Aunt Lena is a deluxe antipasto of all Anne-Louise’s exuberant, lively and unpredictable Italian aunts living in 1950′s North New Jersey. Funny, crazy, and full of unique advice whether requested or not, they were larger than life. Aunt Lena distills all their off-beat energy into a hilarious way to understand our own joy, and our ability to find it.

When Aunt Lena is onstage, audiences laugh and learn. In keynotes and staff development events, Aunt Lena creates an atmosphere of openness and Audacious Joy! In her cabaret performances, Aunt Lena takes us to a place where we cannot stop laughing and singing along.

With Aunt Lena you can expect a unique out-of-the-box performance. Aunt Lena adds a dimension of extra hilarity and a creative perspective that only she possesses. Nothing is safe from Aunt Lena’s special ‘Cutting Edge Mediterranean’ attention.

But how did Aunt Lena come to be? Here’s a few words of explanation from Anne Louise:

“I grew up in Hoboken N.J. in a large Italian-American family. What luck! Our traditions, the special foods, the holidays, the family parties, the singing, the more food, the kisses and hugs, the stories. the noise, Madonna mia, the noise, the more food, how I loved it all.  In fact I considered myself Italian almost before I was American!

Despite all that, I marry and Englishman from Kent (yes I diluted the bloodlines!) and we have three children. We eat steak and kidney pie along with our ravioli. We celebrate Boxing Day along with the feast days. Along the way I became a performing artist.

My life as a performer and speaker grows as our children grow up and leave. But something is missing, some essential part of me, something restless and irresistible.

What could it be?

Ah ha…one fine day as I am peeling garlic, into my mind comes a vision of ‘Aunt Lena’. Aunt Lena, a virtual living cocktail of all my Italian relatives and all my experiences of growing up in North Jersey. Aunt Lena, a wild and crazy lady, who tells it like it is. Aunt Lena, everything that a polite little Italian American girl was NOT supposed to be. Aunt Lena, my alter ego.  And our initials are the same!

In my performances on stage I become Aunt Lena before your very eyes to share with you life as Aunt Lena sees it. Out-of-the-box, not so polite and often not quite what you expect, Lena loves life and squeezes every piece of zest out of it. And nothing makes her happier than to have an audience.

My dear husband says “Please make sure you turn back” but once Aunt Lena is out she likes to hang around for a spell, usually until she is quite sure “Youse capisce?”