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Photo courtesy www.brightonsingers.co.uk
Former Provincetown Reservations System owner Mary Jo Paranzino is featured on an Internet site of a singing group she founded in Brighton, U.K. |
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Photo courtesy www.mjparanzino.co.uk
A publicity photo of former Provincetown Reservations System owner Mary Jo Paranzino. |
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Provincetown deadbeat takes London by storm
By Mary Ann Bragg & Kaimi Rose Lum
Banner Staff
PROVINCETOWN — An old wound has been opened.
The former owner of a local reservations booking company who left town two years ago bankrupt, owing $515,000, has resurfaced with a splash in London.
Mary Jo Paranzino, a singer and choir director now living in the United Kingdom, has co-written a musical that will likely debut next year in London’s West End and was billed this year as a potential big hit at a theater and music festival in Edinburgh, Scotland.
The show is called “David Blunkett The Musical: Dangerous Liaisons at the Sextator” and is about an affair in the U.K. between a high-ranking government appointee and the publisher of a weekly news magazine. Paranzino co-wrote the play with what acquaintances here describe as her girlfriend, a London-based writer. It is being produced by Martin Witts, who has promoted blues musicians B.B. King, Ray Charles and Fats Domino.
All of this publicity, though, has a few people here steaming, including show producer Adam Epstein who called Paranzino’s venture “absolutely ironic.” “After all, Ms. Paranzino disappeared owing us, several other notable clients and worthwhile charities over $500,000, then made the situation worse by not appearing at bankruptcy court and facing those she had cheated,” Epstein said via an e-mail. “Then she goes and writes a musical about someone else who allegedly committed a few indiscretions? Mary Jo, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.”
Paranzino was the president of Provincetown Reservations System, at 293 Commercial St., from 1998 until it folded in September 2002. Paranzino owes Epstein’s Theatre Council $43,000 for productions of “Vagina Monologues” in Provincetown Town Hall during the summer of 2002.
On Monday a person answering the phone at Paranzino’s London home said she was unavailable until Thursday. During a brief phone conversation in July 2003 with Paranzino, who was in London, she declined to comment on her debt.
In bankruptcy papers filed in the U.S. in October 2002, Paranzino owed 400 people money amounting to $515,000, including friends, tourists who had paid lodging security deposits, show producers (including Epstein) for ticket sale proceeds, utility companies and landlords.
“I mortgaged my property to bail her out,” local musician Jon Arterton said, referring to a debt that he said Paranzino has not paid back.
Arterton and Paranzino once belonged to a regional singing group called The Three Mary’s, along with Paranzino’s former girlfriend and business partner, Mary Abt. Paranzino was also a choir director for the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House in Provincetown.
The bankruptcy was dismissed early in 2003 after Paranzino failed to show up for a creditors’ meeting and because the company’s assets, set at around $16,500, were seen as too minimal to yield any benefit to creditors. As a result of the dismissal, creditors such as Epstein and Arterton must legally pursue Paranzino themselves.
This week the Cape & Islands District Attorney’s office did not return two calls requesting a comment on the criminal investigation into Paranzino’s actions. In 2002 and 2003, though, state Police Sgt. James Plath had been sifting through her financial records to determine whether criminal charges could be brought against her.
“With her investments in, and subsequent partial ownership of, this new theatrical property [in London], our attorneys are investigating in what ways, and how quickly we can seize ownership of this asset, and any cash that Ms. Paranzino now has,” Epstein said. “We expect to use all of our legal rights and abilities, even extending this pursuit to England, in order to ensure that we recover the missing money and our legal fees.”
Paranzino is described on her Internet site and in the musical’s promotional material as “MJ,” the American-born composer and songwriter, based in New York and Brighton, U.K., with her own soul and jazz band called MJ and The Boys. She is also the founding director of the Brighton City Singers community choir in the U.K.
Last week an entertainment writer for the London Daily Mail caught wind of Paranzino’s money woes in Provincetown, an account of which was published on July 15.
Epstein said jokingly, “By the way, I'm thinking about writing a musical about the whole thing.”
mabragg@provincetownbanner.com
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Jul 21st, 2005