In Scena! Italian Theater Festival Will Present THE RULE OF THIRDS by Marco De Simone

In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY, New York City's premiere festival of Italian theater happening in all five boroughs, will present The Rule of Thirds, written by 2025 In Scena! Playwright Award-winner Marco De Simone, translated by Caterina Nonis, and directed by Montgomery Sutton at The Tank (312 W 36th St., New York, NY 10018), April 22-May 15.

Over the years, In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY has proudly presented the staged production of plays that have won the Mario Fratti Award, now known as the In Scena! Playwright Award. Since 2025, as part of their commitment to fostering artistic growth, In Scena! in collaboration with The Tank, has offered a Mentorship in Directing to an emerging director. This year's selected director, Montgomery Sutton, will have the opportunity to direct a play chosen from among the winners of the In Scena! Playwright Award, while receiving a mentorship from a seasoned director, Debora Balardini, and an experienced producer from the Kairos Italy Theater's team. The play is produced by Kairos Italy Theater for In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY and presented in collaboration with The Tank NYC.

The play is inspired by a real event recounted in the autobiography of Robert Capa. Southeastern Sicilian hinterland, at dawn on Saturday, July 10, 1943. A farmer welcomes war photojournalist Robert Capa into his farmhouse after he parachuted onto the island the night before the Allied landing. Their dialogue highlights the photographer's strong personality and his wealth of anecdotes, shaped by firsthand experience in war zones. In the background, the farmer becomes the voice of the "thirds"-the vast mass of civilians who remain outsiders to the warring factions. Like the photographic rule suggests, these individuals demand to be brought into focus to tell another story-their own-hidden beneath the Grand Historical Narrative.

Performances will take place on:

Wednesday, April 22 at 9:30pm (Press Preview)

Thursday, April 23 at 9:30pm (Press Preview)

Saturday, April 25 at 3pm (Opening)

Sunday, April 26 at 3pm

Thursday, April 30 at 7pm

Saturday, May 2 at 7pm

Wednesday, May 6 at 7pm

Friday, May 15 at 9:30pm

Tickets ($20-$30) are available for advance purchase at thetanknyc.org. The performance will run approximately 80 minutes, with no intermission.

Montgomery Sutton (Director) (he/him) is a director, actor, playwright, and teacher. Theater directing includes Othello (Shakespeare Dallas); Murrow (Elevator Project at the AT&T Performing Arts Center); Much Ado About Nothing, his modern verse adaptation of Antigone, A Midsummer Night's Dream (Atlantic Acting School/NYU); Henry IV, Much Ado About Nothing (Junior Players); Othello, his play Ruins, and his original adaptations of Oedipus and Antigone (Gilbert Theater); Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet and The Changeling (Rude Grooms); The Soothsayer (Take Ten Festival - nominee, Best Director). His films include Between the Lines (winner, Best Screenplay; nominee, Best Director - Sparrow Film Project), Delivery Failed (Best Covid19 Short - Niagara Falls International Short Festival), Self-Love (Official Selection, Shakespeare Shorts - Shakespeare Birthplace Trust), and the web series A New York Minute. He is founder and Master of the Revels for Rude Grooms, a Queens-based theater creating epicly intimate theatrical experiences rooted in the actor-audience relationship exemplified by Shakespeare's acting company. As an actor he has appeared at Shakespeare's Globe, New York Classical Theatre, Florida Studio Theater, Casa Manana, Shakespeare Dallas, Cape Fear Regional Theatre, Trinity Shakespeare Festival, Seven Stages Shakespeare Company, Second Thought Theatre, Theater Three, Undermain Theatre, Uptown Players. He serves on faculty for the Atlantic Acting School in their NYU, Professional Conservatory, and Evening Conservatory programs. BFA, NYU (Atlantic Acting School); International Actors Fellowship (Shakespeare's Globe). www.montgomerysutton.com

Marco De Simone (Playwright) is an author, actor and musician. A graduate of the Conservatory in Classical Guitar and a master's degree in Philosophy, he has been writing for the theater since 2016. His texts "It Never Happened" and "The Smell of the Moon" have received national awards; his show "We, Puppets," in which he is also a performer, has been performed more than 40 times in Italy and abroad. He has 4 musicals to his credit and numerous collaborations with contemporary theater and dance companies, for which he has written stage music, scripts and adaptations.

Debora Balardini (Director Mentor) (she/hers) Performer | Theatre Director | Educator | Integrative Therapist Balardini is a New York-based Brazilian performer, theatre director, educator, and integrative therapist with extensive experience in theatre work, including Choreographic Theatre (Pantheatre Company-Paris) and voice work in the tradition of the Roy Hart Voice Centre in the South of France. She is a co-founder and Executive Director of Group Dot BR, New York's only Brazilian theatre company. With a 37+ year career as a performer and 15+ years as a theatre director, Balardini is a former director at large for the Board of the League of Professional Theatre Women. She holds notable directorial credits including Apple of My Eye, the first professionally produced play written and performed by an artist with Down syndrome; Episode #10 (Wondering Rocks) of Ulysses by James Joyce in collaboration with the National Arts Club at the Mathew Gallery (NY); THIS IS ME EATING____ devised & produced by Et Alia Theater - An immersive theater installation made of women's bodies as they deal with their relationship to eating; Bother Line - an original solo performance piece created and conceptualized by Gio Mielle exploring humanization versus dehumanization and the daily impact it has on our bodies and identities; Infinite While It Lasts - Group Dot BR's original site-specific production based on the works and life of Brazilian poet, composer and most known for being one of the creators of Bossa Nova and its biggest hits such as Girl From Ipanema, Vinicius de Moraes; The Serpent - Group Dot BR's first production written by Brazil's most known playwright, Nelson Rodrigues; most recently she directed the play Good Bye, Doctor written by the internationally renowned author and psychoanalyst Betty Milan produced by Psykout and based on encounters with the famous psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. She received an official proclamation from the US National Council of Women in Consultative Status with the UN Economic and Social Council for her humanitarian work dedicated to women's empowerment. Balardini is a Forty Over 40 honoree (Forbes 2018). www.deborabalardini.com

In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY In 2013 Kairos Italy Theater, the preeminent Italian theater company in New York City, together with the Italian KIT Italia, created In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY, the first Italian theater festival to take place in all five boroughs of New York City and beyond. The festival's first edition was part of the 2013 Year of Italian Culture in the United States and it was supported by the Embassy of Italy in DC and Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo' at NYU that became right after one of the three organizers. The festival has since become an annual event. www.inscenany.com

Founded in 2003, The Tank is an Obie Award-winning, multi-disciplinary non-profit arts presenter and producer, which provides a home to emerging artists working across all disciplines, including theater, comedy, dance, film, music, puppetry, and storytelling. Led by Artistic Directors Meghan Finn and Johnny G. Lloyd, with Managing Producer Molly FitzMaurice, The Tank champions emerging artists engaged in the pursuit of new ideas and forms of expression. In doing so the company removes the economic barriers from the creation of new work for artists launching their careers and experimenting within their art form. From the company's home with two theaters on 36th Street, The Tank serves over 2,500 artists every year, presents over 1,000 performances, and welcomes 36,000 audience members annually. The company fully produces a curated season of 8-12 theatrical World or New York premieres each season.