When Ted Brunetti Jr. was growing up in Dormont, the house he shared with his parents and nine siblings had one bathroom — and two pianos.
“Is it any wonder I turned out the way I did?” said Mr. Brunetti, who plays wiseguy Frankie Coffeecake in “A Bronx Tale.” The hit Broadway musical was adapted by Chazz Palminteri from his screenplay and features songs by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater. Its co-directors are four-time Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks and Hollywood goodfella Robert De Niro, working on his first musical.
Mr. Brunetti had experienced the creative process as an actor, director, writer, voice artist ... but this is his first Broadway show.
He has been soaking up the experience to use in his other careers. The acting coach and educator has studios in Los Angeles and Atlanta, and he has conducted industry panels as far away as Australia and New Zealand. He is an adjunct faculty member of the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, and coach Brunetti’s clients have included Mark Feuerstein (“Royal Pains”) and the late “Sopranos” star James Gandolfini.
Before a Broadway performance, you might find Mr. Brunetti Skyping with a client, but on a recent July morning, he was on the phone, telling tales about the time he was sequestered in an L.A. hotel room with Mr. Gandolfini to work on two monologues for the film “Killing Them Softly.” And then there was the day Mr. De Niro decided it was time to teach “Bronx” cast members how to fight.
“It was a Saturday — every one of us will never forget that day,” Mr. Brunetti said. “He just got up and said, ‘I’m going to show these guys how to do it.’ And he showed how a slap in the face is far more insulting than a punch in the face to a man in the situation.”
“A Bronx Tale” has quietly been packing in audiences since December — it was still at more than 90 percent of capacity last week — and it isn’t just about name recognition from the film. Onscreen, Mr. Palminteri plays a mobster who takes an interest in a young boy, and Mr. De Niro plays the boy’s straight-arrow father. The boy is attracted to the mob life and also an African-American schoolmate, creating several combustible combinations.
“My guess is we don’t just get a normal Broadway audience,” Mr. Brunetti said of the show’s success. “We get a lot of males, some nontraditional Broadway-goers, and people who are going to their first Broadway musical.”
He came to the show after reading about it while on a flight to Australia. His acting philosophy — “Prepare to Work, Not Audition” — has taken him all over the world, but he was ready to resettle in New York for “A Bronx Tale.”
One of the joys of the experience was a visit from his parents, Betty and Ted Brunetti Sr., both 90 and the proud owners of a long list of Pittsburgh acting credits on stage and in commercials.
The cast of “A Bronx Tale” recorded “Happy Birthday” for Betty’s 90th, and for his own 56th in May, mom, dad and two of his six sisters went to New York to celebrate. David Brunetti, a teacher, musician and author of “Acting Songs,” lives around the corner from Ted Jr. in New York, and Joe, a designer for Crocs, LeSportsac and Nautica, resides in New Jersey. They also joined the birthday dinner, along with a friend from the old neighborhood, Stephen Flaherty.
“Ragtime” and “Anastasia” composer Flaherty used to play one of those pianos when he visited the Brunettis, but Betty recalled, “The best thing I remember, it made me feel so good, was when David would play and all the kids would be around the piano singing, and it would go on for hours. It seemed to bond them all.”
Mr. and Mrs. Brunetti met at age 14, when both enrolled in a student theater.
“I have been in love with her since then — a long time,” Ted Sr. said, sitting across the table from his wife in their Whitehall apartment.
“I think I was conceived married,” Betty said with a chuckle.
Their love of theater caught on with their kids — besides David and Ted Jr., Tedi is a professional drummer and Anita is a singer. But for most of their childhoods, the Brunetti kids thought of their father as an artist who worked for newspapers, including the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and mom as a teacher.
Eventually, their parents not only told them about their acting past, but also they showed them. At age 65, the Brunettis enrolled together in an acting class through Pittsburgh Public Theater, and each began a second career onstage and in commercials.
Their son recalled a call from his parents about the first reading requirement for their acting class — “Respect for Acting” by Uta Hagen, who was Ted Jr.’s mentor and friend for 20 years.
Among the Brunettis’ fondest memories was working together on a 1997 Pittsburgh CLO production of “Kiss Me, Kate,” although Ted Sr. said his wife’s best work was in a local Sheetz commercial.
Ted Brunetti Jr. incorporates their story into his acting seminars.
“After having raised all those kids, to have the life force and the spirit to go back into that ... ,” Ted Jr. said, letting the thought sink in. “When I go overseas, I do a seminar called ‘Prepare to Work, Not Audition,’ and I tell how they went back into acting. People always thank me for sharing their story.”
His own story has taken him to a Broadway that shows no signs of slowing down.
“I just wanted to be in the room with these men, working on this material,” he said of the moment he read it was going to happen. From that moment, he prepared to work and found his way into one of the few roles that had not been settled as “A Bronx Tale” moved from workshop to the Great White Way.
“I ended up a part of this terrific team of people, and that starts at the top,” said the son of two actors who ran a household with nine children. “They are secure, extremely talented people, and it’s just about the work. It’s a joy.”
Sharon Eberson: seberson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1960. Twitter: @SEberson_pg.
First Published: August 6, 2017, 4:00 a.m.
