Kairos Italy Theater, New York’s preeminent Italian Theater Company, and KIT Italia present the 6^th Edition of In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY, which will feature a record 12 shows, brought over from Italy to NYC, including a Special Opening Night Event, We are Not Alone starring Dario D’Ambrosi. The 15-day, 5-borough Festival, founded by KIT Artistic Director Laura Caparrotti and KIT Italia Artistic Director Donatella Codonesu, will close with the 5^th annual Mario Fratti Awards, created especially for In Scena! to honor excellence in Italian playwriting. 

This year’s Fest celebrates women with 7 female authors represented as well as 6 female directors. Also spotlighted are two LGBTQ-themed works. In addition to the 12 shows, there will be 6 staged readings of Italian plays in translation (4 dedicated to the Fratti Award winners from 2014-2017), numerous “infosession” panels, a full-day conference, and one of the highlights of the past edition, Free Verse meets In Scena!, where probation clients create poetry with Italian artists, and much more. 

The Festival runs May 7^th-21^st. All shows/events are free to the public. Eventbrite will accept RSVPs beginning March 24^th. For further information call 212-254-4025 or visit www.inscenany.com 

Definitive Festival information with show times, dates and credits will be forthcoming. 

In Scena! continues its tradition of showcasing work in all 5 NYC boroughs, something the NY Fringe Festival recently announced it would also do this year. Venues will include Baad (Bronx), The Brick Theater (Brooklyn), Cherry Lane Theatre, Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo’, Bernie Wohl Theater & the Italian Cultural Institute (Manhattan), NeON (Queens) and College of Staten Island (Staten Island). 

The Productions

We are Not Alone, first presented at La MaMa in 1980, stars Dario D’Ambrosi and is about a psychiatric inmate victimized by neglect in the outside world. The seminal play was written as a reaction to the Italian Mental Health Act of 1978, which was the first law to reform the psychiatric system. The work is a call for help and understanding vs. indifference and fear. 

A Mother’s Heart by Daniela Dellavalle, dissects the complex relationship between Mary and her mother. Mary has just murdered her father and attempted to kill her mother. An unforgiving female therapist is tasked with verifying Mary’s mental state and holds the girl’s future in her hands. 

Federica Cellini’s Dhana and the Rosebuds is a dreamlike odyssey involving a young Syrian woman, living in NYC, who sees her estranged grandmother on TV and journeys to find her. 

The thriller Echoes, written by Lorenzo De Liberato, brings to mind Orwell’s 1984 as it delves into a dystopia where one man interviews the person responsible for the murder of a million people. 

In Happy Mary, by Lorenza Pieri, a former actress plays the role of the Virgin Mary in an Easter procession and begins a quest to discover who she really was, discovering a surprisingly happy and human side to Mary, in contrast to the suffering virgin often depicted in art.

The Mejerchold Twins features two distinctly different siblings (played by Francesca Airaudo & Giorgia Penzo) who continue an eternal struggle for domination on the cabaret stage and in real life. A comedy-musical blend rooted in Vaudeville, variety shows and revues. Boasting live music by Tiziano Paganelli.

This is My House is Alessandro Blasioli’s tragic story of a powerful friendship destroyed in the ruins of the Abruzzo earthquake of 2009. Official selection of Dominio Pubblico, the only under 25 Italian Theater Festival. 

Claudia Donadoni’s Stria, is inspired by the true story of a Northern Italian girl accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake, in the late middle ages, her punishment for trying to exact revenge after a childhood friend is brutally raped. #TimesUpRetroStyle #EarlyWitchHunt #EverythingOldIsNewAgain 

My Last Night—Mia Martini, a Life, by Aldo Nove, tells the story of the great singer Mia Martini, whose life was marred by rumors that she brought bad luck and may have overdosed as a result. 

F.M. and His Double, by Fabio Marceddu, challenges notions of sexual identity through the gaze of a restless teenager in love with theatre. This is Teatro dallarmadio’s latest non-theatrical theatrical piece. 

Another LGBTQ-themed work is Francesca Falchi’s Degen(d)eration—The Ghost of the Tribade, which traces the gradual restrictions of autonomous spaces for women—including sexual--under fascism. 

Angela’s Wars is Giuseppina Facco’s take on the lives of four Italian women during World War I, all named Angela.

Shows are in Italian with English supertitles as well as in English. 

www.inscenany.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InScenaItalianTheaterFestivalNY/

Twitter: @inscenany                          

Instagram: @inscenany 

Laura Caparrotti is a director, actress, journalist, teacher, lecturer, consultant, dialect-coach and curator with an Italian accent. She studied and worked professionally in Italy, for over 10 years, before relocating to New York. She is the Founding Artistic Director of KIT -Kairos Italy Theater. In 2013, Laura started In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY. 

KIT - Kairos Italy Theater is Internationally recognized as the Italian Theater Company in NY. KIT has produced more than 20 productions – bilingual as well as in English - and events over the years, collaborating with Off-Off and Off-Broadway theaters and with US as well as Italian Institutions.

www.kitheater.com

KIT Italia 's mission is to support and spread Italian culture, creating an exchange program between Italy, the US and the International community. It produces mostly Italian premieres of American plays and, as the main partner of Kairos Italy Theater, with In Scena!, has been bringing Italian plays to NY since 2013. www.kititalia.it