“She is bubbly, brilliant and fabulous at improvisational theater.” Neal Newman, theater director, could not praise her more. Katina Corrao is the first Cabrini College graduate to make a living in improvisational theater.
She started out just as all Cabrini students do, even living in the Dixon house, room 233 her senior year. Corrao benefited greatly from her time at Cabrini, she says, citing several teachers that made a difference in her life.
“Jerry Zurek, Cathy Yungmann, and Arthur Young were influential because they never made us underestimate Cabrini,” Corrao said. “They always reinforced that I was receiving a good education and that I was being taught by good people. They taught me to not be intimidated and just go out there and do it.”
After Cabrini, Corrao attended the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Newman had told Corrao to pursue work with the Free Style Repertory Theater in New York City after her schooling ended. She followed his advice and auditioned. “They did not call me back,” Corrao said. “I thought, ‘Is there a mistake?'”
“She has the perfect mentality to be an actress. Nothing gets her down,” Newman said. The Free Style Repertory Theater certainly was not going to be the first audition to upset her. She called them to follow up on her audition and in turn, they supplied her with free classes to learn their style and technique. The only problem was that they gave her a mere two weeks to move to New York City from San Francisco.
Eventually finding an apartment with an old theater acquaintance, Corrao began her life in New York theater. When discussing improvisational theater, Corrao said, “Neal always instilled that it was more about not being funny, rather finding the reality in comedy, the subtlety. It is not ‘rubber-chicken-haha-joking.'” She continues studying “improv” to this day, concentrating on a form called “The Herald,” which originated in Chicago.
While in New York, Corrao delved into another type of entertainment. Working in audience production for the “Late Show with David Letterman,” she could always tell people she “was playing at the Ed Sullivan Theater.”
After her Letterman experience, she went to work in the same position for “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” This led to a producing job for a hip, new talk show.
She has now come back to focus on her original acting plan, writing and starring in her own one-woman show. The show, “Italian Cookies: A Recipe of Love and Anxiety,” is about Corrao, her life, auditioning, dating and largely about her mother. “She always gives advice in the kitchen and she makes cookies for everything, for anything,” Corrao said.
In August of this year, her show was broadcast on PSNBC. One condition of the PSNBC performance was that she had to fill the house. “I was worried,” Corrao said, “but it was sold out.”
Corrao has decided to bring her show to Cabrini this weekend. Among her audience will be one of the people she is portraying, her mother. The show is on Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Grace Hall theater. Admission is free.
