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Manno delivers messy message
By Steve Pardis, Herald Staff
- Wed, Oct 18, 2006
SANFORD — Families will get messy when Lake Mary resident Joe Manno brings a Nickelodeon-style show to the first annual Sanford Celebration on Saturday, Oct. 28.
“We get the whole family involved,” Manno said in a telephone interview. Games are geared to people from 5 to 105, he added.
“We have prizes that we give away,” he said. Raffles and other prizes will include basketballs, bicycles and even X-Box 360s.
The Sanford Celebration is sponsored by the Sanford Ministerial Fellowship, but it’s not restricted to Sanford churches, organizers said.
Manno was invited to join the event because of his quality message-oriented performances, including his stage show and now a book called, “A Fighting Chance.”
The Sanford Celebration show will not include the anti-drug, anti-violence message of “A Fighting Chance,” but it will teach the young people things like being yourself and not someone else.
There will be relay races and plenty of goo to make sure families get the messages and get messy.
Manno said the shows will probably be an hour and a half from 12 to 3. He will emcee the Nickelodeon-style shows.
Manno has lived in Lake Mary for four years, and he is known in Seminole County for his appearances at area schools.
Early in his acting career, Manno took a part in a movie that ended up being an 80s slasher movie.
“That movie alone pretty much changed my decision,” he said referring to his career. He wanted to do something more positive because he saw how much movies like that affect young people.
He decided to be more picky and less controlled by the industry, he said. In 2004, Manno created, wrote and starred in a local CBS After-School special called “All in One.” “We’re proud of that show,” he said. “We hired the crew and produced it.” Some said it would never work with the network, but he admits he’s not out to change the industry. He just wants to make sure what he’s doing has positive messages.
“All in One” won an Emmy.
He expanded “A Fighting Chance” in 2002 creating a live arena show for children. Now a book series is underway with four editions.
“A Fighting Chance” has been performed before 250,000 young people in places such as Sanford, New Jersey, California, Vancouver and Brazil.
So the arena show and books comprise much of his life right now, but he also accepts invitations to do shows like the one coming up in Sanford.
After that he will continue doing the stage show. He will appear at the Tupperware Theater from Jan. 8 to 12, 2007. He wants to keep the shows as intimate as possible, he said. The large arenas were a little too impersonal.
“The kids were looking up at the Jumbotron,” he recalled.
The book series came from an episode of 21 Jump Street that he wrote, but the TV show was canceled a week before it was finished, so it turned into a book.
“I love writing the books,” he said. They are more of a sceen play story line. Readers are playing the various parts of the book rather than just talking.
A curriculum should soon be available to schools, he said.
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