The Newtowne Players Present Over the River and Through the Woods - The Baynet 1/22/2010
Meet Nick, a single Italian-American guy from New Jersey. His parents have retired and moved to Florida, but that doesn’t mean his family isn’t still in New Jersey. In fact, he sees both sets of grandparents every Sunday for dinner. This is routine, until he has to tell them he’s been offered a dream job. The job he’s been waiting for – marketing executive – would take him away from his beloved but annoying grandparents. When Nick tells them, the news doesn’t sit so well. Thus begins a series of schemes to keep Nick around. How could he betray his family’s love to move to Seattle for a job, wonder his grandparents? Well, Frank, Aida, Nunzio and Emma do their level best to keep him in New Jersey, and that includes bringing the lovely – and single – Caitlin O’Hare to dinner as bait!
In NTP play, nothing is more important than family - Weekend Section, 1/22/2010
By DICKSON MERCER
Staff writer
Director Thomas Esposito says, by now, his cast of six has read the script for Joe DiPietro's "Over the River and Through the Woods" at least 50 times. Even so, for the cast, it might take 50 or 100 more to soften the play's emotional punch, and for Esposito to watch a performance without choking up. Warning: In DiPietro's Italian comedy, Act 1 laughs might very well lead to Act 2 tears (the good kind).
First produced in the early 1990s, "Over the River and Through the Woods" has nothing to do with the holidays (or the song) and has everything to do with a family's founding principles of family, faith and food. These three Fs are what Nick's (Stephen Rumpf) great-grandparents and grandparents raise him on. Every Sunday the 20-something marketing executive goes to see them in Hoboken, N.J., where his great-grandmother (Joanne McDonald) cooks a big Italian meal which will probably make audiences salivate.
