Queens Tribune

Growing up in Woodhaven in the 1960s, actor and playwright John Pallotta experienced the often-romanticized landscape of mobsters and hoodlums depicted in “The Godfather” and “The Sopranos.” He waited tables for John Gotti. His neighbors worked for the mob running two-bit loan sharking operations.

Using his own life as a blueprint, Pallotta has written a play that aims to recapture those times past. “Vegas,” which ran Off-Broadway and could open on a small Broadway stage next year, draws characters and dialogue directly from Pallotta’s childhood, using his experiences as a portal into a simpler but less tolerant Queens than exists today.

“Vegas” centers on the life of Francis Rotundo, a mentally challenged youth who struggles with his overbearing and abusive father, Joey. Francis eventually meets a similarly handicapped girl named Laura, and, against Joey’s wishes, the two plan to get married in Las Vegas. While the two lover’s plot ultimately gets foiled, they are reunited later in life and rekindle their past affection.

As Pallotta recently walked through his old stomping grounds near 90th Avenue on a sweltering summer day, he recounted his relationship with the actual people on which the characters in his play were based. Living in a semi-attached house with thin walls, he heard everything that happened in his neighbors’ homes, he said, including the habitually gambling factory worker next door yelling at his slightly retarded son, Danny.

“A writer writes what he knows, and growing up in that time, I have a good perspective,” Pallotta said.

Danny’s brother and a friend, local hoods who ran small time scams for the mob, are also fictionalized in the play. Pallotta, who hadn’t visited his old neighborhood in several years, pointed out the former location of a strip club where the two hoods would hang out. Now it’s a pet supply store.

When his mother called him in 1989 and informed him Danny had passed away, Pallotta said the idea for a play began germinating in his imagination. Once he sat down to write it years later, it flowed out of him onto the page in less than 30 days-all 350 pages of it. With editing help from friend and colleague C. Haig Bonjukian, Pallotta managed to whittle down his original creation to a point where the length and dialogue would be accessible to a general audience.

When it came time to cast the play, a Woodhaven resident named Jessica Lee tried out for the part of Gina, Francis’ younger sister. Although Pallotta did not know about Lee’s origins at the time, he immediately recognized her phraseology as the local dialect of his old neighborhood.
“I asked her where she was from, and when she told me, I cast her without her being cast yet,” Pallotta said. “I told her to go to places from the play. There was a lot of character development that went into this.”

Lee, who resides only blocks from Pallotta’s childhood home, said she relates to the content because she has been through many of the same experiences as the characters.

“I’ve lived during the whole mafia thing. I understand what goes on in these households. I’ve been at dinner with people while there’s a fight going on outside, and people look at each other and don’t know what to say,” Lee said. “These are people trying to make it day by day and go on with their lives without knowing exactly how.”

“Vegas” has been performed at The Lambs Theatre and recently had a public reading to attract donors for a possible Broadway production. Already having $30,000 to work with from an artistic grant, Pallotta said the play could be ready to be performed sometime next year.