Thinking Theater NYC

Trovata una sega! Livorno, Modigliani, and the Legendary Prank of Summer ’84 ( Trovata una sega! Racconto su Livorno, Modigliani e lo “scherzo del Secolo” dell’Estate ’84 ) Written and performed by Antonello Taurino May 17, 2026, at The Rat NYC , 68-117 Jay St., Brooklyn, NYC May 18, 2026, at Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at NYU , 24 W 12 St., Manhattan, NYC   Antonello Taurino in Trovata una Sega! Courtesy Teatro della Cooperativa. Research has shown that people will rate the exact same wine more highly if they believe it to be more expensive. The market, in other words, does not so much reflect as create value and prestige. Trovata una sega! Livorno, Modigliani, and the Legendary Prank of Summer ’84 ( Trovata una sega! Racconto su Livorno, Modigliani e lo “scherzo del Secolo” dell’Estate ’84 ), a solo show from actor, comedian, author, and theater researcher Antonello Taurino, suggests that similar dynamics obtain in the art world. Winner of the Tramedautore Festival Selection...

Patria, The Town of Cain and Abel ( Patria, il Paese di Caino e Abele ) Conceived by Fabio Banfo, Giacomo Ferraù, and Giulia Viana Directed by Giacomo Ferraù Presented by Centro Teatrale MaMiMò and Eco di fondo with the collaboration of the Flamigni Archive May 10, 2026 at Culture Lab LIC , 5-25 46th Avenue, Long Island City, Queens, NYC May 13, 2026 at Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at NYU , 24 W 12 St., Manhattan, NYC May 16, 2026 at The Rat NYC , 68-117 Jay St., Brooklyn, NYC Fabio Banfo in Patria, The Town of Cain and Abel . Photo courtesy of Mamimo Company. Solo show Patria, The Town of Cain and Abel ( Patria, il Paese di Caino e Abele ) brings a narrative of Italian sectarianism and violence in the second half of the twentieth century to NYC at a time when such a story could not seem more relevant to audiences here as U.S. institutions and norms continue to fracture and divisions deepen. As the play's subtitle suggests, Cain and Abel serve as the microcosmic model for the p...

Traviata - A Free Prose Opera ( Traviata - Opera libera in prosa ) Written and directed by Andrea Caldi, Fabio Fassio, and Elena Romano Directing consultant: Cecilia Vecchio Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave Based on La Dame aux Camélias , by Alexandre Dumas fils Presented by Bottega di Cyrano – Teatro degli Acerbi May 7, 2026 at Culture Lab LIC , 5-25 46th Avenue, Long Island City, Queens, NYC May 11, 2026 at Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at NYU , 24 W 12 St., Manhattan, NYC May 12, 2026 at Casa Belvedere , 79 Howard Avenue, Staten Island, NYC Andrea Caldi, Elena Romano, and Saverio Bari. Photo courtesy of Bottega di Cyrano. Giuseppe Verdi's opera La traviata ( The Fallen Woman ), which debuted in Venice in 1853 with a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, adapted the play La Dame aux camélias (1852), by Alexandre Dumas fils , which was itself an adaptation of Dumas's own novel of the same name, published a few years earlier. Traviata - A Free Prose Opera ( Traviata - Opera l...

Tale of a Potato Written and directed by Angelo Trofa Presented by Batisfera Teatro May 5, 2026, at Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at NYU , 24 W 12 St., Manhattan, NYC May 9-10, 2026, at Culture Lab LIC , 5-25 46th Avenue, Long Island City, Queens, NYC Protagonist (center) and some coworkers in Tale of a Potato. Photo courtesy of Batisfera Teatro. The potato is often described as humble. Lowly. A staple, but also a side dish. It can even, in the idiom couch potato, serve as an insult. Obviously, then, it's the perfect avatar for a dramatic everyman, or so one would be forced to conclude after Tale of a Potato , a new tabletop play from Valentina Fadda and Angelo Trofa's Batisfera Teatro, a contemporary theater company based in Cagliari, Italy. At the 2023 In Scena! Italian Theater Festival, Batisfera created a sweeping story with tiny candy protagonists in The Gummy Bears' Great War ( La grande guerra degli Orsetti Gommosi ; you can read our review here ), and Tale of a Pota...

Closed for the Holiday ( Chiuso per Festa ) Written and performed by Matteo Porru Stage advisor: Marleen Scholten Presented by 369gradi   May 6, 2026, at Casa Italian a Zerilli-Marimò at NYU , 24 W 12 St., Manhattan, NYC May 8, 2026, at Culture Lab LIC , 5-25 46th Avenue, Long Island City, Queens, NYC  Matteo Porru. Photo by  Azzurra Primavera. Typically, storytelling involves channeling other voices, and that becomes not more true but certainly more literal when theater is the mode of storytelling. In Closed for the Holiday ( Chiuso per Festa ), a solo show from Matteo Porru – a novelist, playwright, and winner of the prestigious Campiello Giovani Award – a writer puts on and off various identities, creating for the audience simultaneously a series of short character-driven narratives and an image of the creative process. Closed for the Holiday , presented in Italian with English supertitles by Francesca Triolo and Arianna Intra, represents Porru's (extremely imp...

