Chazz Palminteri talks about turning his ‘Bronx Tale’ into a musical

Over his career, Chazz Palminteri’s roles have ranged from his Oscar-nominated turn as a gangster in the comedy “Bullets over Broadway” to a special agent in the Academy Award-winning thriller “The Usual Suspects.”

But one work has loomed above them all: “A Bronx Tale.” Originated by Palminteri as a one-man show in 1989, it was later adapted into a 1993 film and now a Broadway musical that will visit Tampa’s Straz Center Tuesday through Feb. 3.

Inspired by Palminteri’s own life, “A Bronx Tale” follows a boy named Calogero who witnesses a murder by the mobster Sonny. The gangster later befriends him, which causes conflict with Calogero’s straight-and-narrow bus driver father.

In a phone interview with the Herald-Tribune, Palminteri said “A Bronx Tale” has endured all these years in different versions because the story is a morality tale that audiences emotionally connect to.

“It’s one of those things, you write something and you don’t know you’re writing something like lightning in a bottle,” Palminteri said. “But I did, and I’m very happy that I did.”

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He got the idea to make “A Bronx Tale” into a musical, and wanted someone who could maintain its fable-like nature. He thought of Alan Menken, an eight-time Oscar winner for such Disney films as “Beauty and the Beast” who also earned a Tony for the stage musical “Newsies.”

Palminteri had worked with him on a 2004 film he directed called “Noel,” for which Menken composed the score. Though he was impressed with Menken’s work then, Palminteri was astonished after working with him on “A Bronx Tale.”

“He would write a great, great song and we would put it in, but for whatever reason, it didn’t fit the musical,” Palminteri said. “He would say, ‘Oh, OK, don’t worry about it.’ He’d come back in an hour — an hour! — and write another one just as good.”

Three-time Tony-nominated lyricist Glenn Slater, who’d previously worked with Menken on the Broadway adaptations “The Little Mermaid” and “Sister Act” and who wrote the book to the Asolo Repertory Theatre’s 2017 production of “Beatsville,” was hired along with Olivier Award-winning “Memphis” choreographer Sergio Trujillo. Palminteri penned the book.

Co-directing the musical were Jerry Zaks, the Tony winner who helmed the one-man show’s 2007 Broadway revival, and legendary actor Robert De Niro, who made his directorial debut with the film adaptation while also starring as Calogero’s father.

Palminteri had gotten earlier offers to make “A Bronx Tale” into a movie, but no one wanted to let him write the screenplay or star in it until De Niro.

“He was the only one who said ‘I think you should play Sonny, and I think you should write it because it’s about your life,’” Palminteri said. "So he was the one who really made that happen and I said, ‘OK, I’ll sell it to you.’”

After opening on Broadway in 2016, “A Bronx Tale” started its national tour in October. Palminteri continues to tour with his one-man show as well, and 30 years later, performing it still hasn't lost its draw.

“I'm excited by it, I love it because of the impact that it has on people,” Palminteri said. “Alfred Hitchcock used to say there’s only three things you can do to an audience, and if you do two out of three, you got a hit. He said you can make them laugh, you can make them cry or you can scare them. And in ‘A Bronx Tale,’ we do all three.”

‘A Bronx Tale’

The musical  runs Tuesday-Feb. 3 at Carol Morsani Hall in the Straz Center, 1010 N. Macinnes Place, Tampa. Tickets start at $65. 813-229-7827; strazcenter.org