In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY Reveals Venues And Performance Schedule

The New York City-based Kairos Italy Theater along with the Italy-based KIT Italia and Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at NYU will present the 12th season of the In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY, New York City's premiere festival of Italian theater taking place in all five boroughs of NYC, May 5-19.

Venues for the 2025 festival include Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo' at NYU, The Rat NYC, BAAD, Culture Lab LIC, Calandra Institute, NOoSPHERE Arts, WOW Cafe Theater, Casa Belvedere, The Atelier at Theaterlab, The Tank and the Italian Cultural Institute NY. Admission to all shows and events in the festival is FREE, unless otherwise noted. All shows will be performed in Italian with English supertitles, unless otherwise noted. 

In Scena also proudly announces playwright Marco de Simone as the winner of the 2025 In Scena! Playwright Award (formerly the Mario Fratti Award) with the play La Regola dei Terzi, the first edition of the Emerging Directors' Mentorship in collaboration with the Tank NYC with emerging director Emma Denson, mentored by director Debora Balardini, and the 3rd edition of In Scena's translation and adaptation mentorship in collaboration with Hystrio Scritture di Scena with playwright Chiara Arrigoni, mentored by playwright and actress Antoinette LaVecchia and translator Giulia Cowie.

Each year In Scena! showcases some of the best Italian theater from Italy, in New York City. The festival features productions that have already toured in Italy as well as readings of Italian plays in translation, lectures, and exchanges between Italian and International Artists. The goal is to promote greater awareness of Italian theater and Italian artists among New York City theatergoers, and to build a bridge between the artistic scenes in Italy and the US.

MATER FAMILIAS by Pier Lorenzo Pisano (2015 Mario Fratti Award-winner)

Translated by Carlotta Brentan, Directed by Emma Denson

First edition of the Emerging Directors' Mentorship

Over the years, In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY has proudly presented the staged production of plays that have won the Mario Fratti Award, now known as the In Scena! Playwright Award. As part of the commitment to fostering artistic growth, In Scena!, in collaboration with The Tank, inaugurates a Mentorship in Directing offered to an emerging director. The selected director will have the opportunity to direct a play chosen from among the winners of the In Scena! Playwright Award, while receiving mentorship from a seasoned director and an experienced producer/stage manager. Mater Familias is the story of three generations through increasingly difficult times, as they sometimes help each other, and sometimes clash in order to survive. A powerful drama with exact dialogue and sharply drawn relationships, it begins with a mother and son's desperate need to commit a crime.

Sun May 4 at 3pm; Sun May 4 at 9:30pm; Thu May 8 at 7pm; Sun May 11 at 7pm; Thu May 15 at 9:30pm; Sun May 18 at 7pm @ The Tank Tickets: $20-$30

OPENING NIGHT

Mon May 5 at 6:30pm @ Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo' at NYU

Presentation of the 2025 festival including a performance of Lampedusa Beach.

LAMPEDUSA BEACH

Written & Directed by Lina Prosa, Performed by Nadia Kibout and Daniele Onorati
Shauba, a young African woman, recounts her difficult experience: the dreams and hopes that led her to face a long and dangerous journey that were shattered off the coast of Lampedusa. Nadia Kibout presents a solo show on migration accompanied by the soundscapes of Maestro Daniele Onorati and his oodoo, very special ceramic musical instruments.

Mon May 5 at 7:15pm @ Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo' at NYU; Tue May 6 at 6pm @ Calandra Institute Running Time: 50 min

ALFREDINO, ITALY IN A DEEP WELL

(ALFREDINO. L'ITALIA IN FONDO A UN POZZO)

Written & Performed by Fabio Banfo, Directed by Serena Piazza

Presented by Centro Teatrale MaMiMò

On the evening of June 10, 1981 six year old Alfredo (Alfredino) Rampi fell 36 meters deep into a well in Vermicino, a village near Rome. In the next 35 hours, Italy was glued to the TV watching the first non-stop live broadcast to cover the attempt to save him. It was a turning point in the history of Italian TV, which is still studied in journalism schools and where the modern sensationalist way of dealing with news was born. Best Direction Fersen Award 2021, Best Show and Best Dramaturgy Doit Festival Rome 2017. Tue May 6 at 6pm @ Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo' at NYU; Thu May 8 at 7:30pm @ The Rat NYC Running Time: 60 min

