A bit of drama ahead of Italian family's latest project (8)
I believe the answer is:
activity
'project' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'a bit of drama ahead of italian family's latest' is the wordplay.
'a bit of drama' becomes 'activ' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'ahead of' means one lot of letters go next to another (some letters go in front of others).
'italian' becomes 'it' (common abbreviation).
'latest' says to take the final letters.
The final letter of 'family' is 'y'.
'activ'+'it'+'y'='ACTIVITY'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for activity that I've seen before include "Hobby, pastime" , "Recreational pursuit" , "Occupation or exercise" , "Something performed for recreation or exercise" , "Busyness" .)