Winners Announced for 2018 Mario Fratti Award for Excellence in Italian Playwriting

Kairos Italy Theater and KIT Italia announce The Winner of the 2018 Mario Fratti Award for Excellence in Italian Playwriting goes to The City Rises (La citta' che sale) by Chiara Boscaro & Marco Di Stefano.

The co-winners will receive a translation of their work into English as part of the MFA Collection and a reading at the Italian Institute that will close the 2018 In Scena! Italian Theater Festival, Closing Night, May 21, 2018 at the Italian Cultural Institute in Manhattan at 6PM.

The City Rises is a mosaic of interconnected stories about a changing city, Milan, and its inhabitants--victims and perpetrators that include a mayor, a construction worker, an old trade unionist, a young barista, and a Tunisian girl. These urban stories intersect and then disperse. Inspired by the painting, with the same name, by the Futurist artist Umberto Boccioni (exhibited at MoMA), The City Rises explores work, exploitation, identity and integration. And in keeping with MFA themes, it examines "borders," between cultures, generations, genders and identities.

The MFA jury felt the play was "extremely direct and immediate and uses lightness as a counterpoint for tragedy, without resorting to pietism, allowing the reader the freedom to understand multiple points of view. Of particular interest is the idea of the border between oneself and 'the other.' The universal nature of play's theme compounds its great potential to be staged and translated Internationally."

The jury, under president Mario Fratti, include: actor/director Giampiero Cicciò, director Alessandro Fabrizi, cultural operator Valeria Di Giuliano and two 2017 In Scena! artists: actor/director Emilia Brandi & actor/playwright Francesca Falchi.

The Second Place selection: Tin Lizzie 17 - Ambulance Diaries, by Marco Gnaccolini, is an inventive play about the adventures of young American Red Cross drivers at the Italian front during the Great War.

In Third Place: Four Men Locked in a Room (it almost sounds like a true story), by Mario Gelardi, a play clearly inspired by Italian current events, focuses on police brutality and the cover up afterwards, investigating how law enforcement too-often abuse their power.

About the Authors: Chiara Boscaro & Marco Di Stefano met at the Paolo Grassi School of Dramatic Art in Milan, and founded the company La Confraternita del Chianti (winner of the Premio Pradella dell'Accademia e del Teatro dei Filodrammatici in Milan, the Premio Teatro e Memoria of the Istituto Cervi, and the Premio Teatro Voce della Società Giovanile awards). From 2015 to 2018 they worked on the International project PENTATEUCO, with which they performed five different shows in five different European countries. In 2016, they were Italy's representatives at the PIIGS Festival in Barcelona, with the play 07.09.2012. Both of them have won several playwriting awards.