In Scena! Italian Theater Festival to Present Pier Lorenzo Pisano's MATER FAMILIAS

In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY, New York City's premiere festival of Italian theater happening in all five boroughs, will present Mater Familias written by 2015 Mario Fratti Award-winner Pier Lorenzo Pisano, translated by Carlotta Brentan, and directed by Emma Denson at The Tank on Sun May 4 at 3pm; Sun May 4 at 9:30pm; Thu May 8 at 7pm; Sun May 11 at 7pm; Thu May 15 at 9:30pm; Sun May 18 at 7pm Tickets ($20-$30) are available for advance purchase now. 

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. As part of their commitment to fostering artistic growth, In Scena!, in collaboration with The Tank, offers a Mentorship in Directing to an emerging director. This year's selected director, Emma Denson, 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.

Mater Familias tells the story of three generations through increasingly difficult times, as they sometimes help each other, and sometimes clash in order to survive. A powerful drama with exact dialogue and sharply drawn relationships, the play begins with a mother and son's desperate need to commit a crime in order to allow their family to survive. From there, it moves backwards through the decades, as three generations come into focus: their dreams, regrets, and what might have been.

The production is directed by Emma Denson, with Hannah Ciesil serving as the Stage Manager and Uchenna Agbu as the Assistant Director. The design team includes Set Design by Franny Sebastiano, Lighting Design by Mikelle Kelly, and Costume Design by Karina Work. The cast features Becca Berlind, Tiffani Butler, Sam T Cini*, Richard Diamond, Te'ena Klein, Maxwell Marlowe*, and Prentice Myles with Understudy Lexie Waddy.
*Actors appear courtesy of the Actors' Equity Association.

Emma Denson

(Director) is an Alabama-born, Brooklyn-based director and playwright. She is the inaugural recipient of the Drama League Rose Fellowship, where she worked in London at the Rose Theatre as the Assistant Director on the world premiere of Never Let Me Go, and directed the Rose Youth Theatre in her own play, Happy Sleep. In February 2025, she directed The Taming of Kate, her bilingual dance-theatre adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew, for Theatre Turnings in Milan, Italy. She is set to direct Good Girls Don't Go to Hell by A.A. Brenner at Brooklyn Rep in London in Summer 2025, and a mainstage show (title TBA) at The Gulf Coast Rep in Fall 2025. She directed a staged reading of the new musical Runaway Home, starring Melissa Gilbert, Michael Park, and Abigail Breslin in September 2023. She was a 2023 Berkeley Rep Ground Floor Artist, she worked with LeAnne Howe and Colm Summers on The Keening (Co-Deviser/Associate Director). Her short play Christmas Cactus is set to be published in The Kinsman Quarterly. Emma won Best Short at Downtown Urban Arts Festival 2023 for her play, Otis and Anna, which she wrote and directed. In January 2023, she directed a reading of the bilingual Ukrainian play, Hunger (which she co-adapted with Maria Rewakowicz), at Irish Arts Center for Origin Theatre Company's First Irish Festival; a second reading took place while Emma was a director-in-residence at Mississippi State University, and a third at the Ukrainian Museum. She is the Associate Director at Origin Theatre Company.

Debora Balardini

(Director Mentor) 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 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). 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 it's 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.

Pier Lorenzo Pisano