COVID-19 Closures: Martin Bonventre ("A Bronx Tale" National Tour)

The COVID-19 crisis has caused a devastatingly massive wave of performance cancellations across the country, leaving actors out of work. Broadway, regional theatre, national tours, and more were forced to close much earlier than expected. I’ve been reaching out to the artists affected. Here are their stories.

By Martin Bonventre

I was on the 2nd national tour of A Bronx Tale with NETworks. I played Eddie Mush, one of the Wise Guys.

We had been traveling to so many different parts of the country since October. We got to work with the most amazing people in show business.

We performed for and were approved by Chazz Palminteri who is one of my idols - he wrote the book, the one-man play, wrote the screenplay and starred in the movie in which the musical is based off of.

We also performed in front of Alan Menken (Beauty and The Beast, The Little Mermaid) who wrote the score, which is incredible music that's based off of the 60s and truly a real rock score that is fantastic. 2015 American Idol 2015 winner Nick Fradiani played Lorenzo, who is now my close friend and someone who became like my big brother.

We played the most amazing venues around the country that all the big Broadway tours and stars played, and had thousands and thousands of fans of the movie and show come to see us. We were signing autographs, getting huge social media publicity, and having crowds go nuts like it was a rock concert or a show like Jersey Boys.

When we hit The Segerstrom Center For The Arts in Costa Mesa, California (which was a two-week engagement of our tour there) it was truly a dream come true. The dressing rooms were huge, the stage was enormous, and it was a seating capacity of 2,994, and all the tours with all the big names played there such as Robert Goulet, Carol Channing, Anthony Newly, David Copperfield, Ann-Margret - you name it, they all played there.

We hit our 100th show on March 11th. All of us stayed inside because we heard of the health crisis that was going on that we knew about but didn't know yet how serious it was.

The next day, we were all called into a meeting. Before that meeting, we got an email telling us that we were cancelled at Segerstrom. The plan was to keep us in Costa Mesa until they knew further about the other venues being either cancelled or postponed. We were seeing all over the news that day that everything was being shut down because of this horrible pandemic.

The day after, when the administration announced that this was a national emergency, we then were told that they would send us home and be in touch with us until further notice. We all went back to our point of origin, or other places. Some stayed until finding out the news.

They called us in on a zoom conference a week later and told us the news that they were cancelling our tour.

We were supposed to end on May 10th - instead we ended March 11th. All of us were so deeply saddened because our cast grew so close as a family. We were unlike any other cast. All of them are still like my family to this day.

They did give us the option to file for unemployment.

The way I'm managing this is by watching old Broadway clips, doing research on shows and dream roles that I'd love to do in the future. Also doing my voice lessons on zoom, practicing my dance, watching movies of genres that I feel I am perfectly right for.

But most of all, keeping positive.

I did a Broadway national tour, made it to 100 shows, worked and performed for one of my idols, and was with a cast that truly became like my family.

The sad part was that we didn't have the proper closure we wanted.

Martin Bonventre was thrilled to be part of the tour of A Bronx Tale. He has also performed in Annie (Rooster)at La Comedia Dinner theater, Sister Act (Joey) at the Fireside Theater, Ragtime(Houdini) at Park Playhouse, A Chorus Line (Mike), Grease (Sonny) at The Eldorado Hotel and Casino in Reno, Nevada, and The Music Man(Olin Britt) at Westchester Broadway Theater. Along the way, Martin has entertained audiences in NYC cabarets, and sung as a member of Essential Voices USA with the New York Pops at Carnegie Hall. He is a graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA).