4 | MARCH 25 - 26, 2021 | WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM
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Robert Rossetti’s script has Worcester in view Richard Duckett Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
In Robert Rossetti’s screenplay “The Further Adventures of Jimmy Lynch,” a snarky, not-so-nice soccer mom has a husband who receives his medicine in the mail. She is conspiring to have him murdered and blame it on the wisecracking mailman, Jimmy Lynch, who she has hated since school. Within the storyline the screenplay has lots of Worcester references, beginning with the instructions for the opening scene, “EXT. KELLEY SQUARE — DAY” It’s “‘Ted Lasso’ meets ‘Double Indemnity,’” but the script is also “a throwback comedy that at its heart is set in Worcester” said Rossetti, who grew up in Worcester and now lives in Shrewsbury after a spell in New York City. “The Further Adventures of Jimmy Lynch” has been placing well in screenplay competitions along with another of Rossetti’s scripts, “The Grandmother,” but not enough yet to unlock the door into the world of movie making. Undaunted, Rossetti keeps knocking on doors to make his special delivery, not unlike a good mailman — which he once was in Worcester. And he keeps writing screenplays. “I’m just the guy that doesn’t give up,” he said. Rossetti is now a salesman for Spaulding Fence and Supply at 70 James St., and the job’s going well, he said. Especially with the pandemic, home improvement and fence sales “have been nothing but crazy for the whole year.” But when it comes to writing screenplays, Rossetti is not on the fence about his dreams. In his profi le on the International Screenwriters’ Association website, he writes he “would like to become a rich and powerful screenwriter so that he can fi nally be superior to his older brother, give his wife the wedding he promised her over a decade ago, and buy a beach house where dogs are allowed. In the morning when the coff ee is fresh and black, he’ll brush his cat, Indiana, off the keyboard and try to write some-
Robert Rossetti’s scripts “The Further Adventures of Jimmy Lynch” and “The Grandmother” both recently became selections in the Austin Comedy Festival. CHRISTINE PETERSON/TELEGRAM & GAZETTE
thing funny.” Along with that Rossetti said, “Most of all there is nothing I love more than Worcester. I wrote ‘The Further Adventures of Jimmy Lynch’ because I loved being a mailman and I loved being a mailman in Worcester.” His father, Stephen L. Rossetti, was postmaster of the main Worcester post offi ce on East Central Street. His mother, Maureen, was a teacher with Worcester Public Schools. It was a while ago that Robert Rossetti was making deliveries. “I was a mailman in Worcester back when the AkuAku was still in place,” he said of the former Chinese-Polynesian restaurant on East Central Street that was once sort of a landmark and is embedded in comedian Lewis Black’s memory from doing stand-up comedy there. Rossetti has also done stand-up comedy, but that was when he was in New York City. Jimmy Lynch is “happy-go-lucky, drinks Coors Light, smokes,” Rossetti said. Indeed, in the script Lynch devotedly
smokes Newport menthol cigarettes. “This is Worcester. This is the capital of smokers,” Rossetti said. Does he smoke? “Yes, I do. Newports — which are banned,” he noted of the state’s proscriptions last year on fl avored cigarettes, including menthol (non-fl avored Newports are still legal). “You see a lot of movies now, especially romantic comedies — the main man is kind of wimpy. What’s wrong with a Worcester mailman who smokes butts and watches hockey?” Rossetti asked. Rossetti said he is drawn to mostly writing comedic screenplays. “It comes more naturally,” he said of comedy. “Being Irish-Catholic from Worcester, I kind of have that self-deprecatory humor. It’s there, so I use it.” Also, “You can still be stupid and write comedy,” he said. Rossetti’s parents grew up on Grafton Hill, and the family lived on Hamilton Street before moving to Shrewsbury. Rossetti graduated from St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury and later moved
to New York City, where he earned a degree in fi lm from the prestigious New York University Tisch School of the Arts. His stand-up comedy in New York was “kind of low-level. Nothing to write home about,” he said. Rossetti moved back to his home ground and kept at writing while now selling fences by day. He has a wife, Isabel, and three children. “My wife is my biggest supporter. She listens to me ramble and ramble and ramble,” Rossetti said. “I think she’d rather that I didn’t want to do it (write screenplays), because I can be up and down. To get rejected, it sucks. And to be the spouse of that, I’m sure she’d be happy if I stopped. But I can’t. You’ve got to keep trying,” he said. Meanwhile, “Besides having a very supportive wife and mother who both continue to encourage me, I would say that the biggest help I have gotten in my life would be from my former drama teacher at St. John’s High School, Patrick Dolan, who for years has continued to stay in touch with me and read my work,” Rossetti said. Rossetti’s “The Grandmother” has also been getting noticed in screenplay contests. He described it as “an action comedy about a former public school teacher from Worcester who fi ghts off a team of mercenaries at Canobie Lake Park to save her three wily grandsons. I mean, who would be more badass than a Nana from Worcester?” Rossetti said he’s a “big fan of fi lms that are fun for the whole family to watch,” even if some of the younger members of the family aren’t really supposed to be watching it. “I grew up watching ‘Caddyshack,’ and George Carlin,” he said. “The Further Adventures of Jimmy Lynch” has been selected as a semifi nalist in the Page International Screenwriting Awards, a fi nalist in the Stage32 Comedy Contest, a semifi nalist in the Stage32 Feature contest, a semi-fi nalist placement in the Screencraft Comedy contest, and a quarterfi nalist placement in the Screencraft Fellowship. See SCRIPT, Page 5D
