Front Row: Paul Stroili
by:Ray Bendici
February 2003

"The world can be a cruel place when you're a straight guy with good taste and a great eye for color," claims Ridgefield native Paul Stroili.

And it's this "cruelty"along with the struggles of growing up in Fairfield County as the product of a culture-clashing union between a first-generation Italian immigrant and a "brassy Bronx babe" that Stroili, 38, has mined for great laughs in his acclaimed one-man show Straight Up with a Twist.

"The idea for the show started with a backhanded compliment from my wife," says Stroili, who spends his Monday nights vacuuming rather than watching football or wrestling. "With my affectations and my interests, she had made the comment, 'Paul, you're kinda like a gay best friend I can have sex with.' So being a heterosexual with all the affectations of an arrogant homosexual was the inspiration to write it."

The result was "an anti-Tim Allen 'Tool Time' kind of work. There's a whole group of the male population out there that are not knuckle-draggers or football-watching guys . . . and there's no show for them. It has just taken off."

In Los Angeles, where he has performed the show over 200 times (he's hoping to take it off-Broadway next), critics and crowds have responded well. But there is one segment of the population that has especially embraced the play.

"We have a big gay following," Stroili states. "It's very funny for them to watch it's really the first thing to comedically bridge the gap and say, 'My life would've been easier if I was homosexual.' They get a kick out of it."

Stroili brings Straight Up with a Twist to the Ridgefield Playhouse on Feb. 7 for two benefit performances, which are being taped for a television special.

(Reprinted by permission from the February 2003 issue of Connecticut Magazine. All rights reserved.)