May 5
- Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Monday, May 5, 2025 – 6:30 pm
Lampedusa Beach
Written by Lina Prosa, Directed by Nadia Kibout, with Nadia Kibout and Daniele Onorati. The story of “Lampedusa Beach” begins with the actress carrying the baggage of her memory on stage and beginning her slow descent into the abyss. Nadia Kibout is Shauba, an African migrant who drowns near the shores of the island of Lampedusa. In that inexorable time Shauba recounts minute by minute the chronicle of her end.
The actress thus brings to life the “Theatre of the Shipwreck.” She fulfills her mythical function of giving body to those who are not there and name to those who do not have it. Before her is the audience, facing its responsibilities. The narrative represents the very current issue of migrants.
May 6
- Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Tuesday, May 6, 2025 – 6:00 pm
Alfredino, Italy in a Deep Well
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. Fabio Banfo brings the story back to life, introducing in his solo show the many characters that filled that night: the first journalist who rushed to the scene, the sandwich seller who profited from the attending crowd, President Pertini, the robots Mazinga and Grendizer, which Alfredino was passionate about, the policeman who spoke with him for hours to try to reassure him and give him hope, Angelo Licheri, who remained for forty minutes hanging upside down in the well, trying to save the child. At the core of the narration there is Alfredino, in that deep well together with the entire country. - Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Tuesday, May 6, 2025 – 8:00 pm
In the Name of Mary
The show is inspired by and reworks a mafia news story that occurred in Palermo on 14 November 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 from 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 friends) Zucchetto. - Istituto Italiano di Cultura NY – Tuesday, May 6, 2025 – 6:00 pm
Presentazione del nuovo numero de Ilnewyorkese
Un nuovo numero, una nuova celebrazione del talento italiano nel mondo. ilNewyorkese torna con la sua settima edizione e una copertina d’eccezione: Lady Gaga, icona globale e simbolo del legame indissolubile tra creatività americana e radici italiane. Un omaggio alla sua storia familiare, al suo spirito inconfondibilmente italoamericano e al ruolo centrale che la cultura delle origini continua ad avere nel suo percorso artistico e umano.
May 7
- Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Wednesday, May 7, 2025 – 6:30 pm
Storia di una brava ragazza
If being born a girl can complicate your life, imagine being born a girl in a Roman borgata at the end of the 1970s. Growing up, discovering the opposite sex, the class differences, and shame. Then leaving for the other side of the world, getting married, having children, getting divorced, building a career—with all the effort it takes to change your own destiny.
May 8
- Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Thursday, May 8, 2025 – 6:30 pm
Essere Lila
Taking inspiration from Lila, the iconic character from My Brilliant Friend, this event explores themes of misogyny, independence, and defiance in different realities in Southern Italy. Actress Irene Maiorino, who played Lila in the acclaimed TV series based on Elena Ferrante’s bestseller, and journalist Angela Vitaliano will discuss the similarities and differences between the world portrayed in the series and other contexts—perhaps less desperate, yet still marked by oppressive structures that seek to silence disruptive voices. A thought-provoking conversation on how women challenge and redefine their space in societies that still struggle to fully embrace them. - Istituto Italiano di Cultura NY – Thursday, May 8, 2025 – 8:00 pm
Sanremo Giovani world tour – concert
We are delighted to invite you to a special evening honoring the winners of the Sanremo Giovani (Section for Young) competition—some of the promising young musical talents from Italy, Settembre, Alex Wyse, Maria Tomba, Vale LP and Lil Jolie.
May 9
- Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Friday, May 9, 2025 – 8:00 pm
The Pope’s: Instruction for Freedom
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. - Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Friday, May 9, 2025 – 6:00 pm
Pelle
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 has 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 12
- Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Monday, May 12, 2025 – 6:00 pm
The Perky Theresas
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. - Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Monday, May 12, 2025 – 8:00 pm
My Mama Notarizes & Also Makes Risotto
“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 mother and Moscerino to finally look each other in the eyes. - Istituto Italiano di Cultura NY – Monday, May 12, 2025 – 6:00 pm
From Rome to New York: Introducing American Friends of CASTRO Projects
Di Lorenzo e Calabrese presenteranno la missione di CASTRO Projects, il suo approccio pionieristico alla formazione radicale per artisti emergenti, e il suo impatto sulla scena artistica contemporanea, comprese le nuove opportunità offerte dall’iniziativa American Friends of CASTRO Projects.
May 13
- Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Tuesday, May 13, 2025 – 7:00 pm
Forgotten Gems with Kwame Anthony Appiah
Forgotten Gems is a series that takes place at Casa Italiana as part of the literary festival Le Conversazioni that focuses on films that the speakers believe worthy of being [re]discovered. Antonio Monda and his guest each choose three films to present and discuss (accompanied by clips). This season’s fifth and final guest is author and philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah.
May 14
- Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Wednesday, May 14, 2025 – 5:30 pm
Translating/Adapting Pirandello Today
Reading of scenes from a new translation of Six Characters in Search of an Author
by Penelope Bussolino, Directed by Kiara Pipino. - Istituto Italiano di Cultura NY – Wednesday, May 14, 2025 – 6:00 pm
Verdi e i due Macbeth – Teatro Nuovo
Nel secondo evento in collaborazione con Teatro Nuovo, Will Crutchfield –General Director- presenta la partitura e la sua storia, con la partecipazione del soprano Alexandra Loutsion, che interpreterà il ruolo di Lady Macbeth con il Teatro Nuovo a luglio. - Casa Italiana Zerilli – Marimò – Wednesday, May 14, 2025 – 7:30 pm
Six Characters in Search of an Author
This original adaptation of Luigi Pirandello’s SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR was originally 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.
