November 2016

Dina Morrone, a playwright, performer, voiceover actor, model, graduate of Fashion Design, was born in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, a small blue-collar town on the icy cold shores of Lake Superior, just thirty-five minutes from the United States border of Minnesota. When people in Los Angeles say it’s cold, Dina chuckles. She grew up in a place where temperatures drop to the depths of minus forty and below. Now that’s cold!

When asked to tell The Eden Magazine a little bit about herself, Dina quoted something the cinematic maestro, Federico Fellini, said to her when she met with him at Cinecitta’ film studios in Rome. Her agent had set up a meeting with the maestro, to discuss a role in one of his upcoming projects. When she nervously sat down with the larger than life director, he turned to her and said, “Tell me a little bit about yourself.” As Dina prepared to speak, he interrupted her and said, “But not as an actor. When actors talk about their work, it’s so boring.” And so with that, Dina went on to talk about Canada, the cold, figure skating, fashion, her family, and her grandmother’s chickens. That encounter with Fellini taught her a lot about herself and went on to become the centerpiece of her solo show, The Italian In Me, which she wrote and has performed all over Los Angeles. She will be performing it again for two shows on December 3rd & 4th at Theatre West, in Los Angeles. Theater critic Dave DePino of Backstage West wrote, “Her profound scene with Federico Fellini is written and rendered to perfection.”

It may have been very cold where Dina grew up in Canada, but she tells us that inside her family home it was very warm. Her parents are from Calabria, in Southern Italy, a climate similar to Los Angeles. When asked why her parents settled in such a cold place, Dina simply stated, “They immigrated there for a better life.” Dina and her siblings are first generation Canadian. In her modest household, everything was about family. All the meals were home cooked, the bread was freshly baked, her father made wine from grapes he churned in a machine (no sulfates), and the house always smelled of fresh coffee and good food. In the summers her parents planted a garden. All summer long there were fresh vegetables, which she claims, “do not taste like any vegetables you will buy at the store.” They were truly organic. They were planted, nurtured and then prepared with a lot of love and passion. Before immigrating to Canada, Dina’s parents worked the land in Calabria, so gardening was in their blood. In Italy, whatever they planted, they had to pick; grain, potatoes, olives, grapes, tomatoes, eggplant, figs, cherries, pomegranates, etc. “My mother likes to remind me that it wasn’t an easy life. It was a lot of work.” Italian was spoken in the household (Dina is bi-lingual), Italian records played beautiful Italian melodies, and there were always friends, neighbors and relatives dropping in to visit.

Dina knows first hand that being the child of immigrant parents is not easy. They struggle with trying to fit in. Her parents, like most immigrants, were not familiar with the new customs and traditions and continued to follow their own. This was not unique to Dina’s family. All children of immigrants, no matter where one comes from, have to deal with the same issues. Dina has a lot of compassion for all of them. She feels their pain and understands their struggles. She recalls the many times her parents longed for their homeland and how they wished they could return, or the countless times she saw her father crying as he said through his tears that he missed his mother. She understands that all immigrants make the ultimate sacrifice. They take a chance by leaving the comfort of their homeland to move to a place they don’t know so that they can start a better life for themselves and their family. There is an Italian expression “He who leaves the old road behind knows what he has left but does not know what he will find.” Dina has had her own immigration experience. After graduating from Ryerson University, in Toronto, Canada, in Fashion Design/Merchandising, she moved to Rome, Italy, to pursue a career as an actress. She went on to work at RAI Television, with acting legends the likes of Alain Delon, and campaign ads for companies like Ford Motors and American Express.

It was in Rome where Dina met the man who would become her husband, Stephen Rivkin, a Los Angeles based film editor and current president of ACE (American Cinema Editors). He was editing a Norman Jewison film called, Only You, starring Marisa Tomei, Bonnie Hunt and Robert Downey Jr. Ironically, a film about destiny and meeting your soul-mate. Dina would eventually move to Los Angeles with Stephen. She recalls that her first few years in the United States were not as easy as she thought they would be. She felt very much like a fish out of water, like a foreigner. It took a while for her to feel settled. And like her parents, she too felt that longing for her homeland, both Canada and Italy. Eventually, Los Angeles became home and on August 11, 2016, Dina was proudly sworn in as a United States Citizen. It was a very emotional experience.

Dina keeps very busy working on several projects in different areas of the arts, but one of her biggest passions is theater. She writes, acts, produces, sat on the artistic board at Theater West, is currently on the marketing committee for The Producers League of Los Angeles, and supports local live theater. Dina claims “art is life.”

