News: In Scena! Italian Theater Festival Awards Playwright Marco Di Stefano with 2026 In Scena! Playwright Award

Playwright Marco Di Stefano
In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY, New York City’s premiere festival of Italian theater happening in all five boroughs, has announced Via Crucis by playwright Marco Di Stefano as the winner of their 2026 In Scena! Playwright Award (formally the Mario Fratti Award). The play, translated by Caterina Nonis, will receive a reading as part of the closing ceremony of the 2026 In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY on Tuesday, May 19 at 6pm at the Italian Cultural Institute of NY (686 Park Ave, New York, NY 10065). Admission to the awards ceremony and reading is FREE.
 
Via Crucis is a solo show in free verse structured in 14 scenes. The speaking character is a 30-year-old man living on the margins. Arrested for drug possession, he is subjected to torture and violence by the police until he dies from it. The text unfolds over the course of a single day—from 5am until midnight—and is set in various locations: the street where the young man is taken, the police car, the different rooms of the police station, and finally the morgue where the autopsy takes place. The play is inspired by the stories of Italian young people dead while in custody (Federico Aldrovandi, Giuseppe Uva, Stefano Cucchi) and all the young people killed by law enforcement.

“A necessary work, capable of confronting the theme of systemic violence and social marginality, elevating a brutal chronicle into a universal and tragic dimension that transcends the boundaries of the Italian context.” said the Jury Members of the 2026 In Scena! Playwright Award. “The narrative creates an almost musical dimension that amplifies the emotional tension, while the stage writing offers the director endless possibilities for abstraction, all while maintaining a coherent and fiercely credible narrative environment.”

The 2026 In Scena! Playwright Award Jury included theater director, actor and playwright Marco Ziello (In Scena! Artist 2025), theater critic Angela Scro’ (Quarta Parete), actress, theatre director and playwright Romina Bufano (KIT Italia), and theater professional Matteo Barrichelli (Gruppo della Creta ).

Finalists for the 2026 In Scena! Playwright Award included Ninive, by Chiara Arrigoni, and Nostra Signora Dell’Acqua, by Deanna Morlupi. Playwright Marco Di Stefano was previously awarded the 2017 Mario Fratti Award along with his partner Chiara Boscaro for their play The City Rises.

In Scena! created the Mario Fratti Award for emerging Italian authors in 2014, honoring Italian playwright Mario Fratti. Every year, a play is chosen by an international panel of experts. The winning playwright is presented with a specially created painting made by Victoria Febrer, a visual artist who uses wine to create her paintings. The winning play is awarded with the English translation, published in the Award Collection, along with its reading and a possible future staging as part of the plays for the Emerging Directors’ Mentorship. Since 2025 the Award has been renamed while keeping its focus on the contemporary Italian playwrights.

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