by Roberto Canziani
Translation
Italian and American Playwrights is the international project created by Valeria Orani which revolves around moving authors between the two countries in order to give support, independence and economic sustainability to the art of the scene. Because beauty does not mean demonizing business.
Two continents. Actually, two different cultural planets where different coordinates apply. To me, America and Europe, but to be more precise, the US and Italy.
Italian and American Playwrights Project is the title of the initiative focusing on contemporary dramaturgy of the two countries while working as a ferry; not with old-fashioned ocean liners or adventurous regatta boats, but with contemporary tools and market analyses.
At the corner of 422E and 82nd, in New York, one can find Umanism NY, a cultural company with an ambition: support art and creativity, and especially Italian art and creativity, launching them into the principles of economic independence and sustainability which define the American cultural market – and every other American market.
At the crossroads between Italian Humanism and the very much Anglo-Saxon idea of humanism, Umanism NY was founded by Valeria Orani, who is originally from Sardinia and a businesswoman with strong experience in theater organization (she is artistic director, in Italy, of 369gradi). She chose to follow in footsteps of all those Italian immigrants who decided to plant new seeds in the world. Orani said it is time to stop whining and complaining about the lack of sensitivity and funds dedicated by the Italian government to her field, and instead to develop a business-like idea of culture. It is, in fact, one of the core components of the historic and geographic DNA of Italy and Italians, but it also needs to stop antagonizing the concept of business. Italian American Playwrights (now at its second edition) is the project which absorbed all her energies in the past few months in order to give stability and solidity to a double platform of dramaturgical visibility. On the one hand, Italian authors who, thanks to Umanism NY’s translations, can see their work brough to the attention of American buyers; on the other, American authors, also enjoying the translation process, who are exposed to the Italian scene, so hard to reach and so full of language barriers.
In a double international game, which came to include the Martin E. Segal Theater Center with its director Frank Hentschker, the Italian Cultural Institute of New York and Rai Radio3 as media partner, the most recent works of Fabrizio Sinisi (La grande passeggiata), Elisa Casseri (L’orizzonte degli eventi), Armando Pirozzi (Un quaderno per l’inverno) and Giuliana Musso (Mio eroe) crossed the Ocean. At the same time, a sample of new American dramaturgy reached Italy: a selection revolving around multiculturalism, intrinsic in American DNA, and all by women authors.
Mariana Carreño King (Miss 744890), Amy Herzog (The Great God Plan) and Cori Thomas (When January Feels Like Summer) were the three American authors who emerged from this new edition, after a series of evaluations of the Italian and American advisory boards weighted their characteristics with methods similar to those used in advanced marketing. Translatability, originality, interculturality, being of interest to the public, potential for production and personal preference are the factors which are considered to select potential candidates.
The three projects were presented in one night at the Teatro Vascello in Rome as scenic readings in Italian and with the participation of the authors and they showed a face of America which is quite different from the one emerging from imported movies and musicals. They presented settings such as prisons, where the troubled main character of Miss 744890 is locked up. They talked about interracial dynamics and global warming, which are also part of the future of Europe, in When January Feels Like Summer. And they offered present reflections on sexual harassment and assault experienced as children in The Great God Plan.
As opposed to many Italian works, American dramaturgy is strongly linked to the process of contemporary and immediate storytelling, which builds plots with a decisively strong hold. These characteristics – says Orani, who followed the Project in every aspect and step – are able to interact with the market without prejudice and, most of all, without waiting around for government funding to give them life.
