RAPPING TO SUCCESS By Lauren Speirs
How a unique talent helped Adam Fasano overcome early learning differences… Originally from Dutchess County, New York, Adam Fasano started acting when he was just 8 years old. Adam’s mom was a professional actress until she started a family - then she opened a dance school as well as a theater company called Trinity Players. Her goal was to give her children a tight-knit community and an opportunity to perform with her theatre company. While his relationship with the stage began with Trinity Players, Adam also expressed an interest in musicals and plays at school.
In his youth, Adam was diagnosed with global dysphasia which affects the brain’s language centers and leads to difficulty expressing and understanding language. Many people that are affected by global dysphasia often have extreme difficulty reading, writing, understanding speech, and even speaking. For Adam, his dysphasia even affected his ability to read and caused him to step away from theatre for a time. It was only through a newly 40
TNP BACKSTAGE
found passion for composing rap lyrics that Adam was able to teach himself how to read. The rhythm of rapping made it easier for him to express and understand language. Little did he know that this new passion would open up a number of doors for him in the theatre world and beyond. With newly found confidence and energy fueled by his love of rap, Adam rediscovered the theater as a great creative outlet for him and continued performing again in high school. Despite the challenges he faced in stepping back in the spotlight, Adam found out that he not only enjoyed musical theatre, but really enjoyed acting in plays as well. “I liked the challenge (of performing plays over a musical) - I felt more grounded and more mellow.” Adam was originally a snow bird; spending winters in Naples and summers back in New York. One day over the Christmas holiday in 2017 he was walking down 5th Avenue with his Mom and realized - “there’s a theater here!” After further research, “I learned that The Naples Players (TNP) was a community theater and they were doing The Music Man later on that season.” At the time, TNP was hosting auditions for another show, My Fair Lady, but
THE WEDDING SINGER
