Italian Playwrights Project with Daria Deflorian & Antonio Tagliarini, Fausto Paravidino, and Lucia Calamaro

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center in New York City presented the Italian Playwrights Project livestreamed on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Monday 7 December at 3:30 p.m. PST (San Francisco) / 5:30 p.m. CST (Chicago) / 6:30 p.m. EST (New York). 

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The Segal Center, in collaboration with Italian Artistic Director Valeria Orani from 369gradi (Italy) and Umanism (NY) has co-curated a new Italian translation, performance, and publishing initiative. The plays were selected, in collaboration with an advisory committee, from a pool of recent winners of some of the most prestigious playwriting awards in Italy, including The Ubu Award, The Riccione Award, and The Hystrio Award.

Featuring excerpted readings from:

We’ll be off, to spare you further worry (Ce ne andiamo per non darvi altre preoccupazioni)
By Daria Deflorian & Antonio Tagliarini
Translated by Janice Capuana 
Directed by Moshe Yassur

The Healer (Il Guaritore)
Written by Michele Santeramo
Translated by Ana Candida Carneiro & Raquel Almazan
Directed by Jordan Fein

The Neighbors (I vicini)
Written by Fausto Paravidino
Translated by Jane House
Directed by Paul Takacs

The Origin of the World, Interior Conversation Piece (L’origine del mondo, ritratto di un interno)
Written by Lucia Calamaro
Translated by Jane House 
Directed by Sarah Hughes 

The readings will be followed by a panel discussion with the Italian playwrights Daria Deflorian & Antonio Tagliarini, Fausto Paravidino, and Lucia Calamaro.

This event is supported by the Italian Cultural Institute in New York and The Segal Company/The Segal Group Media Partner: RAI Radio3.

Lucia Calamaro: Playwright, director, and actress Lucia Calamaro studied in Paris with Thomas Richard, Le Coq, and Philippe Gaullier. She started off in Montevideo, Uruguay, where she directed a small experimental theatre company. Her shows were influenced by her personal doubts and novels by Boris Vian, Juan Carlos Onetti, Fernando Pessoa, and Augusto Roa Bastos. In Paris, 1998, she took part to the creation of Ethnoscenologie (comparative study of live performances) with sociologist Jean Duvignaud and professor Jean Marie Pradier, founders of the discipline. She briefly studied Clown with Philippe Gaullier and Gabriel Chame from Argentina. In 2001 she returned to Rome with a postgraduate degree in Ancient Dramaturgy and Versification. She works as an actress for Giuseppe Marini and in 2003 founded the company Malebolge, beginning her career as a playwright.

Daria Deflorian and Antonio Tagliarini are writers, directors, and performers. In 2008, they began their collaboration with Rewind, omaggio a Café Müller di Pina Bausch. In 2009, they performed a work about Andy Warhol and his philosophy, From A to D and Back Again. Between 2010 and 2011 they worked on Project Reality: From the Diaries of a Housewife of Krakow. Daria and Antonio also wrote the play Reality, for which Daria Deflorian won the 2012 Ubu Award for Best Actress. Ce ne andiamo per non darvi altre preoccupazioni (We’re going to give you no other concerns), was realized through artistic collaboration with Monica Piseddu and Valentino Villa. It debuted at the RomaEuropa Festival in 2013 and won the 2014 Ubu Award for Dramaturgical Research. Three of their texts have been collected in the book, The Invisible Trilogy (Titivillus 2014).

Valeria Orani began her career in culture and art management very early. In 1988, she attended a master program in Theatre Management and Administration directed by Fulvio Fo, managed by CEDAC and promoted by the Ministry of Tourism and ETI (Italian Theatre Foundation). In 1992, while completing her Modern Literature studies at the University of Cagliari, she was selected by the Amsterdam Felix Meritis for a Master in Performing Arts Management, where she helped to devise Netherlands cultural guidelines towards the Former Soviet Union, along with other students from Europe, the United States, and Australia. From 1990 to 2003 she worked in public and private theatre institutions as Administrative Director, Coordinator, and Executive Producer, following a large number of artistic projects. In 2003, Valeria founded 369gradi, a center for the promotion and distribution of Italian culture, to investigate new possibilities in contemporary art, performing arts and drama. Under her direction 369gradi became a fast-moving production, constantly fostering new collaborations and projects, some of which are already being developed for the 2015/2016 season. In 2014, she also established The Wop Fellas—a pilot project initiated within 369gradi—to promote Italian contemporary culture professionals from the art and crafts world in New York City. From the pilot she founded Umanism LLC in 2015, an open platform to connect Italy to the USA, recognizing and expanding the creative potential of projects by Italian creative talent in art, design, culture, and crafts, supporting and offering them a quality organization in each step of the production in the larger and more challenging context of New York.