Dario Fo © Archivio Fondazione Fo Rame Kairos Italy Theater along with Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at NYU and the Italy-based KIT Italia will present the United States premiere of the documentary Dario Fo: The Last Mistero Buffo (90 minutes, Clipper Media, 2022) as part of their In Scena! Italian Theater Festival with exclusive screenings at Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimo’ at NYU (24 W 12th St, New York, NY 10011) on Tuesday, May 5th at 6:30pm and Wednesday, May 13th at 8pm. The film will be presented in Italian with English Subtitles. The film centers on the final staging of Mistero Buffo in Rome—the farewell to the stage of its author and performer, Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo, who passed away just two months later. It tells the story of a journey that begins in Dario Fo’s dressing room, with his most famous show, and unfolds into a kaleidoscopic voyage that takes us from Turkey to Argentina—places where his works, with their powerful and critical dramaturgy, still challenge the stat...

Playwright Francesca Becchetti In Scena! Italian Theater Festival, New York City’s premiere festival of Italian theater happening in all five boroughs, and Hystrio-Scritture di Scena, one of the most prestigious theater awards in Italy, will present their 6th Annual Translation and Adaption Mentorship, a program which mentors an Italian playwright on the English translation and adaptation of their play. 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 Dram a 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 fo...

Closed for the Holiday . Photo by Azzurra Primavera The New York City-based Kairos Italy Theater along with Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at NYU and the Italy-based KIT Italia will present the 13th season of the In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY, New York City’s premiere festival of Italian theater, taking place in all five boroughs of NYC, from May 5-19, 2026. Admission to all shows and events in the festival is completely FREE. All shows will be performed in Italian with English supertitles, unless otherwise noted. Participating venues and the full schedule of performances will be announced at a later date. Each year In Scena! showcases some of the best Italian theater from Italy, in New York City. The festival features productions that have already toured in Italy as well as readings of Italian plays in translation, mentorships, and exchanges between Italian and International artists. The goal is to promote greater awareness of Italian theater and Italian artists among New York C...

Six Characters in Search of an Author ( Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore ) Written by Luigi Pirandello Adapted and directed by Nick Gabriel Presented at Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo’ at NYU (24 W 12th St., Manhattan, NYC), May 14, 2025, and NOoSPHERE Arts (520 Kingsland Avenue, Brooklyn, NYC), May 17, 2025 Sophia Chacon (center) in a previous production of Nick Gabriel's adaptation of Six Characters in Search of an Author . Photo by Edoardo Novello. Luigi Pirandello's classic of metatheatrical absurdism Six Characters in Search of an Author ( Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore ), first performed in 1921 and revised for a new edition in 1925, can certainly come across as postmodernist avant la lettre. One character, for example, discusses the instability of meaning engendered by a speaker's translation of his individually situated meaning into words that are then retranslated by a listener in the context of her own unique inner world, never with the identical unders...

My Mama Notarizes & Also Makes Risotto ( Mia mamma fa il notaio ma anche il risotto ) Written and performed by Filippo Capobianco Presented by Teatro Pubblico Ligure in collaboration with Dominio Pubblico at Culture Lab LIC (5-25 46th Ave, Queens, NYC), May 11, 2025, and Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo’ at NYU (24 W 12th St., Manhattan, NYC), May 12, 2025 Filippo Capobianco. Photo © Roberto Mieli The unexpected juxtaposition in the title of Filippo Capobianco's award-winning solo show My Mama Notarizes & Also Makes Risotto ( Mia mamma fa il notaio ma anche il risotto ) may suggest the complexity of an individual, but it also points to 2023 Poetry Slam world champion Capobianco's artful facility with language, obvious throughout the performance. Words–and the stories that they enable–are in fact a primary focus of Capobianco's show, which incorporates influences from Teatro Canzone –literally, "song theater," which mixes songs and monologues–and performan...

The Perky Theresas ( Le Vispe Terese ) Written and performed by Alessio Piazza Presented at Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo’ at NYU (24 W 12th St., Manhattan, NYC), May 12, 2025, and Casa Belvedere (79 Howard Ave, Staten Island, NYC), May 13, 2025 Alessio Pizza. Photo by Giuseppe Farina. Before Alessio Piazza speaks his first line in his warm, funny solo show The Perky Theresas ( Le Vispe Terese ), a recorded voiceover talks about how memories mix in the mind and how those who are gone live in the stories that we tell and are told about them. During this opening, Piazza, center stage, faces away from the audience, turning towards it to begin sharing some of his own memories, a bit of staging that both hints at the process of revealing and anticipates a lovely, almost haunting final image that Piazza again turns away from the spectators to create. In the author's note to The Perky Theresas , Piazza cites Natalia Ginzburg's Family Lexicon ( Lessico Famigliare ; published in 196...

Pelle / Skin Written by Chiara Arrigoni Translated by Giulia Cowie Mentored by Antoinette La Vecchia Presented in collaboration with Hystrio Scritture di Scena at Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo’ at NYU 24 W 12th St., Manhattan, NYC May 9, 2025 Antoinette LaVecchia, Alice Lussiana Parente, Giacoma Bonello, Giulia Cowie, Max Katz. Photo courtesy of In Scena! There exists a rich tradition of women writers such as Angela Carter, Anne Sexton, Mohale Mashigo, and A. A. Balaskovits, to name a very few, reworking or reimagining fairy tales in a feminist vein. Chiara Arrigoni's play Pelle , translated as Skin in English, joins this tradition, drawing on the fairy tale trope of shapeshifting by donning a skin while avoiding reduction of the potential meanings of this "skin" to any single signification. Rather, it in fact multiplies the "skins" which the play's women must or choose to wear. Focusing on three sisters and their mother during a time of important change in...