Steve Solomon to Perform at Wiltsie Center

Hazleton, Luzerne County-Comedian Steve Solomon will perform his stand-up show "My Mother's Italian, My Father's Jewish and I'm in Therapy!" at the Wiltsie Center at the Historic Castle on Saturday, Oct. 13, at 8 p.m.

    Solomon's two-time award-winning show has met with rave reviews and great audience acclaim throughout the country, becoming one of the longest-running one-man shows in Broadway history. The audience will get to meet Uncle Willie, Stuttering Cousin Bob, Demented Cousin Kenny, Steve's new therapist, Cousin Sal (and Sal's parole officer) and a myriad of astounding characters we know, love and tolerate from our own families, each one brought to life on stage by Solomon using his gift for creating voices, dialects and wacky sound effects that only add to the hilarity of each story. Solomon has headlined throughout the United States and Europe for more than 20 years and his stories relate to the wacky side of the human condition.

   Hundreds of thousands of people have seen this award-winning show. "My Mother's Italian, My Father's Jewish and I'm In Therapy!" has met with rave reviews to sold-out crowds throughout the country. This hilarious show highlights the very best of Solomon's writing talents.

   Regis Philbin, former host of "Live with Regis and Kelly", described the show as "Hysterically funny! Non-stop laughs all the way! Brilliantly done! I can't recommend this show enough - it's just great!"

   A native of Brooklyn, Solomon grew up in the multi-ethnic neighborhood of Sheepshead Bay. This was the perfect training ground for a dialectician and comedian. Solomon learned at an early age how to use his gift for imitating accents to his advantage. He also realized that he was a prolific writer of jokes and stories. He submitted dozens of his stories to periodicals, friends and stand up comics he knew in the business. With the coming of the Internet and email, Solomon now had an outlet for much of his comedy writings. One email full of his jokes became 10, 10 became hundreds and soon thousands of fellow emailers were enjoying Steve's humor, and so it went for more than 20 years. To this day, Solomon receives email versions of his own jokes from all over the world.

Using humor, dialects and sound effects in teaching, Solomon was the real-life version of Gabe Kaplan's "Welcome Back, Kotter." Eventually, he became a physics teacher and a school administrator on Long Island, New York.
He left his academic career behind and turned his attention to his latent love of making people laugh. As Solomon puts it, "I decided to follow my heart and become an impoverished comedy writer and performer."

Solomon has written two additional sequels to his original hit: "My Mother's Italian, My Father's Jewish and I'm STILL in Therapy" and his hilarious holiday show, "My Mother's Italian, My Father's Jewish and I'm Home for the Holidays!"
All three of his shows are currently touring the United States and have received critical acclaim, including The Connecticut Critics Circle and The San Francisco Drama Desk nomination.


Ticket prices for "My Mother's Italian, My Father's Jewish and I'm in Therapy!" at the Wiltsie Center range from $15 to $26. Tickets can be purchased at www.ticketmaster.com or through Ticketmaster retail outlets at Boscov's and Walmart.

The Wiltsie Center at the Historic Castle, now offering its second season of entertainment, is located at the Alice C. Wiltsie Performing Arts Center at Hazleton Elementary/Middle School, 700 N. Wyoming St. in Hazleton.

(Information from Wiltsie Center)