Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow is a docu-drama produced by Michael Giallombardo, Joey Giambra, Joe DiLeo and Ken Giangreco.
Written and directed by Giallombardo and Giambra the story begins in 1939 during the Great Depression; a time when Europe was bracing for war and the world was ignoring the imminent harm about to occur.
It is an odyssey told clearly through narrative, original music, graphic vignettes and moving pictures edited by
Ken Giangreco.
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow chronicles the conflicts, the immigrant soul, faith and ascent of impoverished Western New York’s Italians.
We learn that during WW II Italian Americans (suspected security risks) were ousted from their homes, put on trains under cover of darkness and shipped to mid-western internment camps.
The War altered and illuminated the lives and times of Italians whose sons and daughters were now in the armed forces. Many in the Pacific awaited letters from home, as did their brethren on Mediterranean soil where their parents were born. On both fronts the mail told of life back home, of family, and of the blue stars in windows that indicated someone therein was serving America. A gold star meant someone would never return.
The story segues to the early 1950s when Italian matriarchs gave cooking and baking lessons to the freckled-red heads and blondes who married their sons while the patriarch taught his daughters blonde suitors how to make wine while fighting tears watching his own sons make tracks for distant places like Korea, and years later, Viet Nam; strange lands that changed so many lives in so many ways: And again, some would never return. Scores that did emulated their WW II counterparts and embraced college via the G I Bill. Their efforts brought about a change in Italian American society. They became Educators, Industrialists and leaders in the world of politics and in the Arts and Sciences. The outcome of this created marriages that produced attractive hybrids with stunning faces and non-Italian surnames. In the final analysis this docu-drama begins with Italian Immigrants lifting bricks, digging ditches, picking beans all the way to their off springs becoming ballet dancers.
Tickets: $10 "not yet" members / $8 seniors & students / $4 Burchfield Penney members