In Scena! presents an informal discussion among Italian and Italian American playwrights on the meaning and importance of identity in their work.
Guests: Tobia Rossi (Winner, Mario Fratti Award 2019), Luca Garello (Mario Fratti Award 2021), Frank J. Avella (playwright and screenwriter), Franco D’Alessandro (playwright), Joey Merlo (playwright), Francesca Spedalieri (translator and dramaturg)
Moderator: Laura Caparrotti
During the event, Francesca Spedalieri will present the book mPalermu, Dancers, and Other Plays (Swan Isle Press, 2020), written by Emma Dante and translated by Francesca Spedalieri. Emma Dante’s lyrical storytelling stems from a visceral need to undertake an irreverent subversion of the status quo. The seven plays anthologized in the volume confront familial and societal realities in contemporary Southern Italy, oscillating between the humorous and the tragic aspects of everyday life to challenge stereotypes and question economic disparity and gender inequality.
This event will take place at The John D. Calandra Italian American Institute. Free, open to the public, and held in person at the
Calandra Institute.
RSVP by calling (212) 642-2094.
Registration is required for all events in order to follow current CUNY COVID guidelines. Proof of vaccination and ID are required upon entry. Masks are encouraged but not required. We will continue to assess the latest data and public health guidance and to act in compliance with CUNY protocols.
Each year In Scena! presents a survey of the best Italian theater from Italy, in New York City. The festival features full productions that have already toured in Italy as well as readings of Italian plays in translation, lectures, and exchanges between Italian and International artists. The goal is to promote greater awareness of Italian theater and Italian artists among New York theatergoers and to build a bridge between the artistic scenes in Italy and New York. For info on the Festival go to www.inscenany.com.
At Stony Brook University’s Center for Italian Studies, Calandra’s dean, Dr. Anthony Julian Tamburri, will be in conversation with the Center’s Director Giuseppe Gazzola about Dr. Tamburri’s recent book The Columbus Affair.
Free and open to the public. Click here to see the event ad. Info: josephine.fusco@stonybrook.edu THECOLUMBUS AFFAIRengages in the intellectual, crisscrossing zigzag of a quagmire that is the Columbus Affair and hence demonstrates the major complexities of such argumentation. The goal, modest it may seem, is to examine aspects of each side, with the hopes of spurring on an even greater discussion among all parties within our Italian/American semiosphere. After all, one of numerous issues with which Italian Americans at large need to come to terms is the Columbus Affair. Education, philanthropy, social and cultural activism are just three other issues that reside on the same plane. There is an interconnection here, the sight of which we cannot lose.
Gianna Patriarca reads from This Way Home: Selected and New Work (Guernica Editions, 2021).
This Way Home, Gianna Patriarca’s new poetry collection, is, among other things, a challenge to invisibility. This book offers a uniquely and universally powerful voice from a woman who writes clearly and passionately for all generations. She writes about immigrant communities, anger, love, displacement, religion, and violence and about young and older women who defy their socially designated roles.
“Gianna Patriarca has contributed decades of intense and inspiring poetry to the Canadian literary landscape. She writes about … the rough broken skin of workers’ hands, fierce young women who defy their fathers’ belts and ultimately the practicality of survival. Patriarca offers us hauntingly powerful poems with a spirited humour and a full heart.”
— Karleen Pendleton Jimenez, author of Are You a Boy or a Girl?
Discussion led by Anthony Julian Tamburri, John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College, CUNY.
Free, open to the public, and held in person at the
Calandra Institute.
Registration is required for all events in order to follow current CUNY COVID guidelines. Proof of vaccination and ID are required upon entry. Masks are encouraged but not required. We will continue to assess the latest data and public health guidance and to act in compliance with CUNY protocols.
On October 15, 1915, in the mountains of Western Canada, a tragic work accident ended the life of twenty-eight-year-old Angelo Conte, a young immigrant from Veneto. Throughout the thirty months spent far away from his wife, Anna, Angelo had written to her continually. One hundred years later, Angelo’s love letters, hidden in a drawer, were discovered, giving rise to a new adventure. Nicola Moruzzi, the film’s director and Angelo’s great-grandson, travels to Canada with his partner Irene Vecchio, searching for traces of Angelo’s story. From Italy to Vancouver and finally Revelstoke, where Angelo is buried, the couple uncover his mystery, crossing paths with Canada’s contemporary immigrants, historians, and ordinary citizens.
Post-screening discussion led by Joseph Sciorra, John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College, CUNY.
Filmmaker Mark Pedri had never heard his grandfather Silvio’s story, despite spending nearly every day with him for ten years. It wasn’t until after Silvio’s death that Mark found an archive of old photos, letters, and documents detailing Silvio’s horrifying experiences as a prisoner of war during World War II. The discovery inspired Mark to bike across Europe with his wife, the film’s producer Carrie McCarthy, following the original POW transportation routes, in an effort to better understand his grandfather and tell his story.
Post-screening discussion with the director led by Joseph Sciorra, John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College, CUNY.
Join us for this conversation about Italian American histories and writings, held online and framed as a discussion between writer Patricia Dunn and Anthony Julian Tamburri, co-founder of Bordighera Press. The conversation will be moderated by Chiara Durazzini and Nicola Orichuia.
Award-winning author Adriana Trigiani joins Calandra’s Dean Anthony Julian Tamburri live on Facebook for a conversation about his recent book Signing Italian/American Cinema: A More Focused Look (Ovunque Siamo, 2021). The conversation will be part of Trigiani’s Adriana INK: The World’s Biggest Book Club series.
