Luca Garello Honored With In Scena! Italian Theater Festival's 2021 Mario Fratti Award

In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY announces Luca Garello's play When Men Used to be Men (Quando gli uomini erano uomini) as the winner of the 2021 Mario Fratti Award. The In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY, previously postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, will return in spring 2022.

"Not being able to celebrate Italian theater as we do every year with In Scena! we have decided to at least continue the tradition of the Mario Fratti Award," said In Scena! Artistic Director, Laura Caparrotti. "As usual we invited two artists from the previous edition to be part of the jury. This year we invited two of the artists who were supposed to be in New York in May 2020. We'll do the same for the 2022 Mario Fratti Award, with submissions opening on July 1, 2022. We hope to welcome all of the artists who were supposed to be part of In Scene! 2020 to our come-back edition in 2022!"

The jury of the 2021 Mario Fratti Award declared Luca Garello's When Men Used to be Men (Quando gli uomini erano uomini) as "Poetic and moving. A dramaturgy with an impeccable structure and effective writing, which without yielding takes the audience to the last scene in a crescendo of suspense built to perfection. The theme of war acquires new life with a decidedly new narrative slant, finding a universal inspiration on the theme of memory."

When Men Used to be Men (Quando gli uomini erano uomini) is about Flavia, the owner of a detective agency. In 1996 an elderly woman named Giulia Graf hired her to investigate Pietro Montali, a soldier who went missing during the Second World War. A few years later, Flavia tells the story of what she found out to a journalist. The investigation, following the thread of the official documents, testimonies and correspondence of Montali, leads Flavia to shed light on a dark and tragic past. At the same time, the flashbacks of Giulia and Pietro's life tell of a love suffocated by the advent of the Racial Laws. A love that, thanks to Flavia's work, finds a new, unexpected, ending.

"Telling the Holocaust without narrating the Holocaust: this is the inspiring motif of the play and the invisible thread that ties the characters beyond their relationships," said playwright Luca Garello. "Those tragic events are never narrated but only evoked: the holocaust is inside people, and it is in the loss of identity."

The 2021 Mario Fratti Award jury was comprised of Maurita Cardone (cultural journalist), Giampiero Cicciò (actor/director; Artistic Director of the InDivenire festival), Valentina Cimino (theater producer consultant), Marco Simeoli (In Scena! 2020 Artist; playwright/director/actor), and Alessandro Tampieri (In Scena! 2020 Artist; playwright/director). The other award finalists included The Best of All Possible Worlds (Il migliore dei mondi possibili) by Giorgio Franchi and Greta Who Wanted Everything (Greta che voleva tutto) by Federica Cucco.

Luca Garello graduated acting in 2004. Since then, he has worked mainly in theater with, among others, L. Virgilio, E. Siravo, M. Donadoni, G. Pambieri and M. Panici. He is also an assistant director (La pupilla with Pamela Villoresi, Venice Theater Biennale, 2009) and lighting and sound director in shows by M. Panici, F. Zanni and N. Pistoia. In 2010, Garello wrote Spara Frank, winner of the Critics' Award at the 2011 Borello Award. The play received the patronage of Amnesty International and has been directed and interpreted by Garello in Rome in 2011. With the play Il paradiso al contrario, Garello received the Special Mention at the European Tragos Award 2019. He has won the European Tragos Award 2020 with the play Quando gli uomini erano uomini.

Named for the legendary Broadway playwright, the Mario Fratti Award has been awarded every year since 2014 to a never produced before play chosen by a jury, different every year, among the many plays collected through a submission process. The winner receives a translation of their work into English as part of the MFA Collection and a reading of such translation. Since 2018, all MFA winners have been published by In Scena! under the MFA theater collection.

Each year In Scena! presents a survey of the best Italian theater from Italy, in New York City. The festival features full productions that have already toured in Italy as well as readings of Italian plays in translation, conferences, lectures and exchanges between Italian and International Artists. The goal is to promote greater awareness of Italian theater and Italian artists among New York theatergoers, and to build a bridge between the artistic scenes in Italy and New York. In Scena! Is presented by NY based Kairos Italy Theater and NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo' together with Italy Based KIT Italia in partnership with institutions in the US and in Italy. https://inscenany.com/