Fort Wayne native and 2000 Millikin University graduate Dan Marrero broke into the Chicago professional acting market, earning a role in Chicago's current longest-running play TONY N' TINA'S WEDDING. The play, which satirizes Italian-American wedding ceremonies and includes the audience as wedding guests, has run for 9 years and counting. The record is 11 years for SHEAR MADNESS.

A former Bower North Productions troupe member, Marrero went on to form his own improvisational comedy troupe at Millikin University in 1998, where he also wrote, directed, and produced murder mysteries, plays, and musicals.

But on August 17, his life changed.

He had been planning to audition for Chicago's Second City Conservatory on August 17 (he was accepted and will begin studying improvisational based comedy in October), but says, "When the opportunity presented itself to audition for professional Chicago theatre, I jumped at it."

After his two-minute monologue from Neil Simon's RUMORS, the director Joey Thomaska asked him to tell a funny, personal wedding story. He was then asked a few other questions, including, "When can you start?"

"I had a full time job in Weston, Florida, and very little money saved," he says. "But I answered as one always should: 'When do you need me?'

"That was, they told me, a good answer."

He was called back for a second audition 30 minutes later. �He performed several improvised scenes between himself and a member of the cast. They asked him to return the next day to watch the show.

He was offered the job immediately after the Saturday matinee.

Tony n' Tina's Wedding began in New York (where it's still playing) and then branched out to Chicago. Each of the actors will learn several different roles. "Being an improvisation- and audience-based show," says Marrero, "the change in cast never seems a hindrance. For instance, sometimes a guy who plays the groom will instead play a groomsman."

New cast members will play a member of what's called the "Blackstaff" -- employees of the character Vinnie Black, who owns the reception hall and cocktail lounge that parts of the play take place in.

"As an actor plays Blackstaff," says Marrero, "they are also training for another, more major character. It will usually be about 4 to 6 weeks before they play the new character."

Marrero was given a paragraph of information about his character, Jackie, which includes his relationship to the bride and groom, his occupation, and so forth, but the rest is up to him to create. "Jackie is a struggling comedian," Marrero says. "I gave him the last name 'Whiplash' and the moniker 'The biggest pain in the neck this side of the Mississippi Delta.'"

He also had to write a character biography and a monologue and then perform it in front of the rest of the cast, "including one member who has been doing the show for all nine years."

Marrero says that experience has been "nerve-wracking and extremely quick." After being hired on Saturday, he flew back to Florida on Sunday, packed a few of his things, and drove up to Chicago Tuesday. He began watching the show on Wednesday and performed for the first time on Saturday -- twice.

He is not allowed to discuss his pay, but says that it's the highest-paying non-Equity theatre in the city, and that he still needs another job
to supplement his income.

The draw for audiences is the interactive and improvisational nature of the show. Audience members become friends and relatives of the bride and groom. There is no set, as the actors mill about among the audience. There is no mystery to solve. During the pre-show audience participation cocktail hour, the characters relate the story of Tony and Tina's wedding to the audience members in small groups, giving them their own point of view. The audience is then ushered into the Chapel of Love, where the wedding takes place. "You really find out how the characters feel about one another," says Marrero. "This is probably the most scripted part of the show."

After the ceremony the audience moves to Vinnie Black's Coliseum for the wedding reception, where there is music, dancing, an Italian buffet, a cash bar, and more scripted material. "It's like a reception," Marrero says, "only somewhat absurd."

"I suppose I could be doing TONY N' TINA forever, as my contract is indefinite," says Marrero. "Right now I just want to get enough sleep to do the show tomorrow."

The show plays at Piper's Alley at 230 W. North Avenue in Chicago at the corner of North Avenue and Wells Street.� For tickets, call 312-664-8844 or for group sales (20 or more) call (312) 664-0773. Tickets are $45 and include dinner, the show, and champagne. For more information, visit www.tonyntina.com .

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Wayne Williams has written his first musical score for a show called NEGATIVE SPACE, which was selected to be a part of the 9th Annual Obie Award-winning Blue Print Series at the Ontological-Hysteric Theater in St. Mark's Church on the Bowery. It then moved uptown for a weekend to the Variety Cafe near Rockefeller Center, where it closed last weekend.

"F. Murray Abraham (Salieri in Amadeus) saw the piece and loved it," says Williams. "So much so, he took our entire production staff out for a sushi afterwards!"

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Edwards Productions, a nonprofit traveling theatre group based out of Fort Wayne will perform Nunsense September 28 - 30, 2001 at the Fort Wayne Community Center, 233 West Main Street, downtown Fort Wayne. Tickets for this dinner theatre production are $20.00 per person. Reservations can be made by calling (219) 496-9291. Special Sunday Matinee on September 30.

Be sure to catch a preview of the show at the caf� of the new Barnes & Noble in Jefferson Pointe on September 7 at 7:30 p.m. The Townhouse Retirement Home is also hosting a preview of this show for its residents on September 17.