Napoletango, created and directed by Giancarlo Sepe was produced by the Teatro Eliseo and the Napoli Teatro Festival. Thirty actors, dancers, musicians and acrobats were selected from a competition in 2010, in which more than two thousand people participated, to work for a month with the director, all of which was filmed by an ad hoc TV website.
Twenty people were then selected. Marcela was given the main role as tangoist, who became known as ‘the Little Spaniard’, a nickname she found infuriating since she is proud of her Argentinian (not Spanish) heritage. She played a ‘zarellara’, a down-in-the-mouth street vendor who meets a tango dancer and discovers her talent for dance.
The show premiered at the San Carlo Theater in Naples and toured for two years, playing in major theaters throughout Italy: the Eliseo in Rome, the Petruzzelli Theater in Bari, The Biondo in Palermo, the Smeraldo in Milan, the Verdi in Florence and the Chiabrera in Savona.
It also played from August 4-6, 2011 at the prestigious Coliseum Theatre in London and was featured by the Italian television network on Channel 5.
The cast (in alphabetical order): Stefano Capitani, Susy Del Giudice, Sergio Di Paola, Cristina Donadio, Barbara Folchitto, Antonio Gargiulo, Elena Gigliotti, Cristina Messere, Francesco Moraca, Pablo Moyano, Raffaele Musella, Matteo Nicoletta, David Paryla, Giorgio Pinto, Caterina Pontrandolfo, Dora Romano, Marcela Szurkalo, Nella Tirante, Luca Trezza. Scenery and costumes were by Carlo De Marino, lighting by Umile Vainieri.
Musical score by Luis Bacalof
played by the Harmonia Team
with the collaboration of Davide Mastrogiovanni
Assistant Director: Domenico De Santi