Winners Announced For The 2023 In Scena! & Mario Fratti Awards

In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY will present the 2023 In Scena! Award on Monday, May 1 at 7pm at Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo' at NYU (24 West 12th Street New York, NY 10011). The 2023 Mario Fratti Award and reading will be presented on Tuesday, May 16 at 6pm at the Italian Cultural Institute (686 Park Ave, New York, NY 10021). Both awards are being presented as part of the 2023 In Scena! Italian Theater Festival, running May 1-16 in all five boroughs of NYC.

In 2020 In Scena! established the In Scena! Award, awarded by the festival organizers to a person in the US who has contributed over the years by presenting international theater in a not traditionally international setting. While New York institutions like La MaMa, Theater for the New City, and BAM are recognized as international houses, there are many others in our community that greatly facilitate the production of international theater. The In Scena! Award seeks to recognize these art makers and presenters.

The winner of the 2023 In Scena! Award is Renato Miracco, one of the forces behind the creation of the festival, as well as a great contributor of international art in the United States. He is a visionary artist who has brought international art to prestigious institutions as well as independent venues, reaching communities of all backgrounds. Since the first edition of the In Scena! Award, the festival has partnered with Secret Essence of Italy, an organization that represents Italian visual artists in America. Visual artist Paolo Campagnolo handcrafted the award that will be bestowed to the 2023 In Scena! Award honoree.

The 2023 Mario Fratti Award will be awarded to playwright Andrea Scrimàli for his play L'attesa, which deals with love, seen through the many reflections of generational conflict. The awards ceremony will include a reading of the English translation of the play, directed by a female-identified director. Since 2022, the Mario Fratti Award readings and plays in NY have been directed or co-directed by a female-identified director as part of KIT's commitment of hiring more female directors in their productions.

"Mario Fratti has written many plays with female characters, the most famous of which, Nine, is all about women," said In Scena! Artistic Director Laura Caparrotti. "The In Scena! Festival is mostly run by women, so it seems only natural to give the direction of the Mario Fratti Award readings and productions to a female-identified director. We think it is important to keep supporting women as directors, designers and producers in a world that has been male dominated for far too long."

"A fascinating play for its concise dialogue that rattles off the story of the two characters, a father and a son, disclosing their conflictual relationship as well as their fragility, slowly unveiling their deep motivations and leaving room to intense actors' interpretations," said the 2023 Mario Fratti Award Jury. "Time is suspended, the playwright manages to create a deep waiting, with each line, even through the right choice of sounds only, creating a mystery and a dynamic that will bring to bitter conclusion".

The jury for the 2023 Mario Fratti Award was Angelo Trofa and Valentina Fadda (playwright and actress, Gruppo Batisfera - In Scena! Artist 2020/2023), Giulia Basel (actress/theater director of the Florian Metatearto, Pescara, Italy), Elena Vannoni (theater director/costume designer), and Eleonora Francesca Cordovani (theater director, Artistic Co-Director of All'italiana, Boston Italian Theater Company).