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Award-winning actress and playwright Isabella Ragonese will bring us on an emotional journey in between literature and theater featuring some of the greatest Italian authors like - Andrea Camilleri, Elsa Morante, Goffredo Parise, Nicola Ammaniti, Pier Vittorio Tondelli, and others.. “On a Solitary Beach” evokes the Italian coasts, the sea, the transience of people’s lives and social changes. In Italy, the shore, the sea, the beach, are a condition and a place that characterizes the way of living, the society, the thoughts and the actions of its inhabitants. Literature had often placed by the sea, existential fragments inspired by the division in between the accessible and the inaccessible.

The event is organized in collaboration with Umanism NYC and the I&APP (The Italian & American Playwrights Project)
Special thanks to Journalist and theater critic Graziano Graziani, for the precious help with the selection of the readings.

Event in Italian

Isabella Ragonese. Actress and playwright, she debuted on the silver screen in Italy with Nuovomondo by Emanuele Crialese. She then played the lead role in Paolo Virzì’s movie Tutta la vita davanti, for which she won the Nastro d’Argento award for best actress. She has been directed by Silvio Muccino, Daniele Lucchetti (she won another Nastro d’Argento for her interpretation in his film La nostra vita – 2010), Giorgia Cecere, Carlo Mazzacurati, Fabio Volo, Mario Martone, Sergio Rubini, and Daniele Vicari. Isabella Ragone’s professional path has been always intertwined with theatre, both as an actress and an author. Among her most prominent shows are Lady Grey by Will Eno (2010), La commedia di Orlando by Emanuela Giordano (2012), Taking care of baby by Dennis Kelly (2013), African Requiem by Stefano Massini (2014) and Louise e Renée by Sonia Bergamasco (2017), performed at the Piccolo Teatro di Milano. She wrote, directed and starred in many of her original pieces, such as Che male vi fo e Bestino. She won many competitions for emerging artists. In 1998 she ranked 1st in the national competiton - INDA (Istituto Nazionale Dramma Antico). As an actress she also works for many TV series projects.

The Week of the Italian Language in the World, is under the High Patronage of the President of the Italian Republic and is an event promoted yearly by Italy’s cultural and diplomatic network abroad in the third week of October. This 19th edition’s main theme is “Italian language on the stage”: one full week enriched by book presentations and staged reading where language and literature will be at the centre of the scene.

The Italian American Committee on Education (IACE), and the Italian Cultural Institute, are pleased to host New York Times bestselling author Dianne Hales presenting her latest book “La Passione: How Italy Seduced the World”,  a celebration of the Italian culture and its global impact. "There is a primal force that stems from an insatiable hunger to discover and create; to love and live with every fiber of one’s being and this is “la passione italiana”. T

Dianne Hales is the author of La Passione: How Italy Seduced the World; La Bella Lingua, a New York Times best-seller; Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered, an Amazon best book of the year, translated into six languages; and more than forty trade and text books.  Following publication of the New York Times-bestselling La Bella Lingua, the President of Italy awarded Dianne the highest recognition the government can bestow on a foreigner: honorary knighthood, with the title of Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana (Knight of the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity), for her contributions to promoting the Italian language. As a widely published freelance journalist, Dianne served as a contributing editor for Parade, Ladies Home Journal, Working Mother and American Health and has written for many national publications, including The New York Times, Psychology Today and The Washington Post.

The Week of the Italian Language in the World, is under the High Patronage of the President of the Italian Republic and is an event promoted yearly by Italy’s cultural and diplomatic network abroad in the third week of October. This 19th edition’s main theme is “Italian language on the stage”: one full week enriched by book presentations and staged reading where language and literature will be at the centre of the scene.