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New Plays from Italy Volume 4

New Plays from Italy Volume 4

Valeria Orani, Frank Hentschker

Italian and American Playwrights Project is curated by Valeria Orani with Martin E. Segal’s Director, Frank Hentschker. The project brought together some of the brightest, most innovative, and most engaging Italian contemporary playwrights, developing their pieces through translation into English. Italian Playwrights Project restarted an artistic dialogue between Italy and the US, adding continuity to an on-off relationship between the two countries for the last decades. This book has been translated thanks to a grant from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

MIMOSA CAMPIRONI - FAMILY GAME (TRANSLATED BY PATRICIA GABORIK)
After an earthquake, a man finds his loved ones’ bodies under his home’s rubble. Shocked, he starts to travel without a destination until he finds himself getting drunk at a highway gas station. Someone identifies him as a man who had disappeared several years before. The identity swap causes a series of unforeseeable events which, on the one hand, redeem the man’s spirits through a new love and, on the other, uncover the trauma of a terrible family tragedy.

MARIANO DAMMACCO - A GOOD EDUCATION (TRANSLATED BY ADRIANA ROSSETTO)
A Good Education tells the story of a woman, an aunt, who, because of the unexpected death of her sister, “inherits” her nephew, who she has to take care of for the first time in her solitary life. The reader finds himself following the adventures of this woman who has to face the hardship of someone having to create a bond, a relationship with a young boy, the last heir of her family. The aunt has to host him in her life, home, and mind. She has to educate him, plan his future, and participate in a young man's upbringing. But will she be suitable for the job?

GABRIELE DI LUCA - METROPOLITAN MIRACLES (TRANSLATED BY THOMAS H. SIMPSON)
While outside, the sewer, filled with garbage and toxic trash, is flooding the city, causing people to panic and forcing them to remain in their homes; in an old body shop turned kitchen specializing in takeout for people with allergies, are eight characters: Plinio, former star chef now broke; his wife Clara, former dishwasher and social climber; Igor, Clara’s son and Plinio’s step-son, who is affected by a form of emotional disorder; Patty, Plinio’s mother, a declared feminist; Cesare, an aspiring suicide attacker; Mosquito, an aspiring ex-con actor who is forced to do community service; Mohamed, a university professor from Lebanon turned underpaid, overworked rider; and Hope, a mysterious and bizarre dishwasher from Ethiopia who hides a big secret and morally controversial objectives.

TATJANA MOTTA - WHITE NIGHT (TRANSLATED BY THOMAS H. SIMPSON )
A woman and a man visit a city for a brief vacation. Their plans are disrupted when they meet the guest, the owner of an apartment they rented online, a stranger who leads them from the city center to its outskirts.

EDITED BY FRANK HENTSCHKERWITH VALERIA ORANI

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