News: In Scena! Italian Theater Festival and Hystrio-Scritture di Scena present 6th Annual Translation and Adaption Mentorship
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| Playwright Francesca Becchetti |
The Hystrio Scritture di Scena Award is a prestigious Italian dramaturgy competition for playwrights under 35, organized by the Milano-based Hystrio – Associazione per la diffusione della cultura teatrale. It promotes original Italian theater pieces, offering winning scripts, mentorship, staging at Hystrio Festival, and publication.
Playwright Francesca Becchetti, whose play Tekken Drama was selected by In Scena! from the finalists of the 2025 Hystrio Scritture di Scena, will be mentored by Dave Johnson, an American playwright and poet, who was one of the authors selected for OnStage! Letture Americane, a series of American theater in translation organized in Rome by Kairos Italy Theater, KIT Italia and the Teatro Basilica. Becchetti’s play Tekken Drama will be translated by Caterina Nonis, the official translator of In Scena! Playwright award. The play will have a reading in its English version during the 2026 In Scena! Italian Theater Festival on Monday May 18th at 6pm at Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo’ at NYU (24 W 12th St, New York, NY 10011).
In the play, Eveline, a thirty-year-old woman, guides us through the depths of her psyche. She does so by taking us back in time and into her memories, starting from a seemingly trivial pretext: the end of a romantic relationship. She invites us to engage with her inner demons, the emotions and impulses that torment her. The dialogue also unfolds with her imaginary allies—the feminist and the anarchist—who offers firm, often uncompromising advice. Tekken, because it is a fight made of punches and gut-stabbing blows, set within competitive and unhealthy scenarios. A pop spectacle framed between the 1990s and today. Drama, because it is a space of tragedy and satire, and because it reclaims the label often imposed on many identities: dramatic, whiny, and “queen.”
Playwright Becchetti has been an actress and trainer with the Anomalia Teatro company since 2021, a group that produces and distributes its performances and training programs in a free and independent way. She holds a Master’s degree in Cooperation and Human Rights from the University of Bologna (2016) and trained at the Accademia del Teatro Fisico in Turin (2018–2020) and at the Piccola Università Teatrale (2024–2025). Her multidisciplinary background has led her to engage with gender studies, which deeply inform her artistic poetics. She is the creator and instructor of the theatre workshop Le Disgraziate, designed for women and trans people. She has also taught theatre to adolescents as part of the FoodWave project (2021) and React (2022). She made her debut with Anomalia Teatro during the Fertili Terreni season in Turin (2021) and is the author of the company’s latest production, Tekken Drama – Come farsi amici i mostri, directed by Alice Conti and supported by Montagne Racconta, Compagnia Il Mutamento (Turin), and Teatro della Caduta. She is also a co-founder, together with the Malaerba Laboratory group, based in the northern outskirts of Turin, where two theatre seasons are hosted: Comp(h)ost – COMPosizioni Poetiche per Stagioni Teatrali and the artistic residency called Germogli.
Mentor Dave Johnson is a poet, playwright, art historian, and literary translator. The author of two poetry collections, Dead Heat and Marble Shoot, and two plays, Baptized To The Bone and Sister, Cousin, Aunt, his works have been staged throughout the US and Italy. Johnson is the co-translator from Italian, with Laura Caparrotti, of the New York stage productions of the international best-sellers Gomorrah and Super Santos. He is the co-writer and co-translator from Farsi of the Afghan production of the novella Witches of Kabul. His present art historical works center on female artists of the Italian Renaissance. Johnson has taught at Yale University, The Cooper Union, Columbia University, and served as Poet-in-Residence for the New York City Department of Probation, where he created Free Verse, a poetry and working artist program for court-involved New Yorkers. He is an Associate Professor in the Creative Writing Program at The New School University and Professor of Creative Thinking at the Honors College at Montclair State University.
Playwright Francesca Becchetti, whose play Tekken Drama was selected by In Scena! from the finalists of the 2025 Hystrio Scritture di Scena, will be mentored by Dave Johnson, an American playwright and poet, who was one of the authors selected for OnStage! Letture Americane, a series of American theater in translation organized in Rome by Kairos Italy Theater, KIT Italia and the Teatro Basilica. Becchetti’s play Tekken Drama will be translated by Caterina Nonis, the official translator of In Scena! Playwright award. The play will have a reading in its English version during the 2026 In Scena! Italian Theater Festival on Monday May 18th at 6pm at Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo’ at NYU (24 W 12th St, New York, NY 10011).
In the play, Eveline, a thirty-year-old woman, guides us through the depths of her psyche. She does so by taking us back in time and into her memories, starting from a seemingly trivial pretext: the end of a romantic relationship. She invites us to engage with her inner demons, the emotions and impulses that torment her. The dialogue also unfolds with her imaginary allies—the feminist and the anarchist—who offers firm, often uncompromising advice. Tekken, because it is a fight made of punches and gut-stabbing blows, set within competitive and unhealthy scenarios. A pop spectacle framed between the 1990s and today. Drama, because it is a space of tragedy and satire, and because it reclaims the label often imposed on many identities: dramatic, whiny, and “queen.”
Playwright Becchetti has been an actress and trainer with the Anomalia Teatro company since 2021, a group that produces and distributes its performances and training programs in a free and independent way. She holds a Master’s degree in Cooperation and Human Rights from the University of Bologna (2016) and trained at the Accademia del Teatro Fisico in Turin (2018–2020) and at the Piccola Università Teatrale (2024–2025). Her multidisciplinary background has led her to engage with gender studies, which deeply inform her artistic poetics. She is the creator and instructor of the theatre workshop Le Disgraziate, designed for women and trans people. She has also taught theatre to adolescents as part of the FoodWave project (2021) and React (2022). She made her debut with Anomalia Teatro during the Fertili Terreni season in Turin (2021) and is the author of the company’s latest production, Tekken Drama – Come farsi amici i mostri, directed by Alice Conti and supported by Montagne Racconta, Compagnia Il Mutamento (Turin), and Teatro della Caduta. She is also a co-founder, together with the Malaerba Laboratory group, based in the northern outskirts of Turin, where two theatre seasons are hosted: Comp(h)ost – COMPosizioni Poetiche per Stagioni Teatrali and the artistic residency called Germogli.
Mentor Dave Johnson is a poet, playwright, art historian, and literary translator. The author of two poetry collections, Dead Heat and Marble Shoot, and two plays, Baptized To The Bone and Sister, Cousin, Aunt, his works have been staged throughout the US and Italy. Johnson is the co-translator from Italian, with Laura Caparrotti, of the New York stage productions of the international best-sellers Gomorrah and Super Santos. He is the co-writer and co-translator from Farsi of the Afghan production of the novella Witches of Kabul. His present art historical works center on female artists of the Italian Renaissance. Johnson has taught at Yale University, The Cooper Union, Columbia University, and served as Poet-in-Residence for the New York City Department of Probation, where he created Free Verse, a poetry and working artist program for court-involved New Yorkers. He is an Associate Professor in the Creative Writing Program at The New School University and Professor of Creative Thinking at the Honors College at Montclair State University.
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