IN THE NAME OF MARY (NEL NOME DI MARIA)

Written and Directed by Chiara Gambino, Original Music Domenico Gargano

Performed by Chiara Gambino and Alba Sofia Vella

The show is inspired by and rewrites a mafia story that occurred in Palermo on November 14 1982 and which led to the death of the young Sicilian policeman Calogero Zucchetto, who in that period was working with the Palermo Mobile Squad in the search for mafia affiliates. The point of view of the show is the one of his girlfriend Maria Lo Bello, tormented in the years following the loss by the question: "Could it have gone differently?". For the entire duration of the show, the protagonist responds unaware to this question, with a true and ironic, fragile and disenchanted stream of consciousness, recounting the meeting and pursuing the love that led her to get engaged to Calogero (Lillo for his friends) Zucchetto. Mauro Rostagno Award 2021 for Best Script and Best Actress - DaSud special award for the fight against mafias, Last Summer Moon Festival 2021, Special Mention Città Laboratorio 2021, Franco Delivery Official Selection 2020, Official Selection Catania Fringe 2022.

Tue May 6 at 8pm @ Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo' at NYU; Sun May 11 at 7pm @ Culture Lab LIC Running Time: 55 min

Reading of PELLE

Written by Chiara Arrigoni, translated by Giulia Cowie

Mentored by Antoinette La Vecchia

A secret passed down through generations binds a mother and her daughters in a visceral way.

Pelle is part of the 3rd edition of In Scena's translation and adaptation mentorship, presented in collaboration with Hystrio Scritture di Scena. Since 2023, In Scena! Italian Theater Festival had collaborated with the Hystrio Award - Scritture di Scena, one of the most prestigious theater awards in Italy, to mentor a playwright on the play's translation and adaptation. The winning playwright travels to New York to work with a local playwright and a translator on the English adaptation of their play.

May 9 at 5:30pm @ Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo

THE POPESS: INSTRUCTIONS FOR FREEDOM

Written & Performed by Elena Mazzon, Directed by Colin Watkeys

Italy 13th Century - the Guglielmites heretical sect causes havoc in Milan. Their leader, Guglielma of Bohemia, believed to be the second coming of the Holy Spirit, appoints Sister Maifreda, as her Popess. and together heralds a new female-led era, where only women could save humanity from eternal suffering. It did not take long for the inquisition to find out about the congregation and its beliefs. The Popess is a dark comedy solo-show, which unravels the mystery of a true early feminist movement in the Italian misogynistic religious history, investigating the discrepancies between religion, faith and power and, ultimately, the meaning of freedom. Official Selection 2024 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Fri May 9 at 8pm @ Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo' at NYU; Sat May 10 at 7pm @ Culture Lab LIC Performed in English Running Time: 55 min

MY MAMA NOTARIZES & ALSO MAKES RISOTTO

(MIA MAMMA FA IL NOTAIO, MA ANCHE IL RISOTTO)

Written & Performed by Filippo Capobianco

Produced by Teatro Pubblico Ligure

Presented in collaboration with Dominio Pubblico

"Mia mamma fa il notaio, ma anche il risotto" is the first show by the 2023 Poetry Slam world champion Filippo Capobianco. The performance combines the languages ​​of Teatro Canzone (an expressive genre related to theatricality, speech and music, consisting of alternating songs and monologues or, more precisely, sung and acted parts) and performance poetry in a narrative that tells the coming-of-age story of a Generation Z boy in search of his own voice in a world that he will only gradually understand. Moscerino doesn't know how to talk to his mother and there's no way his mother, an important and always busy notary, would talk to him. The desire to communicate, in every way and by every means, accompanies him over the years, from story to story. Poetry is the last key to allow Moscerino and his mother to finally look each other in the eyes. Winner of the FringeMi Festival 2024.

