Hometown Couple Kicks off Pending Nuptials by Acting in a Play

When the Ocean County College Theatre Company presents Arthur Miller's drama "All My Sons" next month it will feature two high school sweethearts from Beachwood who are about to tie the knot this summer.

Coincidentally, Nick Falzone and Dana Ferriera, who met in theater at Toms River High School South, will be playing husband (Frank) and wife (Lydia) supporting characters in the searing drama.

Fierra says the roles that they had gotten were completely by chance. "When we had gone in for our call-backs we had read together as the husband and wife and it was funny because Arthur Waldman who's directing the show, he made a comment about how much great chemistry that we have together and I was like, of course we have chemistry, we're getting married in July. and he was like really? Like he had no idea and we were cast as the role."

A POETIC START TO MARRIED LIFE

Ferriera admits that it's a poetic beginning to their new life as a married couple. "We're getting married in July and we wanted to do a show together, you know, one more time before we were married. You know like we don't know what that might bring. So we don't know if we'll have time again after the wedding and so we wanted to do it together, so we did."

HELPING OTHER FAMILIES COPE

In the play, Falzone and Ferriera play characters who bring levity to families struggling with the war-related loss of a loved one. Their roles also imitate their lives in that she says "We are the happy couple. We are the family that wasn't really, the past that what happened in the war, didn't really have an effect on us. So any time we enter, we always enter with a smile but we are important in the fact that we symbolize everything the Keller's don't have."

Ferriera says she believes the play is relevant, especially nowadays when people are losing loved ones in overseas conflicts. She says she and her family have also been impacted by a wartime loss.

Nick and Dana are also OCC graduates and finished their Bachelors Degrees in separate colleges. She now works as a substitute teacher in the Plumsted School District. Nick is a Videographer for and entertainment company in Toms River.

The couple also has another special connection, they were leaders of the Speech and Theater Club at OCC and they started a benefit called "Laugh for a Cure" that raises money and awareness for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society every year.

The play opens Thursday March 22nd and runs for two weeks until March 31st at the Arts & Community Center Black Box Theatre, OCC Main Campus, Toms River. Get ticket information at (732) 255-0500 and online at http://tickets.Ocean.edu