A Marxist in New York

Part of the series
Pasolini: Politics & Poetry
Curated by Ara H. Merjian and Mila Tenaglia
On the 50th anniversary of the death of Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975)

Staged Reading
A Marxist in New York

Conceived and directed by
Marco Calvani

With
Marco Calvani
Elisabetta D’Avenia
Davide Borella

In collaboration with Kairos Italy Theater

In ENGLISH and ITALIAN

Based on his conversations with Oriana Fallaci, A Marxist in New York pays homage to Pasolini’s writing and his relationship with America on the 50th anniversary of his death.

About the performers:
Marco Calvani is an Italian-born awa​​rd-winning writer, director, producer and actor. Over the course of his twenty-year career as a theatermaker, he has received commissions from the Phoenix Theatre of London, Kunsthaus Tacheles of Berlin, Théâtre de la Ville of Paris, Grec Fundaciò of Barcelona and La MaMaTheatre of New York, among others. His first feature film High Tide premiered at SXSW to critical acclaim (NY Times Critic’s Pick, Top 25 films of 2024 for IndieWire, GLAAD nomination for Best Feature Film) and features Brazilian star Marco Pigossi, Oscar-winner Marisa Tomei and Tony-winner Bill Irwin. It was theatrically released in the U.S. by Strand Releasing. As an actor, he co-stars in Tina Fey’s The Four Seasons (Netflix) playing opposite Oscar-nominees Steve Carell and Colman Domingo. The show will return for a second season in 2026.
Elisabetta D’Avenia is an Italian-born actor based in New York. She’s a daring all around-artist with an extensive movement background (in dance and acrobatics) and a passion for flawed and unpredictable characters. On stage, she most recently starred as Chiara in Pulse (by Edu Diaz), within the Winter One Act Festival at the Chain Theatre, and as Lina in the staged reading of Froci (by Frank J Avella) at The Tank and NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo’. On screen, some of her latest credits include lead roles in the indie films Wrong Move and Baby, both presented and awarded at several film festivals.
Davide Borella, originally from Milan, lived in London and Paris before making New York his permanent home. His Theater credits include: Dario Fo’s Mistero Buffo and Gabriele D’Annunzio’s L’Innocente (New York Italian Cultural institute), Julius Caesar, A Hatful of Rain (42nd Street Theater), Stuck (The Access Theater), The Idylls of the King, The Passion (Gad’s Hill Theater), Pushkin (The Arc Light Theater) The Italians of NY (The NY Historical Society), The Brazilian Women (The Schomburg Theater of Harlem). Film and TV: Law and Order, The Sopranos, As the World Turns, Pan Am, Billions, Wu-Tang an American Saga, Emily in Paris, Life is Beautiful, The Fallen, The Pink Panther, Somewhere, Norman.

Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò presents Pasolini: Politics & Poetry, on the fiftieth anniversary of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s death. The artist endures as a figure of controversy and contradiction, yet this milestone demands more than commemoration: it calls for a critical interrogation of his literary and cinematic oeuvre—vast, fractured, and unruly—alongside the political and intellectual commitments that continue to resist facile categorization. Curated by Professor and author Ara H. Merjian and creative producer Mila Tenaglia, the program runs from November 3 to 14 and pursues a multidisciplinary engagement with Pasolini’s work, traversing the languages of music, cinema, theater, and scholarly inquiry. Rather than merely honoring his legacy, the initiative seeks to restore the vitality and provocation of his thought and poetics, with particular attention to how contemporary artists and scholars have reinterpreted, contested, and claimed his intellectual and artistic inheritance. Pasolini: Politics & Poetry extends beyond screenings of Pasolini’s films—drawn from cinetecas, the Criterion Collection, and the Archivi Luce—to embrace works by directors and filmmakers who have discovered in his vision a wellspring for creative dialogue. This convergence of past and present positions the initiative not as a nostalgic ritual but as a living encounter with one of the twentieth century’s most formidable intellectuals, enriched by performances, a video installation exhibition, conversations, and academic interventions. Pasolini’s death—among the most notorious and contested episodes in Italian history—was not simply the murder of a homosexual man, but an event in which politics, literature, and society collided in ways that remain unresolved.