In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY 2026

The New York City-based Kairos Italy Theater along with Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at NYU and the Italy-based KIT Italia will present the 13th season of the In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY, New York City’s premiere festival of Italian theater taking place in all five boroughs of NYC, May 5-19, 2026. 

Highlights of the 2026 festival include:

Closed for the Holiday
Written, Directed and Performed by Matteo Porru
Presented by 369gradi
Many dream of stepping inside a writer’s mind. But what if it’s “closed for the holiday”? In a dazzling carousel of characters and stories, balancing the carnivalesque with the dramatic, Matteo Porru—winner of the Campiello Giovani Literary Award—invites readers to wander through the empty spaces of imagination and the restless paths of thought, where creativity never sleeps.

Conditional Sentences
Written by Gloria Riggio
Performed by Gloria Riggio (voice), Riccardo Riggio (original live music)
Presented in collaboration with Dominio PubblicoA performative journey where words and music collide, blending poetry, sound, and melody. Conditional Sentences is a performative poetry show with music, where the texts and voice of 2023 Italian Poetry Slam Champion Gloria Riggio - the first woman in the national history to hold the title - rest on the sonic landscapes created by musician Riccardo Riggio. 

PATRIA – THE TOWN OF CAIN AND ABEL 
Conceived by Fabio Banfo, Giacomo Ferraù & Giulia Viana, Dramaturgy by Fabio Banfo
Directed by Giacomo Ferraù, Performed by Fabio Banfo
Patria is a small town everyone wants to leave, yet almost no one manages to escape. It is a town like countless others—its mayor, its priest, its schoolteacher, its bar, its school, and its cemetery. But it is also a place of mysteries, injustices, and blood: the town of Cain and Abel. A tragicomic tale, Patria retraces the history of Italy from the postwar years to the present, seen through the eyes of two brothers who find themselves mysteriously entangled with some of the bloodiest episodes of Italian terrorism. From Centro Teatrale MaMiMò, the company that brought Alfredino to In Scena! 2025. 

The Show
Written by Manuela De Meo, Directed by Luigi D'Elia, Performed by Elisa Denti
Presented by Sementerie Artistiche & Elisa Denti
Adele is cynical, shy, and sharp-tongued, with an inner beast stirred by life’s discomforts. When she joins a wrestling class, we follow her intimate thoughts, her clumsiness, and her courage. The Show is a warm, witty, and moving story of change and the right to be happy. 

TALE OF A POTATO
Written & Directed by Angelo Trofa, Performed by Valentina Fadda
Assistant Director Leonardo Tomasi, Voice-over by Chiara De Giorgi, Original music by Luca Spanu
Translation and revision by Chiara De Giorgio and Daniela Innocenti 
On a small stage, the life of a Potato is revealed. Its journey unfolds through dirt, vegetables, and a knife—an ironic quest through life and death, exploring our roots and what makes us truly alive, for humans and tubers alike. From Batisfera, creators of the Award winning miniature epic The Gummy Bears’ Great War (In Scena! 2023) comes a new immersive, moving and poetic  tabletop theater show. EFFTA AWARD WINNER (Edinburgh Fringe Theatre Awards).

TRAVIATA - A FREE PROSE OPERA
Written, Directed & Performed by Andrea Caldi, Fabio Fassio & Elena Romano
Three actors, with no sets or opera singers, choose to tell the story of La Traviata by relying solely on the evocative power of theatre. Through Bottega di Cyrano’s original method, A Free Opera In Prose, Verdi’s music becomes a dramaturgical soundtrack, famous arias are reborn through spoken performance and the story of Violetta and Alfredo becomes universal. Irony and pathos, lightness and tragedy intertwine in a performance capable of moving audiences anywhere. 

TROVATA UNA SEGA! - LIVORNO, MODIGLIANI, AND THE LEGENDARY PRANK OF SUMMER ’84
Written & Performed by Antonello Taurino
Presented by Teatro della Cooperativa
A storytelling for “Actor and Projector” of the infamous 1984 prank in Livorno: the recovery of alleged Modigliani sculptures hailed as masterpieces, only to be revealed as fakes by three students. Amid deceived critics, unresolved mysteries, and unintended comedy, it paints a vivid portrait of an Italy ready to believe the legend, never losing its taste for the absurd—truly, “the prank of the century.”

WHITE NOISE: CONFESSIONS OF AN UNSUSPECTED SERIAL KILLER WITH A BACKGROUND HISS
Written & Performed by Danilo Napoli,Directed by Yari Gugliucci
Presented by Vitruvio Entertainment
A serial killer of transgender women recounts the repression and homophobia he endured from his family from an early age. Victim before perpetrator, he faces his mother, exposing denied love, stifled identity, and cycles of violence. A story that questions the fragile line between pain and guilt.