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<p>SCRANTON &#8212; When Italian immigrants founded the Dante Literary Society in Scranton during the 1930s, their first goal was to learn a new language.</p><p>&#8220;Our treasurer, Neil Trama, his father was English speaking and taught a small group of 10 guys meeting in back of a grocery store or butcher shop or something,&#8221; said Vinny Gaglione, who has spearheaded a recent renaissance of the club.</p><p>By the 1950s, the club was growing and ready to build a clubhouse on Prospect Avenue, which members accomplished by actually doing the digging, carpentry and stonework themselves.</p><p>&#8220;They literally built it with their own hands,&#8221; Gaglione said. &#8220;Italians were great masons.&#8221;</p><p>The building was a place to get together for weddings, christenings and other gatherings but, over the decades, attendance and membership waned as &#8220;the old-timers died and their children moved away.&#8221;</p><p>Recently Gaglione, who joined the club three years ago and now serves as president, has been working to build the club back up with pasta fund-raisers, a dart tournament and &#8212; in the spirit of the society&#8217;s namesake, medieval poet Dante Alighieri &#8212; a nurturing of the arts.</p><p>&#8220;That&#8217;s our focus, helping and improving the community and promoting literary arts,&#8221; Gaglione said.</p><p>In that vein, the club will be the setting April 1 and 2 for &#8220;Comedy Tonight,&#8221; an evening of comedic one-act plays, presented by 411 Studio and Singular Circus Productions.</p><p>Participating director Lou Bisignani said all the pieces have been written by local authors who are members of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Writers Collective, and he&#8217;s confident audiences will enjoy them.</p><p>In &#8220;Elevator Wars,&#8221; which Bisignani wrote, you&#8217;ll meet a woman on an elevator who is weeping because her cat has died &#8212; after she tries to feed it a live mouse. &#8220;I have a great actress who cries up a storm, yowling and wailing,&#8221; he said.</p><p>Another character, a man who is afraid of cats, &#8220;actually goes berserk,&#8221; Bisignani said, adding &#8220;I know it&#8217;s not Shakespeare, but it&#8217;s fun.&#8221;</p><p>Another play, &#8220;Lost Vegas,&#8221; deals with a wife finding it hard to believe her husband&#8217;s explanation for a long absence, that he was abducted by aliens.</p><p>Perhaps the one that will appeal most to fans of the absurd is the one is which characters entertain the thought their son may have morphed into a head of lettuce.</p><p>Bisignani is optimistic about the resurgence of Dante Literary Society, to which his father, uncle and cousins belonged.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve had many chicken dinners there,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a nice, quiet neighborhood, not a downtown thing, and we&#8217;re hoping some of the locals will come out and join us.&#8221;</p><p>Among its recent endeavors, the Dante Social Club has donated books to the St. Francis Commons facility for homeless veterans in Scranton and purchased new flags for a Scranton high school marching unit. Men and women, ages 21 and older, are welcome to join. You do not have to be of Italian heritage, Gaglione said. That requirement was done away with in the 1970s.</p><p>The clubhouse is also the setting for regular dances offered by the Northeast Social Dance Club, which rents the space. The next dances, which offer a mix of ballroom, country and line dancing, are set for 8 p.m. April 9 and April 23. Admission to the dances is $5.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Actors rehearse for &#8216;Lost Vegas,&#8217; a one-act play about a man who may have been abducted by aliens. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_Lost-Vegas.jpg</photo0><caption0>Actors rehearse for &#8216;Lost Vegas,&#8217; a one-act play about a man who may have been abducted by aliens. </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_The-Elevator.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">The topic of pet cats comes up in the one-act play &#8216;Elevator Wars.&#8217; </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_The-Elevator.jpg</photo1><caption1>The topic of pet cats comes up in the one-act play &#8216;Elevator Wars.&#8217; </caption1><photoCredit1></photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_Roqufort.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">That head of lettuce on the table &#8212; could that be their son? </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_Roqufort.jpg</photo2><caption2>That head of lettuce on the table &#8212; could that be their son? </caption2><photoCredit2></photoCredit2></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p><strong>By Mary Therese Biebel</strong></p><p>mbiebel@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p><strong>IF YOU GO</strong></p><p><strong>What:</strong> &#8216;Comedy Tonight&#8217;</p><p><strong>When:</strong> 8 p.m. April 1 and April 2</p><p><strong>Where:</strong> Dante Literary Society&#8217;s building, 1916 Prospect Ave., Scranton</p><p><strong>Admission:</strong> $10; $8 seniors</p><p><strong>Reservations:</strong> 570-342-1770 or 570-906-0919</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mary Therese Biebel at 570-991-6109 or on Twitter @BiebelMT</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Could that head of lettuce be our son, couple asks in ‘Comedy Tonight’ set for April 1 and 2 at Dante Literary Society’s clubhouse in Scranton