La Guerra è Pace/La Guerra e Pace

In September, 2022, I traveled to Naples, Italy to produce and direct my performance piece “La Guerra è Pace/La Guerra e Pace, an anti-war work inspired by the current conflict in Ukraine. The story, however, is about all wars and their effect on the human condition. At the same time, “La Guerra è Pace/La Guerra e Pace”is an examination of the phenomenon of disinformation which is currently infecting our daily discourse.

In addition to my presence in the piece, “La Guerra è Pace/La Guerra e Pace” featured Gianfranco Capolla on the cello, Vania Fereshetian, actress, director and screenwriter, Pina Panico Salemme, poet and actress, and poet Angelo Corella.

Working on this project with such a talented group of performers was an extremely rewarding experience – -an experiment, in itself, of cross-Atlantic, cross-cultural collaboration. We worked initially over WhatsApp and then, later, in person. The piece, itself, was written and presented in both English and Italian.

I’m pleased to say that, after all our hard work, “La Guerra è Pace/La Guerra e Pace” was well-received by our audience.

My thanks and deepest appreciation go to Angelo, Vania, Pina and Gianfranco for believing and for their invaluable work, ideas and talent. A note of thanks also to author Clemy Scognamiglio without whose help this piece would never have hit the stage and to my Italian teacher, fiction writer Luca Serra, who introduced me to her and who prepared me for my Italian immersion.

Thanks also to Antonella Manganelli and Grazie Montalto and all at Art4Us for their hard work and for making this possible.

Here are some of the images from the performance.