A Bronx Tale, the Broadway musical, marked its 500th performance at the Longacre Theatre, on February 13.
Chazz Palminteri and Nick Cordero, who stars as Sonny, joined the rest of the Bronx Tale cast and the entire audience in doing the “Sonny Salute.”
The two, who looked almost like twins, stood on stage as the audience joined them in the gesture that has become a kind of signature for the show.
The original play, based on Palminteri’s childhood, tells the story of Calogero Anello, who meets a mafia boss and then must decide whether to follow in his father’s or the gangster’s footsteps.
A Bronx Tale premiered in 1989 as a play before Robert De Niro saw it in Los Angeles and acquired the rights to make it into a movie. Palminteri worked with De Niro on the screenplay for the movie, which was released I 1993.
The one-man show was adapted as a musical with its book by Palmenteri, music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Glenn Slater.
The musical premiered at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Milburn, N.J., on February 4, 2016, before opening on Broadway December 1 later that year.
The musical is co-directed by De Niro and Jerry Zaks, who directed the one man show on Broadway in 2007. The show features choreography by Sergio Trujillo with Tommy Mottola as lead producer.