A Bronx Tour

When he was 9 years old, Chazz Palminteri received an index card from his father that read, “The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.” That axiom stayed with him through his time as a struggling actor and as a club bouncer in New York City, even when he was fired from manning the rope after denying entry to a Hollywood superagent. Getting canned ended up being the best thing that happened to Palminteri: He set to work penning A Bronx Tale, a one-man show that premiered in Los Angeles in 1990, transferred off-Broadway, and was adapted by Robert De Niro into a 1993 film. Fifteen years after the show’s debut, Palminteri is still performing A Bronx Tale, his semiautobiographical account of a child maturing in a working-class, immigrant neighborhood while witnessing Mob hits and resisting the Mafia’s allure. This powerful, funny tour de force helped put Palminteri on Hollywood’s map, and he has forged a career as a dependable character actor in often-typecast roles as wiseguys, gangsters, con men, and heavies, most memorably in Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway. But A Bronx Tale is pure, unfiltered Palminteri at the height of his talent and creativity. He will perform it at 8 p.m. Thursday at Seminole Casino Coconut Creek, located at 5550 NW 40th St. in Coconut Creek. Tickets cost $57.65 to $94.95. Call 954-977-6700, or visit ticketmaster.com.
Thu., Feb. 26, 2015