In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY Announces Staged Readings

In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY announces the cast and directors for the staged readings of Italian plays in translation which are being presented as part of In Scena! 2019.

In Scena! will partner for the third year with the Italian Playwright Project (IPP) curated by Valeria Orani (Umanism NYC) together with the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at CUNY. The IPP, now in its fourth year, brings some of the brightest, innovative, and most engaging playwrights from Italy to New York to develop their pieces through translation into English and to present public readings of the work.

MY HERO

Written by Giuliana Musso, Translated by Patricia Gaborik, Directed by Laura Caparrotti

Performed by Adriana Sananes*, Debra Khan-Key and Delissa Reynolds*

Wednesday May 1 at 6pm @ Italian Cultural Institute (686 Park Ave, New York, NY 10021)

Mio Eroe (My Hero) is made up of three distinct monologues. The protagonists of the monologues are three mothers of Italian soldiers who took part in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission in Afghanistan during 2008-2010. Two of these mothers lost their son in battle. The three women are very different from each other for social extraction, geographic origin, cultural level and personality, but they share the experience of having been the mother of a soldier. The mother's conversation interlaces memories of childhood, stories of tragic events, and considerations on their child's choices. Characters are inspired by existing people and real-life events.

In honor of the new OnStage! Festival & Award, which premiered in Rome, Italy this past January, In Scena! will feature a special reading of the first OnStage Award winner for New American Plays.

The Girlfriend

Written by Leland Frankel, Directed by Carlotta Brentan

Performed by Rob Glascott, Victoria Ratermanis and Carlotta Brentan

Thursday, May 2 at 6pm @ Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo' at NYU (24 West 12th Street, New York, NY 10011).

Olivia "Liv" Hughes was the most popular girl at Grace Hills High. Sylvia Merwin was one of its most put-down outcasts. And then Eddie Cleary brought his gun to school, and everything changed. Ten years later, these two women's worlds have dramatically diverged, but when they arrange to meet under mysterious circumstances, Liv reveals a shocking, forgotten artifact from their shared past thea threatens to change everything. A shatteringly brutal showdown ensues as Sylvia and Liv attempt to reconcile their bloody history with their present lives. Innocence, guilt, honesty, deception...When evil deeds take place, who is truly responsible?

Giuliana Musso (Playwright, My Hero) is an actress and playwright. Born in Vicenza in 1970, she currently lives in Udine. Since 2001 she has been writing and producing narrative and investigative works; her work is characterized by its blend of oral testimony, comedy and lyricism. Her first trilogy was about the "fundamentals" of life, birth, sex and death: Born in the Home (2001), Sexmachine (2005) and Tanti Saluti (2008). In 2009 she began an exploration of the history and structure of the patriarchy with La città ha fondamenta sopra un misfatto (2010), inspired by Medea;Stimmen by Christa Wolf, La Fabbrica dei preti (2012) on Life and Training in Italian seminaries before Concilum Vat II; and Mio Eroe (2016), the contemporary war in the voices of some military mothers whose sons died in Afghanistan. Other writing and productions were: Indemoniate, on a case of female collective hysteria in Friuli at the end of the nineteenth century; La base, a theatrical investigative laboratory on the construction of the US military base "Ederle 2" in Vicenza; Dreams, a dance-show on over-indebtedness. Since 2008 her production house is La Corte Ospitale, Rubiera (RE). She has won the Critic Award 2005, the Cassino Off Award 2017 for My Hero and Hystrio Prize for Dramaturgy 2017

Patricia Gaborik (translator and coordinator - Italian and American Playwrights Project) was born in Wisconsin but has lived for over a decade in Rome, where she teaches courses in dramatic literature, playwriting, and acting at the American University and the National Academy of Dramatic Arts "Silvio D'Amico." A playwright, translator, and theatre historian with degrees from Northwestern (BS), The University of California - Santa Barbara (MA), The University of Wisconsin (PhD) and the Sapienza University of Rome (Dottorato di ricerca),she primarily studies the late 19th and early twentieth century and is particularly interested in the historical avant-garde and the politics of performance; in addition to several articles, she is the author of a monograph on Mussolini and the theatre and editor of Pirandello in Context, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. Patricia is currently editing a volume of modern Italian drama in English translation for Italica Press, and her English version of Massimo Bontempelli's Watching the Moon had its Off-Off Broadway premiere in November 2018. Her own plays have been published and staged both in the US and Italy; most recently, Finishing the Kitchen and Down the Aisle were produced by the English Theatre of Rome. She is proud to have collaborated with the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre and the Jump Rhythm Jazz Project, and is thrilled to be working with Umanism's Italian and American Playwrights Project

Leland Frankel (Playwright, The Girlfriend) is an award-winning playwright based in Los Angeles, California. He is a recent graduate of both the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and the American Repertory Theater Institute at Harvard University. His stage projects have been produced around the world, from New York City to London to Rome. Additionally, he is an award-winning film-maker and audio storyteller, as well as a producer of immersive theatre. Other recents projects of Leland's include Love/Life, the first musical written for virtual reality, composed by Ryan Scott Oliver, and Masala Jones, the first Asian-American scripted podcast, starring performers from The Walking Dead, Last Comic Standing, and more.

Carlotta Brentan (Director, The Girlfriend) is a theater artist specializing in fostering original play development as an actor, translator & producer. Recent acting: world premieres of Paolo Bignami's The Journey I Never Made (Cherry Lane), Erik Ehn's Clover (LaMaMa), Frank J. Avella's Lured (Theater for the New City - also co-directed). Carlotta voices hundreds of projects from national commercials to audiobooks, in multiple languages. Proud member of KIT - Kairos Italy Theater, LPTW, and Executive Producer of In Scena! Italian Theater Festival. www.carlottabrentan.com

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.

The seventh annual In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY, a festival of Italian theater taking place in all five boroughs of NYC presented by The New York based Kairos Italy Theater and the Italy-based KIT Italia, will run April 29-May 13. Participating venues will include The Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance (BAAD! - 2474 Westchester Avenue, Bronx, NY 10461), Goddard Riverside's Bernie Wohl Center (647 Columbus Avenue, New York, NY 10024), The Brick Theater (579 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211), Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at NYU (24 West 12th Street, New York, NY 10011), Cherry Lane Theatre (38 Commerce Street, New York, NY 10014), College of Staten Island (2800 Victory Blvd, Staten Island, NY 10314), Italian Cultural Institute (686 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10021), La Scuola Guglielmo Marconi (406 East 67th St, New York, NY 10065), St. John's Lutheran Church (81 Christopher Street, New York, NY 10014), and TheaterLab (357 West 36th Street, New York, NY 10018), with more venues TBA. Admission to all shows and events in the festival will be FREE. Reservations are now open at www.inscenany.com.

*Denotes member of Actors Equity

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