Waiting room twist

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Frank Scafuri wants to entertain you – at the doctor’s office.

The 63-year-old professional singer goes to doctor’s waiting rooms in the area, performs a song for the unsuspecting patients, and secretly records the whole thing – with the doctor’s permission, of course.

Scafuri, a Juilliard alum who lives in Rockville Centre, got the idea when he went to get an MRI a year ago. He noticed that the people in the waiting room were bored, looking at their phones and magazines. “What if I would stand up and do a whole show?” he thought. Scafuri first tried his idea out at that same doctor’s office. The doctor said they should record it.

Scafuri put the video on YouTube. “Three days later I got 13,000 hits,” he said. He has turned the videos into a series called Frank’s Waiting. To date, he has performed songs involving a Hula girl, little orphan Annie, and in one case, a ventriloquist and his dummy.

He tends to sing Broadway songs with a spin for a doctor’s office. With the ventriloquist, the dummy and an actress posing as a nurse, they sang “Fugue for Tinhorns” from “Guys and Dolls,” except it was about how the ventriloquist had a hoarse throat.

“The Broadway tunes – they’re ones that really lend the most [to performing,]” Scafuri said.

So what’s next for Scafuri? He hopes to purchase advertisements for his Facebook page – Frankswaitingroom – after he makes his tenth episode. He filmed the eighth the other day in a chiropractor’s office.

Doctors who want a show in their waiting rooms can contact Scafuri at FrankPScafuri@gmail.com.

“I have so many skits that I have right here at my desk that I’m waiting to fulfill,” he said.