NEW YORK (WCBS 880) – Two friends from Staten Island used their time during the pandemic to write a musical about their home, long known as the “forgotten borough.”
Sal Volpe, 23, wrote “Staten Island! The Musical” in a matter of months alongside his high school friend, Matt Izzo, 26, who got the idea for the musical after watching a performance of “Oklahoma!” on the Best of Broadway, which aired in December.
“We kind of put our heads down and worked, we had some good reads, we just want to do the best we can, and we’re just really excited because the reception this week from our shows has just been incredible,” Izzo said.
From the “Staten Island Clown” to the demise of groundhog Staten Island Chuck and the proposed New York Wheel project, the musical lovingly captures the quirks of the island. Characters include dancing turkeys, mall walkers, ferry workers and that pesky neighbor who says you stole their spot.
“Queens, they have Spider-Man. Brooklyn, literally there’s the moving called ‘Brooklyn.’ Manhattan gets to call themselves New York. And the Bronx has ‘A Bronx Tale’ and plenty of other things, right? So it’s about time. We’ve been a borough for over 100 years. It’s about time that we had some really positive representation,” Volpe said.
The musical runs through this weekend at an outdoor stage at the National Lighthouse Museum in St. George. You can buy tickets here.
“Hopefully when people come to see ‘Staten Island! The Musical,’ even if they’re not from Staten Island, they’ll be able to relate,” Izzo said. “It’s just a very specific kind of crazy here, but it’s crazy everywhere.”