The Legacy of a Dreamer

Whenever anyone asks me why I am so passionate about this show, my response is "because my grandfather was a dreamer".  Referring, of course, to the modern connotation of immigrants currently seeking citizenship in America.  When Enrico Ciampoli immigrated to America in 1915, he was 16 years old.  When he enlisted in the American Armed Forces in 1917 he was not yet an American citizen, and not until 2 years after the war had ended was he naturalized.  His love and devotion to this country was expressed without reservation, as is the case with so many today who dream of becoming Americans. In LIBERTY, the young Giovanni studies English by reading discarded newspapers.  This is yet another parallel to Enrico, who taught himself English in the same way.  The courage and determination required to begin life anew is overwhelming to me, and if this show helps people reflect on the journeys of our ancestors, than we will have accomplished a great deal. For me, this entertainment is fairly serious business.  Delivered with many laughs and beautiful songs, but always underscored with history and family.  To the dreamers old and new.

Theresa WozunkProducer - LIBERTY A Monumental New Musical

Liberty and Me

I just love a big woman with a thing for immigrants. My 5’6”grandmother weighed 190 lbs. on her wedding day in 1920 to my 5’4” grandfather – who only weighed 155 lbs. She looks as if she is going to devour him (in that really sexy, good way) in their wedding picture. And according to my mother, they  were the happiest couple to ever walk the face of the earth. My grandfather was an Italian immigrant, who literally walked off the boat and into the arms of that big, jolly woman.

On my 14th birthday I came to NYC for the first time in my life. 

I climbed to the top of Statue of Liberty and looked out at NY Harbor through the windows of her crown, then saw my first Broadway Show – “Grease”. Some might say that this was a very formative day in my life. Fast-forward to 1986 and I found myself standing on the Brooklyn Bridge watching the fireworks fly overhead celebrating the Statue’s 100th Birthday. Forward again to 2006 and I get my first glimpse of a showcase production of LIBERTY.

More than 4 million people a year take the time to get a close look at Liberty Enlightening the World (the statue’s real title). Maybe I’m crazy, but I think that a small percentage of them actually THINK about her. We have lent our songs in celebration of her 125th Anniversary and enjoyed a successful premiere this past year.  Now we look forward to sharing her story with millions more.

Theresa Wozunk -  Producer Liberty The Musical

My grandmother is ninety-eight years old.

She was born here, in America, on the lower East side of New York City. But two of her older sisters were born in the old country -Russia - on a farm in a small town. She was given the biblical name Rebecca, though her family called her Bekeleh (little Becky). I only knew her as Betty, the name she took in honor of Betty Grable, the American actress, who had long American legs and blonde American hair.

When my grandmother was old enough, she would dye her hair to be blonder than Betty Grable’s, as blonde as Jean Harlow’s. And she’d name her dog Harlow as well. My grandmother was always Betty, to everyone who met her, never Grandma, and never unglamorous. But in her wedding picture, she has brown hair, because her traditional immigrant parents wanted her to look traditional as well. She didn’t want anything to do with the old country. Though her parents barely learned English, she had no accent and no interest in ever going back to Europe. When I spent a summer traveling overseas, she asked “Why do you want to go back there? We came from there.” For her, America was the goal, the finish line, the promised land. Why go anywhere else? She wasn’t religious. For her, the promised land was a place where she could buy a pocketbook on sale, sell it at a mark-up at the local senior center, and then spend the dollar on new mascara or a package of false eyelashes. My grandmother was a true capitalist. And that’s exactly how she wanted it. 

In the 1970’s, when her neighborhood in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, started to be known as Little Odessa, because so many Russian immigrants were settling there, it was confusing for her. Were they like her or not? She was American. They weren’t. But they understood some Yiddish, like she did. They dyed their hair blonde and wore furs and high heels and loved the gourmet food shops that were now springing up all along Neptune Avenue. Just like she did. But they were refugees, escape artists, runaways from repression and dictatorship. She wasn’t running away from anything. She was American. 

For the first time, though, she began to look back. These new arrivals sounded like her mother, who had passed away decades before. But they didn’t look like her mother. They drove shiny cars, they polished their long fingernails. They looked good. And they cared that they looked good. But they had been through something. Made sacrifices. For this. For the future. So that they and their children could become or be born American. Her parents had done exactly the same thing – everything they did was for her, so she could be Betty. American. And she was. And she was grateful.

-Dana Leslie Goldstein, Book Writer/Lyricist