The New York based Kairos Italy Theater and the Italy-based KIT Italia will present the seventh annual In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY, a festival of Italian theater taking place in all five boroughs of NYC, April 29-May 13, 2019. Participating venues will include Cherry Lane Theatre, Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo’ at NYU, Bernie Wohl Center, Italian Cultural Institute, The Brick, BAAD!, College of Staten Island, and other venues to be announced. All shows will be presented in Italian with English supertitles. In Scena! will also present the 6th edition of the Mario Fratti Award which is given annually to an unproduced Italian play. Additional events and performance schedules, including a series of events celebrating the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, will be announced in 2019. Admission to all shows and events in the festival will be FREE. For more information please visit www.inscenany.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. With this in mind, Kairos Italy Theater and KIT Italia in collaboration with The International Theatre will present the first annual OnStage! Festival, a festival of American theater which will take place January 21-27, 2019 in Rome, Italy.
A CUORE APERTO (With Open Heart)
Written & Directed by Patrizio Cigliano
Performed by Patrizio Cigliano and Beatrice Fazi
An old couple looks at each other for the last time, unfolding the story of their long relationship as it intertwines with 100 years of Italian history. A show about the timelessness of memory and love.
ANTIGONE – MONOLOGO PER DONNA SOLA
(Antigone – Monologue for a Lone Woman)
Written & Performed by Debora Benincasa, Directed by Amedeo Anfuso
Produced by Anomalia Teatro
Antigone runs away from her prison laughingly, finding new ways of telling her story – both tragic and humorous.
BIANCA COME I FINOCCHI IN INSALATA (White as the Fennels in a Salad)
Written & Directed by Silvia Marchetti, Performed by Andrea Ramosi
Presented by Organizzazione Theatron 2.0
Bianca’s life as a dull elementary school teacher is boring and frustrating until Antonino, the school’s dean, enters it. The hope of an improbable love affair illuminates a life of solitude, injustice, and denial.
IL CIELO STA PER CADERE (The Sky is About to Fall)
From The Trojan Women by Euripides, Directed by Maria Grazia Cipriani
Performed by Sofia Abbati, Ilenia Lusito, Marta De Medici, Ariana Cutrone, Sara Giannelli, Erica Galante, Giulia Celletti, Francesco Barra & Francesco Capalbo
Presented by Teatro del Carretto
The Trojan Women by Euripides is used to describe the tragedy of war, separate from chronological ties. The female prisoner’s pain is a silent scream, answered only by the cry of the sea.
INTORNO AL MONDO IN 72 GIORNI. IL VIAGGIO DI NELLIE BLY
(Around the World in 72 days. The Journey of Nellie Bly)
From Around the World in Seventy-Two Days by Elizabeth Cochrane
Directed by Paola Sarcina, Adapted and translated by Paola Sarcina and Diana Forlani
Performed by Diana Forlani,
Intorno al mondo in 72 giorni. Il viaggio di Nellie Bly portrays an Italian point of view of an American hero, Elisabeth Cochraine, known as Nellie Bly, who in 1889 took off from New York to be the first woman to complete a journey around the world, alone.
L’ULTIMO GIORNO DI SOLE (The Last Day of Sun)
Text & Music by Giorgio Faletti, Directed by Fausto Brizzi
Performed by Chiara Buratti
A “novel on stage” by the late writer/actor Giorgio Faletti. Seven monologues and eight songs. The story of a woman who, before the end of the world, returns to where she was born to review her life and her dreams. In the end, she must choose to either exorcise the dark, or learn to embrace it.
LE FUNAMBOLE (The Tightrope Walkers)
Adapted & Directed by Rosario Sparno
Performed by Antonella Romano & Rosario Sparno
Installation by Antonella Romano
A project by Bottega Bombardini
Produced by Associazione Casa del Contemporaneo – Centro di produzione teatrale
Adapted from the novel Maruzza Musumeci by Andrea Camilleri, author of Montalbano, Le funambole is a story where the sky meets the sea. Based on Sicilian legends from 1800 and 1900, the story is told in the form of the “cunto”, a theater form typical of the Sicilian tradition, with roots in the Ancient Greece of Homer.
L’ORLANDO IN UN ATTO FURIOSO (Orlando in One Furious Act)
Written by Michele Gandolfi, Directed by Angela Pepi & Ilaria Marcelli
Performed by Luigi Miele, Ilaria Marcelli, Ivano Calafato, Matteo Castellino & Angela Pepi, Set by Marco Gandolfi, Costumes by Andrea De Chiara
Presented by Fratto due production – Esperimenti teatrali
Orlando, the most valorous French paladin, abandons the war against the Moors to follow the beautiful Angelica, whom he loves deeply. When Angelica rejects him, Orlando begins a journey that will bring him to madness.
QUEL CHE RESTA – A proposito di mobbing, shocking e altre amenità
(What Remains – speaking of mobbing, shocking, and other amenities)
By & With Monica Faggiani
Assistant Director Silvia Soncini
A story of “ordinary madness” concerning mobbing and other power dynamics, told by a woman. With self-irony, the protagonist tries to understand the participation in such dynamics and what is needed to avoid them.
UN COTTAGE TUTTO PER SÉ (A Cottage of One’s Own)
Written & Performed by Natalia Magni, Directed by Sonia Barbadoro
Orsetta, a 40-year-old single woman, pressed by her mother and worried friends, decides to make her dream come true: move to a country cottage with a husband and children, to paint. In twelve snapshots, Orietta will discover her true worth in between speed-dating, therapists, ex-boyfriends and unexpected gifts.
UNA PASSIONE (A Passion)
Written by Valentina Diana, Directed by Vinicio Marchioni, Performed by Marco Vergani
An actor appears on an empty stage. The blockbuster production he’s in has been canceled, and no one has told him. He has always been an extra and tonight, alone, he will perform for you the story of the Passion of Christ.
SPANKER MACHINE
Written & Directed by Tiziana Troja, Performed by Michela Sale Musio
Anita’s everyday life masks a hidden ‘otaku.’ Marked by a difficult past, she finds refuge at home, where her contradictions coexist with her controversial sexuality.
In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY In 2013 Kairos Italy Theater, the preeminent Italian theater company in New York City, created In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY, the first Italian theater festival to take place in all five New York City boroughs and beyond. The festival’s first edition was part of ‘2013 Year of the Italian Culture in the United States. The festival has since become a yearly event, with editions every year.
