Dante Russo

September 16th, 2009

The World Coming In

Dante Russo finds inspiration all around for his writing/acting/singing.
By Joshua C. Harris

As the needle on the throwback record player rides the vinyl groove, Dante quietly sings along. He adjusts his pressed collared shirt downward over his slim frame and thumbs through his eclectic record collection at the same time, label by label, finding various oddities to laugh about. “Oh..this one..” he chuckles “…Persuasive Percussion!”, Dante switches the sweet sound of the Joni Mitchell album to what sounds like 1970’s elevator music. Oddly enough, the smooth bossa nova like sounds of “Persuasive Percussion” are relaxing and set the mood for our talk with Dante Russo.

Dante is an actor and playwright living in Washington Heights . His resume is impressive, having acted in Disney’s national High School Musical tour, countless regional theater productions, and having written many of his own full length theater productions. While his resume is enviable, it’s Dante’s methodology that’s truly striking. “…When I write, I have to travel, I find so much more inspiration when I travel”. Dante finds his writing inspiration through focused interpretation of the world around him. It’s a seemingly simple concept but rarely followed through in lieu of the cyclical habits that modern life demands of us. Pay the bills, go to work, take out the garbage, respond to our e-mails, those tasks that limit our field of view are the things that , Dante indirectly expresses, inhibit our ability to become inspired. While Dante alludes to the sense of being affected by the world around him in order to find something to capture for his writing, he juxtaposes this with the solitary closed off method of preparing for his acting, “…When I prepare to perform, I have to sort of shut all that out, because it becomes overwhelming”.

Dante Video Interview

As he explains these theories, my eyes wander to Dante’s living room walls, particularly on the art and pictures he’s collected on his journeys and those that connect him to his family. “Yeah, that one is my sister Theresa and I when we where kids. She passed away when I was young…” Dante explains as I admire the two children in the picture combined together in a waltz-like dancing stance. Dante tells us of his new play “Extraordinary“; a production inspired by his late sister and empowered by his family’s foundation for her. The Theresa Alessandra Russo Foundation , as it was named, since 1992 acts in the interest of nurturing the development of children with special needs via funding creative activities such as music, dance, and art. Dante speaks passionate about the foundation, highlighting the fact that in association with the foundation, he and his family are also announcing the Theresa Academy of Performing Arts, an academy dedicated to actually instructing special needs children in the creative arts.

We break from our conversation and Dante puts on another record. Among the melodic riffs, we find out Dante has more projects — a lot more projects. He tells us he’s working on a full web-series, children’s book, an epic play set during the second world war, and auditioning for more plays. He exhausts himself describing everything, and smiles. You can tell he’s embarrassed and proud at the same time with doing so much. Yet, it’s his nature to be so involved with the creative process. From the inspiration his family instilled within him, to the constant reminder his sister’s memory provides him, Dante is thankful for his passion, “..I’ve always just woken up, being allowed to be creative…”.