plays dated because of the language that he uses? No. They're not dated. You adapt, you listen. That's part of the theater. Part of the theater is walking into a space like any like none other, and being in that space than being present. And being present means understanding how they speak and how they what they're trying to do and what they're what they're at stake, you know, what's their needs, what's their fears.

SPEAKER_02 46:09

Were there any playwrights that influenced you?

SPEAKER_00 46:12

Yeah. Um uh luck. It's one of those things where you know, be careful if you meet your heroes. One of the playwrights I'm friendly with now is John Patrick Shanley. He was greatly influenced me. Uh, he proved to me that that my by he's a Bronx guy from Parkchester, and he wrote like Daniel De Plussy, um uh Italian-American Reconciliation, he wrote about people who had a certain language but were heroes. They were like as majestic as anything you would find in a a Greek tragedy or comedy or Shakespeare. And that really inspired me to keep writing. Said I I had actually a voice. Other people I adore is uh uh Tennessee Williams because of the poetry. I've always been attracted to that. Um, I have a friend of mine who I admire quite a bit. Um, he's a Pulser Prize winning uh writer named Stephen Adie Gergis, who I did shows with back in the uh 90s in the Bronx.

SPEAKER_02 47:13

He's quite renowned.

SPEAKER_00 47:15

Yeah, and what he does with language is amazing. Um Arthur Miller, of course. Uh you can't be an American playwright and pretend that he doesn't influence you. And finally, I I'd have to say, really, Sam Shepherd and John Gware, uh John Gware, who I met as a young writer, and Sam Shepherd, whose work pushes boundaries of imagery and and personality and ideas that are amazing.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

All right, we're getting we're getting two intellectual people. So what would so what was the early scenes that fascinated you in the plays that you were gonna write? And don't please talk in plain English, not in abstract.

SPEAKER_00 48:05

Okay. You know, uh the people trying to fall in love when they have so much baggage in their life, and how in one scene they find an opening that will move them forward. I I wrote a play once, ironically, that my uh was based on the the end of my first marriage called Notes to Self. And the whole first scene is about a couple that meet online, and and they have this rat-a-tat-tat where it's obviously going wrong. And the guy says a few things about the the woman in the piece, how how compelling she is, what she's drawn, what he's drawn to. And whatever he says, the few mo those few moments, those few bits of words means that they can they have enough breath to go on. Now, in the play, uh the couple fails because they're both damaged and they're both trying to fix themselves, and you can't fix yourself through other people successfully.

SPEAKER_02 49:10

And very well that way. What I've done well that way.

SPEAKER_00 49:18

Yeah, if somebody's willing to be a willing partner, but it's hard. And um, my ex-wife when she saw it, uh first everybody's damaged in one way or another. I mean, completely everybody is damaged, but uh I'll give you my philosophy of life, and that is if you want to be happy, Robin, you have to find the right crazy.

SPEAKER_02 49:38

That is true.

SPEAKER_00 49:39

That is true. We all are nuts, and we just have to make sure the nuts of the person we're with dovetails with our nuts. We're crazy. It has to match the other person's craziness.

SPEAKER_02 49:51

I want to make sure that's correct because I'm thinking about when I married my husband, my first husband that died. I was nutty as they come at that time. I was an actress, and I was really crazy, and he was so grounded.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

And he was crazy for loving you because you weren't. Well, he loved you, he's me. He's loving somebody who is the opposite of him. Yeah. And and that works for him because you know why? Because part of him wanted to be you. No, no, uh, I think he admired you. I think that's a babble.

SPEAKER_02 50:29

No, it just was chemistry, I don't know. But anyhow, moving on from me back to you. Let me ask you something. With all that you've written, so what do you think really about love? Romantic love.

SPEAKER_00 50:46

Um it has to be cared for like an orchid. You can't leave it to chance. You can't leave it unattended. Uh I might because because physical love fades with age. But romantic love. How long do you think physical love, sexual love lasts? Intense sexual love, three years, four years, ten years? How long do you oh no? It could last much longer than that. It could ebb and flow, it changes with if you switch partners, so you can cut you could capture it again. Uh a thing about physical love is the newness. Pardon me?

SPEAKER_02 51:33

What do you mean switch partners? You're talking about with the same partner.

SPEAKER_00 51:37

Um with the same, well, what I mean is you're saying five years. I mean, you can you could be with the same partner, and I still think you can have it. I think you just have to find an interest. And I think one of the things about physical love is your your level of maturity. If you're both uh children at heart for the most part, and when I want to be be better at it, be a little immature, you can keep that going a little longer. There's a there's a certain selfishness and and goofiness that goes along with physical love. But the more you become older in mind, not body, in mind, then the physical love fades that much faster.

SPEAKER_02 52:24

And then it's replaced by a deep emotional connection.

SPEAKER_00 52:28

Yeah, emotional connection, a friendship, yeah, yeah, a contentment.

SPEAKER_02 52:34

Yeah, a contentment.

SPEAKER_00 52:37

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:40

That's a unique ex that's a unique emotion, contentment.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

It very is, very much is.

SPEAKER_02 52:46

Yeah, that's not that's not in the common lexicon of the American public.

SPEAKER_00 52:52

No. No, to be content is is also a work in progress for most people.

SPEAKER_02 52:59

Yeah. So what what would you say the themes of your plays are? In plain English, Vinny.

SPEAKER_00 53:10

Um fulfilling your dreams no matter how minor. Finding love even if it's gonna break your heart. Saving somebody.

SPEAKER_02 53:24

Hold on, hold on. So you think finding love even if it's going to break your heart is worth it?

SPEAKER_00 53:30

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 53:32

You do, huh?

SPEAKER_00 53:33

Oh, completely. It's completely insane. And sometimes it's the only reason to fall in love.

SPEAKER_02 53:39

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_00 53:42

You don't want to be dead from the from the chest down. You don't want you don't want to not have passion in your life. And with passion comes heartbreak. It's unavoidable. Why is it unavoidable? Because it's not sustainable. Because people get feel crowded by passion, fe people feel weakened by passion. So at some point people say, I can't do this because I'm losing myself, I'm losing my authority, I'm losing my uh autonomy. And they break. But you need that passion. You need that passion to feel alive. You know?

SPEAKER_02 54:32

So it's worth so it's worth any price.

SPEAKER_00 54:35

Yeah. As Thoreau said, the mass of men leaves leave uh live lives of of quiet desperation.

SPEAKER_02 54:42

Well, that that certainly is not a life that you have led, that's for sure. Anyhow, we're going to have to say goodbye. And it's been wonderful, and I will be watching your play this Sunday.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 54:57

And just before we say goodbye to just quickly the movie script. You said before that you didn't want to write for the movies, but now you're right, you've written a movie script and it's winning awards.

SPEAKER_00 55:06

Yeah. It's about two um uh gay men who had a brief but passionate relationship as young men, broke up, one stayed in the closet, one lived his life out and proud, and they find each other at a long cur a long-term care facility by chance. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:29

In a long-term care facility.

SPEAKER_00 55:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:34

So there's no sexuality anymore.

SPEAKER_00 55:37

We don't know yet, but we do know what we what we want to know is there's still love.

SPEAKER_02 55:42

There's love.

SPEAKER_00 55:43

Yeah, there's and that's and that's what the play is about. Can the love still exist even after everything that they've they've given up in their lives?

SPEAKER_02 55:54

Wow, I can't wait to see it. Okay, thank you, Vincent Morano.

SPEAKER_00 56:00

Thank you, Robin.

SPEAKER_02 56:02

A man for all seasons. It's been an honor to have you on.

SPEAKER_00 56:05

Thank you. It's been a pleasure, my dear.

SPEAKER_02 56:07

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 56:08

Bye.