Former Canarsien Revisits His Roots In Newest Play

By Eric Goodman

Anyone who has grown up in Brooklyn can tell you that it has some diverse mix of interesting people. The experiences gained by living in that kind of consummate melting pot are often the stuff that movies are made of. Brooklyn is filled with so many fascinating characters that one would be hard pressed to come up with something more interesting from their imagination.

"I am very nostalgic and realistic with my writing," says 37-year-old playwright and former Canarsie resident Frank Terranova whose latest work, 86th Street, opens off Broadway on March 23. "Any time I am creating characters, I hear the voices of the people from my old neighborhood."

In writing about Terranova’s last play, Denis Hamill wrote in the Daily News, "(He) has a real talent evoking the real Brooklyn without cheap sentimentality of tired clichés. He mines the intelligence, heart, violence and struggle and dreams of Brooklyn and it’s unique, complicated and diverse people."

Terranova, who grew up on East 92 Street and lived in Canarsie for 31 years, attended P.S. 114, Isaac Bildersee JHS 68 and Canarsie High School.

86th Street, like his other plays — Welcome To Canarsie, Crossing Rockaway Parkway, Diamond Girl and Ne’er Do Wells — incorporates Terranova’s personal experiences growing up in what he still calls "the sometimes mean streets of Canarsie."

As he’s previously done, Terranova directs and acts in his new play, which takes place over a two-week period in 1985, in areas familiar to Brooklynites, such as 86th Street in Bensonhurst, Canarsie, Bay Ridge, Manhattan and Staten Island.

Terranova’s 86th Street is about three guys from Canarsie and three girls from Staten Island going out to the famous Bensonhurst thoroughfare for a night that ultimately sparks a relationship between two of the characters, both of whom are fresh off breakups from long term relationships.

The author (pictured at right) notes that the main character Angelo, who lives with his grandmother in Canarsie, falls in love with a Romanian gypsy named Danira, who recently moved to Staten Island.

"There is definitely a West Side Story-type of feel with this play, but a lot of what is found within the character Angelo is based on my own experiences," admits Terranova, who currently lives with his grandmother in Staten Island.

Since his work is based upon local experiences, Terranova tends to believe out-of-towners in the audience may not relate to experiences in 86th Street that may be unique to Brooklyn and New York City.

"My audiences are primarily Italian-Americans and native New Yorkers because a lot of the content contains inside jokes that only those from the area will get. I don’t expect people from the Midwest to watch my show and understand all of the material," admitted Terranova in a recent interview with the Canarsie Courier.

With five plays under his belt, what’s in Terranova’s future?

"I am hard at work trying to develop Welcome to Canarsie into a full length movie that will hopefully be ready to release sometime in 2005," says Terranova. "I am also working on a one-man play called Street Dreams where I play five different characters. I really hope that I can take that show to Broadway one day."

86th Street opens next Tuesday and runs through March 28 at the Sanford Meisner Theater at 164 11th Avenue, between W. 22 and W. 23 Streets. Contact Frank Terranova at 212-203-3282 for tickets.