Fausto Paravidino was born in Genova, grew up in a small village in northern Italy, and now lives in Rome. He is an actor, director, and playwright. His plays includes Trinciapollo, Gabriele, 2 Fratelli, La Malattia della Famiglia M, Natura Morta in un Fosso, Peanuts (for Connections, National Theatre), Genoa 01 (for Royal Court Theatre), Morbid, Exit, Il Caso B, Il Diario di Mariapia, i Vicini (for Thèatre National du Bretange), Il Macello di Giobbe (for Teatro Valle Occupato), and They Were in My Field (for Royal Court Theatre). He also wrote several plays for the Italian public radio. The movie he wrote and directed, Texas, was presented at Venice film festival in 2005.  

Michele Santeramo is an author/actor. He wrote Nobili e Porci libri, Konfine (shortlisted for ENZIMI 2003), Accadueò (VOCI DELL’ANIMA Award 2004), Murgia (special mention at GENERAZIONE SCENARIO 2003), Vico Angelo Custode, and Sacco e Vanzetti, loro malgrado, published by Editoria & Spettacolo. He co-wrote Le Scarpe with Teatro Minimo and co-produced by Fondazione Pontedera Teatro (2010) and La rivincita (2012). He won the Riccione per il Teatro Award 2011 for Il guaritore.

Jordan Fein is a Brooklyn based opera and theatre director. His work has been produced and developed at Opera Philadelphia, Curtis Opera Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival (2014 Boris Sagal Fellow), Ars Nova, Dixon Place, Here Arts Center, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Clubbed Thumb Theater Company, Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater & Incubator Arts Project. Jordan is currently working with performance artist and composer Erin Markey on her new musical A Ride on the Irish Cream. It will premiere this January as a co-production with the American Realness Festival and Abrons Arts Center. This spring he will return to Curtis Opera Theatre to direct a new production of Le Nozze di Figaro at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. Jordan has assisted many distinguished directors including Daniel Fish (a re-imagining of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!) and was the Associate Director for the Broadway and West End production of The Elephant Man. jordanfein.net

Paul Takacs is the founding Artistic Director of The Shop for which he will direct the New York premiere of Philip Ridley’s Dark Vanilla Jungle at HERE Arts Center in January. He directed the US premiere of Philip Ridley’s Tender Napalm for The Shop at 59E59 Theaters as well as the US premiere of Jon Fosse’s I Am the Wind translated by Simon Stephens, also for The Shop at 59E59 Theaters. Other work includes the premiere of a new translation of Peretz Hirshbein’s Yiddish play Carcass and David Pinski’s Professor Brenner for New Worlds Theatre Project at HERE Arts Center in New York. His work has been seen at NYU; The Samuel French New Play Festival; The Red Room, NYC; The Cell Theatre, NYC; The New School for Drama, NYC; Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC; The Theatre Alliance, DC; Spooky Action Theatre, DC; Washington Shakespeare Company, DC; and Theatre of the First Amendment, VA. He has worked on new plays with John Strand, Heather Lynn MacDonald, and Judith Goudsmit to name but a few. He holds a BA in Drama from St. Mary’s College of Maryland and an MFA in Directing from the New School for Drama. He has taught at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and has served as a teaching artist for Shakespeare Theatre Company as well as the Folger Shakespeare Library and is currently on faculty at the Stella Adler Studio in New York.

MOSHE YASSUR, born in Iasi, Romania was a child actor with the post-WWII revived Pomul Verde, the original Yiddish theatre founded by Avram Goldfadn. In 1950, Moshe immigrated to Israel where he worked as actor and director in the Hebrew theatre scene. In Paris he assisted Jean-Marie Serreau in productions of works by Beckett and Ionesco. After coming to New York, he directed at Woodie King Jr.’s New Federal Theatre, the Soho Rep, and The Open Space Theatre Experiment. He has directed Yiddish productions at the Jewish State Theatre in Bucharest, as well as premiered Joe Orton and Ionesco in Romanian theatres. His Gimpl Tam with the National Jewish Theatre-Folksbiene was a critical and popular success. In 2013, he directed the first ever Yiddish Waiting for Godot for New Yiddish Rep/Castillo co-production, a great hit at the 2014 Happy Days Beckett Festival in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. Most recently, he directed Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman in Joseph Buloff’s Yiddish adaptation for New Yiddish Rep in association with Castillo Theatre. He is presently rehearsing Land of Fire by Mario Diament.

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