Irene Petra Zani graduated from the Paolo Grassi Academy in Milan, and her plays have been translated into English, French, and Catalan. Among her works, In the Pink caught the attention of the Royal Court Theatre in London, which requested its translation and is currently under their consideration. In Italy, the play won Second Prize at the InediTO 2024, was a finalist for the Mario Fratti Prize 2024 in New York, received a Special Mention at the Trame Contemporanee 2023 Prize, and placed second at the conTest Amleta Prize 2023.
With The Doll (El Niño) in 2019, Irene was twice an artist-in-residence at Sala Beckett – Obrador Internacional de Dramatúrgia in Barcelona, where a first study was presented. The play won the Premi Born de Residència Teatral 2020 Prize and was performed in various theatres across Catalonia and the Balearic Islands. In Italy, The Doll was selected for the Todi Off Festival 2021, the Festival Trame d’Autore 2021 at the Piccolo Teatro Grassi in Milan, and has been performed in several theatres, including the Franco Parenti Theatre.
Her play On the Edge was produced for the Intercity Festival 2021, and Bastard for the MilanOltre Festival 2017. Irene’s short play Plumcake was selected by Martin Crimp for his workshop at the Biennale Theatre in Venice. From 2018 to 2020, she was one of the playwrights involved in the Playstorm project by Fausto Paravidino for the National Theatre of Turin. In 2024, Irene was selected as one of the three playwrights for the Future Past call by the National Theatre of Friuli-Venezia Giulia and the Festil Festival.
In the pink
“(To be) in the pink” is an English idiomatic phrase, which can be translated as “(to be) in great shape”.
The play shows pink as a different colour, with comedy and cruelty. It redesigns the gender associated with it, through a plethora of women heterogeneous in age, social class and geographical origin, from a linguistic, economic and cultural point of view. It proposes a variety of female roles which show how the identity introjection of the dominant male paradigm determined consequences.
The audience is invited to watch the fragmented unity of a chorus that claims its existence among the pages of History. And that History erased.
