Rose Desena is founder and producer of “Plays and Pizza,” which transpires every third Monday at Lucky Jack’s Bar on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. As Rose explains the origin of this series: “I like two things: plays and pizza,” she said. The evening consists of six to eight plays of about ten minutes in length, with a master of ceremonies who is a stand-up comedian. “I knew that I wanted to produce and start my own series,” she said.
Rose said she found that serving pizza was a way to make the audience linger after the production and talk to the writers and actors. She serves slices from a local pizzeria on Orchard Street. Some writers of the short plays have been Jack Feldstein, Anthony Fusco, Donald Loftus, and Allan Yashin. Comedians who have participated include Rhonda Hansome and Sophie Gutchinov. Rose said, “We’re going strong. The house is pretty much sold out.”
How did she make this a success? “Perseverance,” Rose said.
Rose also works part-time at the Public Theater as a stage monitor, usher, or lobby greeter. What’s best about this job? “Getting to see all the shows for free.” She likes all the shows, but a couple of her favorites were Privacy and Tiny Beautiful Things, about an advice columnist who gets really involved with her subjects’ lives. She enjoys the intimacy of small settings such as the Public Theater or the Atlantic Theater. “It gives you an enhanced experience up close.”
In the late 1960s, she wanted to see the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall. This was during the “age of Aquarius during the late 1960s.” Rose did not have the money to pay the admission, so she sneaked in following intermission and took a seat. She yearned to be a Rockette herself.
Rose left New York in 1973 with her then boyfriend and headed to California in a Volkswagen Beetle looking “for greener pastures.” They both sold ceramics on the streets of San Francisco and at art shows. Settling in the neighborhood of North Beach, Rose enjoyed attending the theater and ballet.
In 1997 Rose met her husband Bill, a security analyst whose work has taken them around the world. In Argentina, the pair spent a good deal of time at a beach resort, Carlos Paz. In Uganda, they stayed at the Speke Hotel, named for a British explorer.
At one point, Rose bought and remodeled an apartment in Paris. In the City of Lights, she took acting classes and performed in Baby with the Bathwater. Paris remains a city that she truly embraces. “I loved that everyone was kissing all the time. It was incredibly romantic and erotic.” In 2006, she produced her first full-length play there called Moments of Erotica, consisting of ten short vignettes. One was about a young woman who finally moves into her first apartment alone and can sleep nude for the first time. “It was an awakening for that character.” It was produced in Paris in a small neighborhood theater in Montmartre in 2006 and also in Los Angeles at the Promenade Playhouse in Santa Monica in 2011.
She subsequently moved to Los Angeles, where she became the theater critic at the online publication Los Angeles Post where she reviewed about 160 shows.
Her reviewing job came about after she met the editor at a party and told him that she would love to review theater. Rose wrote about many shows from smaller theaters but some from larger venues such as the Geffen Playhouse. One of her favorite acting companies whose work she reviewed was called The Rogue Machine Theatre.
Rose produced two shows for the Los Angeles Fringe Festival. One of them, Linden Arden Stole the Highlights, was a mystery about an Irish man looking back on his life. The writer and actor was Colin Mitchell, whose love of the music of Van Morrison was the inspiration for the story. Colin is the former editor-in-chief of the theater news and aggregation site “Bitter Lemons.” She originally met him at the Alliance for Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP), an organization on whose board Rose served. Her other show in the Fringe Festival was Sex, Lies, and Social Media, which consisted of seven short plays, directed by ALAP co-chair Dan Berkowitz, who is a member of the Council of the Dramatists Guild of America.
In the Los Angeles Fringe Festival in 2015, she was also executive producer of Kinky Neon Rocker, consisting of stories involving a red neon rocking chair.
She was introduced to The Lambs by her resident director of “Plays and Pizza,” Peggy Howard Chane, who has worked in the entertainment business in Los Angeles. Through Peggy, Rose met Sarah Ann Rodgers, who has participated in “Plays and Pizza.”
Rose is a self-described “cultural junkie” who loves music, dance, and ballet in whatever city she resides. She can spend hours at museums including the Guggenheim and the Whitney. “I’m a real Rauschenberg fan and loved the show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Rose enjoys going to art galleries with her friend, Kathleen Cullen, who writes for the publication, Gallery Guide.
She moved back to New York, principally to be closer to her brother and sister.
In Long Island City in 2015, she produced Opaline at the Secret Theatre, owned by Richard Mazda. The writer Fengar Gael penned this mystery about a group of people whose lives revolve around the drink absinthe. Directed by Dan Berkowitz, it opened in March last year and made a profit. Rose’s brother, Carmine Desena, made costumes and co-produced it with her.
Her advice to producing plays in small theaters: “Make sure you have more money than you think you need and more time than you expect.”
–written by Gary Shapiro