Sun May 11 at 3pm @ Culture Lab LIC; Mon May 12 at 8pm @ Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo' at NYU Performed in English and Italian Running time: 50 min

THE PERKY THERESAS (LE VISPE TERESE)

Written & Performed by Alessio Piazza

The author retraces his childhood through the stories of three aunts, conversing with them in the places and with the words that emerge from memories, and which merge with the personal memories of the spectators. A story of a family told with modesty by one of the family's members where places, facts and people are a mixture of reality and fantasy, between personal anecdotes and others told or heard from other family stories. Inspired by the literary atmospheres of the book "Family Lexicon (Lessico Famigliare)" by Natalia Ginzburg and the cinematographic atmospheres of the iconic movie "The Family (La Famiglia)" by Ettore Scola. Mon May 12 at 6pm @ Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo' at NYU; Tue May 13 at 7pm @ Casa Belvedere Running Time: 60 min

SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR

by Luigi Pirandello, Adapted and Directed by Nick Gabriel, Stage Manager Kevin Wang

Performed by Meridian Anastasia, Sophia Chacon, Feras Halabi, Finn Mackimmie, Isabella Kaplan, Michael Reese Shald, Sam Trott, Kevin Wang

This original adaptation of Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author was conceived by author and director Nick Gabriel at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and further developed in response to the #metoo movement. Gabriel has recreated a version of this metatheatrical, Existentialist classic that is faithful to Pirandello's original vision, while contemporizing the circumstances to reflect the current cultural zeitgeist.

Wed May 14 at 7:30pm @ Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo' at NYU; Sat May 17 at 5:30pm @ NOoSPHERE Arts Performed in English Running time: 75 min.

AMARA SAPIENZA To my mother

Written & Directed by Giulia Bocciero

Performed by Giulia Bocciero & Alice Camoriano

A performance that explores the work and life of Italian writer and actress Goliarda Sapienza starting from the mother-daughter relationship. The scene is a paper corridor inhabited by two women: while one performer embodies real and fictitious figures from the Sicilian author's universe, the other transcribes Sapienza's poem To my mother by hand. Daughter of anarchists, Goliarda Sapienza (1924-1996) lived intensely without ever aligning herself with the culture of her time. Her childhood in Sicily, the exile, the theater and cinematographic career, fascism, psychoanalysis, imprisonment, homosexual love, the oblivion caused by the lack of recognition of her works in life are pieces that fit into the discourse and, intermittently, appear as if evoked, bringing with them encounters, thoughts and sensations. Finalist at the International LGBTQ+ Dramaturgy Award Carlo Annoni 2024. Thu May 15 at 7pm @ The Atelier at Theaterlab; Fri May 16 at 7:30pm @ BAAD Running Time: 50 min

LIKE AN OCTOPUS IN A GUITAR (COME UN POLPO NELLA CHITARRA)

Written by Marco Ziello, Directed by Licia Amarante and Marco Ziello

Performed by Annachiara Castorino, Gerardo D'Amato, Francesco Del Gaudio, Sabrina La Regina, Paola Santamaria & Marco Ziello

Presented by ON Teatro Formazione Cultura

When the protagonist of "Like an Octopus in a Guitar" decides he no longer wants to leave the house, he develops an obsession with Death and begins to spend his days imagining his funeral. A funny and absurd journey inside the mind of an individual who is slowly losing his memories, where the actors' bodies become a metaphor and instrument for remembering. In this suspended world, in which even the names of the characters have been forgotten, dream and reality merge to tell the story of a man's internal battle. A battle between the desire to heal and the temptation to remain, forever, playing with Death. Best Drama 2024 at Roma Comic OFF. Sat May 17 at 8pm @ NOoSPHERE Arts; Sun May 18 at 4pm @ WOW Cafe Theater Running Time: 70 min

CLOSING NIGHT AND IN SCENA! PLAYWRIGHT 2025 AWARD CEREMONY

Mon May 19 at 6pm @ Italian Institute of Culture of New York

With a reading of the English translation of La regola dei Terzi by Marco de Simone, translated by Caterina Nonis, winner of the 2025 In Scena! Playwright Award (formerly the Mario Fratti Award).

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