Italian Festival to return
After a few-year hiatus, the Italian Festival is back in Uniontown. Ron Romeo, one of the festival organizers, said that with the cooperation of the State Theatre Center for the Arts, the festival will be held Oct. 24 along Main Street in Uniontown.
“Everybody is excited that this is going to go on. I think there is going to be a whole lot of cooperation with everyone in the (Sons of Italy) lodges,” Romeo said.
While parts of the plan are still a bit tentative, Romeo said the festival will bring back the vendors of traditional Italian cuisine, one of the festival’s staples.
The event also will feature craft vendors and various expositions showing the traditional ways to make wine, pasta, pizza dough and pastries.
Romeo also said an outdoor wood-fired oven will be used to show festival-goers “how the old-time people used to bake bread and pizza out in their back yards.”
And for fans of bocce, two temporary courts will be set up on Main Street, and games will go on throughout the day.
The festival is tentatively scheduled to start at noon and will carry on outside until a 3 p.m. concert inside the State Theatre. Already confirmed to appear are two groups that specialize in Italian music: We3 and The Rocky Chirchiglia Band.
Romeo said the festival committee is trying to firm up a deal with a New Jersey opera singer, and organizers are hopeful they will be able to bring in an Italian sports figure.
The concert costs $15 for assigned seating, and Romeo said 100 VIP tickets will be sold at $35 each. Those tickets will be the choicest seats for the performances and a reception at 2 p.m. inside the theater with the entertainers.
In form with the Italian part of the festival, the reception will feature cheese, grapes and wine.
The Sons of Italy Grand Lodge and the State Theatre are sponsoring the event cooperatively, and money raised will go to the theater as well as the Sons of Italy scholarship fund.