The ‘Sopranos’ convention is here. How 3 superfans woke up one morning and got themselves a child.
On June 10, 2007, HBO cut to black and Tony Soprano disappeared from our lives forever.
Or did he?
Whether you think Tony was alive or dead (or neither) at the end of the series finale, “The Sopranos” has unquestionably remained alive in the public consciousness.
This year, the series cast and creator David Chase celebrated the 20th anniversary of the show’s 1999 premiere. And the family saga isn’t even over. “The Many Saints of Newark,” an upcoming prequel movie scheduled for release in September 2020, will take us back to Tony’s childhood.
Many who were too young to watch “The Sopranos” when the show first aired have become fast fans, thanks to streaming and the HBO catalog. Others, like Joe Fama, know each episode inside out, but happily revisit the series from start to finish anyway.
Because when nothing else hits the spot, Sopranoland is always waiting.
This weekend, SopranosCon, a fan extravaganza that Fama first envisioned four years ago, makes its debut just a stone’s throw from the New Jersey Turnpike that Tony cruised in the opening credits, at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus. The convention is set to draw thousands of “Sopranos” faithful, whether locals who live down Route 3 or die hards an ocean away.
The two-day event on Saturday and Sunday boasts a lineup of 54 series actors (and one horse!), including those who had guest spots and main, recurring characters. Sights and sounds of the iconic show — Dr. Melfi’s office, the Bada Bing, the gritty theme song — will all play a role in the fan tribute.
Fama, 36, of Wantagh, Long Island, collaborated with fellow “Sopranos” superfans Danny Trader and Michael Mota to plan the convention.
None of them were from New Jersey, but fittingly enough, when they finally met, it was in the Meadowlands. Before that, the trio had done all of their planning remotely and through social media.
“We didn’t have any idea what we looked like, how we acted,” Trader said. “It was all off of a gut feeling that we had a passion.”
Trader, 34, who has worked as a real estate agent and private investigator, hails from Baltimore and runs the Time Immemorial Sopranos Facebook page, a forum for memes, screenshots and quotes from the show. More than 200,000 people follow the page, which hosts a related The Sopranos: Commission group of 17,000 fans.
“We wanted to have some kind of meetup with just us, and maybe we could have some cast members,” Trader said. “Joe was kind of the vision behind the whole thing.”
Fama, who owns a sign and printing company and builds displays for trade shows, is known for his spot-on “Sopranos” art and character sketches, which he posts on Instagram.
From there, the concept grew.
“It took a while to build a legit lineup,” Trader says. The pitch to actors, he says, was this: “You guys never got the internet treatment,” meaning that “The Sopranos” ended before the true rise of social media and its fan communities.
It helped that Trader and Fama linked up with Mota, 39, a Rhode Island marketing professional. His selling point: He had planned events, but was also friends with Federico Castelluccio, who played Furio Giunta on the show, and knew other cast members.
“I said, ‘You know what? I think this might have legs,’” Castelluccio, 55, tells NJ Advance Media. “’If you don’t do it, someone else might jump on this. You know, it’s the 20th anniversary.’”
The actor, a native of Italy who grew up in Paterson and played Tony’s Italian soldier, considered himself a fan of the show before he joined the cast in the second season.
“I knew that there was something different about this because it gave me emotions while I was watching the show that I hadn’t had — ever — from a television show,” says Castelluccio, who is also a painter.
The convention had modest beginnings. A Bada Bing dancer and Pie-O-My, the horse Tony loved, were initially the only other guests on deck.
Castelluccio began reaching out to his former co-stars, like Vincent Pastore, who played Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero, and Vincent Curatola, who played Johnny Sack. In a few months, the lineup snowballed — Tony Sirico, aka Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri, got onboard, along with Drea de Matteo (Adriana La Cerva) and David Proval (Richie Aprile).