One of the plays she wrote, called Moose On The Loose, a comedy about an Italian family and a Canadian moose, was originally produced in Los Angeles at Theatre West, to rave reviews. It has gone on to have a very successful run in Canada and has been picked up by The Sudbury Theater Center, also in Canada, for its 2016/17. She plans to remount it in Los Angeles, so watch out for the Moose, and also has plans to bring it to Toronto and Off Broadway in New York. “When a loose moose wanders into a small northern Canadian town, four generations of an Italian immigrant family soon realize that the moose is not the only one that is displaced and confused.” Dina told us that Moose On The Loose, which is loosely based of true events that occurred when a moose did cross the road near her mothers home and ended up stuck in the neighbor’s camper trailer, is actually a metaphor for displaced people. “We are all displaced. We are all looking to fit in. We are all the moose.” Mel Brooks said of the play, “I cannot tell a lie, Moose On The Loose is very funny and surprisingly moving.” Dina was invited to be the Key Note Speaker at the FBI Annual Memorial, an event that honors all the fallen agents who have been killed in the line of duty. This was an incredible honor for her. She holds a very high regard for all people of law enforcement and those who work to make us safe; soldiers, marines, FBI, police, anyone who puts his/her life on the line, whether it be here in the United States or anywhere in the world. Those people are her heroes.

Dina works as a voiceover actress on feature films, television shows, commercials, and as the annual announcer at various motion picture and television awards shows. Here are some highlights of film and television projects Dina has worked on in voiceover: Live By Night, Gotham, Madagascar, Mozart In The Jungle, Angels and Demons, Nine, Pirates of the Caribbean, TED, Concussion, Spiderman, The Magnificent Seven, to name a select few, and AVATAR, the highest grossing film of all time. In AVATAR, Dina’s voice can be heard in the extended edition. In a scene where Jake Sully, a paraplegic ex-marine, played by Sam Worthington, is getting out of bed in his apartment on earth and into his wheelchair. He is watching a TV show the likes of National Geographic. Dina’s narration is basically saying that the Bengal Tiger is all but extinct except for the last two born in captivity.

AVATAR is a favorite movie of Dina’s, not just because her husband worked on it as an editor and was nominated for an Academy Award, but because it is a movie about another world that reflects our own. Where people invadeople all over the world, and why she strongly connects with it.

She is passionate about the issues of our planet, which she calls our collective home, and she is very concerned about its abuse. She believes that all people are connected and that we are all one, and no matter where you come from or what your beliefs are we are all in this together. She believes that if you hurt one, you hurt us all. That all people, no matter where they come from, should be treated with dignity. We all deserve that. It’s the most basic of all things because, in the end, we all want the same thing. To eat, to be healthy, to be able to earn a wage, to give and receive love, to enjoy our time on this planet, to know that when we leave, we will have left a respected legacy, and that we will also have left our planet healthy for future generations to enjoy.

Dina’s journeys have taught her a lot. She thanks her parents for making their own grueling journey from their small village in Calabria to North America. Dina feels so blessed every day to have what she has and attributes it all to her parents and their sacrifice. “They started the ball rolling and here I am today reaping the rewards.”

Favorite book – The Prophet by Khalil Gibran

Favorite movies – Avatar, Dance with a Stranger,

Good Fellas, 8 & 1/2, Amarcord

Favorite play – Torch Song Trilogy

Favorite poet – Rumi

Favorite sport – all of them (I love watching sports)

Favorite foods – French fries, Italian food, pasta,

vegetables, Persian food

Favorite hobby – photography

Dina is a proud member of SAG-Aftra, Dramatists Guild, Producers League of Los Angeles, Actors Equity, Playwrights Guild of Canada, ACTRA, Academy of Canadian Film & Television, Academy of Italian Cuisine, D.I.V.E. (Italian women who live abroad), The Italian Cultural Institute, The Beverly Hills Woman’s Club, Ryerson Alumni, UCLA Alumni, Theater Ontario and Theater West.

Upcoming show information:

*The Italian In Me, an accelerated full immersion Italian lesson about Cinema, Sex, Saints, and Federico Fellini.

Sat. Dec. 3rd – 8pm

Sunday, Dec. 4^th 3pm. (matinee)

Tickets: www.theatrewest.com

online or by phone (323) 851 7977

For more info about Dina Morrone please visit:

www.dinamorrone.com

A very special Thank You to:

Jewelry Designer/Photographer/Stylist:

Kate Younger

(Kateyounger.com)

Makeup and Hair:

Edward Hakopian

Dresses:

Poolside, Insert, Rock Wall & Car

Miss Bikini Luxe – (www.missbikini.com)

All other dresses & scarves

Tabesh Mirmirani with Saffron Boutique

in ShermanOaks

Poncho & Scarf: PRB Studio Private Collection

(www.prbpr.com)

Boots: Cesare Paciotti, Beverly Hills

Flower:

Dokhi Mirmirani with Jasmin Flower shop

in ShermanOaks

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