Hide and Seek | Italy
Synopsis
This moving play looks at the dangerous power of social media and how vulnerable young minds can be to loud, discriminatory voices around them. Set in a small town in Italy, Gio runs away and hides in a cave, desperate to escape his reality, where he doesn’t feel accepted by family, teachers or peers. When his popular classmate Mirko accidentally finds him, Gio enlists him as an accomplice and the rival teenagers embark on a journey of discovery with dark consequences.
Playwright - Tobia Rossi
Translator - Carlotta Brentan
Director - Jay Españo
Playwright - Tobia Rossi is an Italian playwright, drama teacher and screenwriter. He cooperates with the main Italian and milanese theatres and his recent works include: The Prince of Beautiful Dreams (2020), Teatro Due di Parma / Teatro Vascello di Roma; Grace (2021) for An ABC Primer for a New World, Piccolo Teatro, Milan, and The Lords of the Universe (2021), Centro Teatrale Bresciano / Teatro Nazionale di Genova. Tobia wrote the libretto for the opera Troposfera (2016), Venice Biennale Musica, and the musical The Prince of Air (2019), showcased at Her Majesty’s Theatre, London. Awards include: the honorable mention at the Hystrio Scritture per la Scena_35 Award with The Ugly Thing (2016) and the Mario Fratti Award with Hide and Seek (2018), premiering in New York at the Tank Theater in 2022 and in London at VAULT Festival, in 2023. The play then opened at the Park Theatre, London, in 2024. His play Little Beast (2023) won the International Carlo Annoni Prize for LGBTQIA theatre. He wrote the book for the one-woman-musical Miss I-Doll, which premiered at The Other Palace, London, 2024. His first screenplay, Candy Crush, is in development with Indiana Production. In 2024 he wrote his first novel, What we are in the dark, published by Mondadori. Tobia is also a story editor for tv and cinema and a teacher in Milan at Franco Parenti Theatre, Luchino Visconti National Film School and IED - European Institute of Design. IG: tobia_tito_rossi Tobia is part of OMISSIS, a project aimed at building a community of contemporary Italian playwrights and promoting their work. https://webzine.theatronduepuntozero.it/tobia-rossi/
Translator - Carlotta Brentan is a bilingual theater artist specializing in new play development as an actor, producer, director and translator. Stage highlights: World Premieres of Frank J. Avella’s Lured (also co-directed, Theater for The New City and OnStage! Festival in Rome), Paolo Bignami’s The Journey I Never Made (also translated from the original Italian, Cherry Lane Theatre), Erik Ehn’s Clover (La MaMa E.T.C.) A proud member of Kairos Italy Theater, Carlotta is also a film actor, prolific voiceover artist & award-winning audiobook narrator. carlottabrentan.com
Director - Jay Españo is ecstatic to work with International Voices Project. Born in Manila, Philippines, Jay Españo’s creative journey started when he trained as an apprentice actor with the prestigious Tanghalang Pilipino Actor’s Company, essaying several roles from classical and contemporary plays. Wanting to grow more as an artist, he pursued musical theater studies at Singapore's LASALLE College of the Arts, eventually launching his career as a multi-hyphenate creative working as an actor, singer, teacher, writer, and director. Around the Southeast Asian region, he has performed on stage, guest-starred in several TV series, and worked in fashion.
An MFA Directing for Film scholarship from Columbia College Chicago led him to base himself in Illinois, where he also met Doug, the love of his life. His thesis film, Mahal, won several awards from various international film festivals and is being commissioned for a full-length feature. Some of his favorite roles include the King in The King and I (Chicago, Canada, Oregon, and Arizona), Felicia in Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Smudge in Forever Plaid, and Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Currently serving as Artistic Director of PrideArts, he’s dedicated to expanding the company’s repertoire to reflect a broader range of queer voices and experiences. Offstage, Jay is preparing to publish his psychological mystery thriller series for Amazon KDP. To balance everything, he practices and teaches yoga.
KIT-Kairos Italy Theater is internationally recognized as the Italian Theater Company in NY. KIT’s mission is to spread Italian Culture and to create an Italian Culture Network in order to maintain and spread the knowledge of Italy in the United States. KIT has produced performances and events over the years, collaborating with Off-Off and Off-Broadway theaters and with US Institutions (The Kitchen, The Fringe Festival, the Abrons Art Center, Film Society at Lincoln Center, Dahesh Museum of Art, NY Hall of Science, the Flea Theatre, Theater for the New City, Montclair State University, Suffolk County Community College, the Bernie West Theater at Baruch College, the cell theatre, Access Theater, Cherry Lane Theater just to name a few). Never-before-translated works by major Italian playwrights have been presented to US audiences, who have grown in appreciation and in number since KIT’s first production in 1997. KIT has also created the Double Theatre Experience, where One-Act plays are performed first in English and then in Italian in the same evening, by different casts. KIT offers workshops on Commedia dell’Arte and other traditional Italian theater techniques. In 2013, KIT inaugurated In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY, the first Italian Theater festival to take place in all 5 New York City Boroughs. In 2019 KIT joined KIT Italia and International Theater to present OnStage! the first American Theater Festival in Rome, Italy. in 2021, KIT has produced Tutti In Scena, the first documentary on the beginning of Italian theater in the United States. In 2025 KIT has launched the first playwrights series dedicated to Italian-American Playwrights.