In Scena! Italian Theater Festival Awards Marco Di Stefano With 2026 In Scena! Playwright Award

In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY has named Via Crucis by playwright Marco Di Stefano as the winner of their 2026 In Scena! Playwright Award (formally the Mario Fratti Award). The play, translated by Caterina Nonis, will receive a reading as part of the closing ceremony of the 2026 In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY on Tuesday, May 19 at 6pm at the Italian Cultural Institute of NY.

VIA CRUCIS is a solo show in free verse structured in 14 scenes. The speaking character is a 30-year-old man living on the margins. Arrested for drug possession, he is subjected to torture and violence by the police until he dies from it. The text unfolds over the course of a single day-from 5am until midnight-and is set in various locations: the street where the young man is taken, the police car, the different rooms of the police station, and finally the morgue where the autopsy takes place. The play is inspired by the stories of Italian young people dead while in custody (Federico Aldrovandi, Giuseppe Uva, Stefano Cucchi) and all the young people killed by law enforcement.

The 2026 In Scena! Playwright Award Jury included theater director, actor and playwright Marco Ziello (In Scena! Artist 2025), theater critic Angela Scro' (Quarta Parete), actress, theatre director and playwright Romina Bufano (KIT Italia), and theater professional Matteo Barrichelli (Gruppo della Creta ).

Finalists for the 2026 In Scena! Playwright Award included "Ninive" by Chiara Arrigoni and "Nostra Signora Dell'Acqua" by Deanna Morlupi. Playwright Marco Di Stefano was previously awarded the 2017 Mario Fratti Award along with his partner Chiara Boscaro for their play "The City Rises".

Since 2014, In Scena! created the Mario Fratti Award for emerging Italian authors honoring Italian playwright Mario Fratti. Every year, a play is chosen by an international panel of experts. The winning playwright is presented with an especially created painting made by Victoria Febrer, a visual artist who uses wine to create her paintings. The winning play is awarded with the English translation, published in the Award Collection, and with its reading and a possible future staging as part of the plays for the Emerging Directors' Mentorship. Since 2025 the Award has been renamed while keeping its focus on the contemporary Italian playwrights.

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 organizers. The festival has since become an annual event. www.inscenany.org