Mattia Torre - reading cast

Stella Saccà (director)

Born in Rome, Italy, and based in Brooklyn, New York City, Stella is an actress, director, playwright, screenwriter, and producer. She has been working in Theater since the age of 16 as an actress and started writing and producing when she was 23, after graduating in Languages at the University Roma Tre. Among all her productions, she was awarded for several plays including “Come Restare Vedove Senza Intaccare La Fedina Penale” (How To Become Widows Without Affecting the Criminal Record), “E Luce Fu” (There It Comes The Light), “Il mio Compleanno” (My Birthday), “I Leoni Non Si Abbracciano” (Lions Don’t Hug). She also co-wrote, acted, and co-produced the short movie L’Appuntamento (The Date), awarded with the Golden Globe in 2013. Her first direction in New York City happened in January 2020 for the New York Theater Festival, where she directed the English version of her awarded play Lions Don’t Hug.

The show retook place at the Brooklyn Art Haus in June and September 2023 with the same cast (Stephen Cofield JR, Skyler James Bailey, Giorgio Cantarini).

She works as a jury member for the New York Movie Awards and the Florence Film Awards

Penny Arcade aka Susana Ventura is an actress, poet, essayist, spoken word, video & theatre maker who creates long-form, text-based performance, a form of experimental theatre that investigates the boundaries between traditional theatre and performance art based on her poetic practice. Her focus on the creation of community as the goal of performance and her use of performance as a transformative act mark her as a true original in international theatre.

She has contributed to new art forms every decade since 1968 – from experimental theatre and film with The Playhouse of The Ridiculous and as an Andy Warhol Superstar in the 1960’s, conceptual art in the 1970’s, performance art, and spoken word in the 1980’s. In 1990 she spearheaded the international neo-burlesque movement with her anti-censorship show Bitch!Dyke!Faghag!Whore! a blend of erotic dance and humanist politics. At 73 she continues to tour her work internationally and is a prolific creator of new work. She's the author of 16 full-length works, hundreds of performances pieces, lectures, and interviews all available on https://www.patreon.com/Penny_Arcade by donation. A partial collection of her scripts and ephemera was published in hardcover by Semiotext in 2010 Bad Reputation.

(photo by Jasmine Hirst)

Hailing from the South Bronx, NY, Skyler James Bailey is an actor based in New York City. He is best known for starring in the web series Beyond Complicated of Jungle Wild Production. He has also has featured in several short films (Goodman, XXinvisible, Mandingo), the award-winning theater production Black Magic at the Fringe Festival and the Flea Theater, and the theater play Lions Don’t Hug by Stella Sacca, recently produced at the Brooklyn Art Haus. As one half of Dreamable Music Group he has provided scores for short films (Perception, I Know The Sunset, Decisions While Impaired), as well as provided music scoring for web series (Uhuru Now, Smoke And Mirrors, MakeUpxBreakUp).

Kisha Barr is a passionate award-winning TV and film actress who has had a love for the arts at an early age. Her parents are Jamaicans but she was born in San Diego, CA when her dad joined the military. She also loves to teach which led her to be an educator for 5 years. After appearing as a guest on The Oprah Show in 2003, it revived her desire to be an actress. After intense training and hard work, she has appeared on hit shows such as Manifest (NBC), Bull (CBS), Power Book II, Lifetime’s YOU, and several award-winning short films. A special highlight of her career was working alongside Oscar-winner Sally Field on Dispatches from Elsewhere (AMC). When she is not acting she tutors and stays creative by writing and producing her own work.

Brooklyn born and bred, Stephen Cofield Jr. is the consummate entertainer with an academic background, an innate sense of humor, and a passion for the business.

Stephen began his career as a dancer, traveling throughout the New York Tri-state area on several college tours and performing on Brooklyn Community Access Television (fka BCAT). Towering at a fit and slender six-foot-three frame, modeling was an easy transition for him, as dance taught him much about angles, his body positioning and working the space he's given. In addition to dancer and model, Stephen added a college graduate to his resume, completing a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Public Administration with a concentration in Human Resource Management from John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Intent on creating an opportunity to make a larger impact through art, Stephen forayed his natural sense of humor and his uncanny ability to tap into the human experience into award-winning acting accolades. Ever growing and improving, he continues to be a student of the craft, which has paid off for him by way of several roles in indie films that have screened in Oscar-qualifying film festivals across the globe such as Sundance, UrbanWorld, Martha's Vineyard African American Film Festival, and the Festival International Du Film Panafricain Cannes to name a few.

Along with his extensive commercial & print work, his portfolio extends to theatre in genres of both comedy & drama as well as to television -- his notable TV credits include The Other Two (Max), Blue Bloods (CBS), Harlem (Prime Video) & Manifest (Netflix).

Robert Funaro is a professional working actor based in NYC. Known for his work as a regular in "The Sopranos" in which he created the role of Eugene Pontecorvo. “Members Only” the final episode in which he co-starred won an Emmy Award for best dramatic episode for writer Terence Winter. Robert has worked extensively in NYC- OFF BROADWAY and OFF OFF BROADWAY scene. One of the plays was DREAD AWAKENINGS directed by Arin Arbus Artistic director of Brooklyn’s “Theater For A New Audience”. He last Directed How Alfo Learned To Love Women with Joanna Bonaro. His most recent film credit includes, ”The Irishman" directed by Martin Scorcese. A recurring role on the final season of the hit Showtime TV series "Ray Donovan" as Lt. Bricker. Other T.V. credits include the first season of "The Sinner" with Jessica Biel as a regular. Vinyl, directed again by Martin Scorcese. Film credits include "American Gangster" with Ridley Scott and "Not Fade Away" directed by David Chase.

Italian native actor recently landed in New York City as a student of The Acting Studio directed by James Price.

Antony Shugaar is a writer and a translator from the Italian and the French. He is the American editor of FMR Magazine. He’s translated dozens of articles for the New York Review of Books and close to forty novels for Europa Editions. He has translated many novels that were awarded Italy’s highest literary award, the Strega Prize (the 2011 winner, Edoardo Nesi’s Story of My People, Resistance Is Futile, by Walter Siti [2013], Francesco Piccolo’s Wanna Be Like Everyone [2104], Ferocity, by Nicola Lagioia [2015], and the 2016 winner, The Catholic School, by Edoardo Albinati). In the realm of Italian noir, aside from some of the work of Gianfranco Carofiglio, he's also translated books by many of the leading figures in the field: Massimo Carlotto, Sandrone Dazieri, Maurizio de Giovanni, the late Giorgio Faletti, Antonio Manzini, and others. He has also translated several books by Gianni Rodari, the eminent Italian children’s author, including “Telephone Tales,” which was awarded the 2021 Batchelder Award by the American Library Association. He’s received two National Endowment of the Arts fellowships. He translated two books in the W. W. Norton Collected Works of Primo Levi, published in 2015. His translation of Hollow Heart by Viola Di Grado was shortlisted for both the PEN and the ALTA Italian translation awards. He has translated TV series and movies for HBO, Netflix, and Amazon, including work by Paolo Sorrentino and Luca Guadagnino.