After a year of workshops, internships and shows in Sicily that have contributed to build a veritable cultural bridge between the Valley of the Temples and New Jersey, the Greek gods now also speak English! Their first American appearance was offered by an ensemble of talented Musical Theatre and Voice students of our campus, thanks to the impressive translation of one of the 2025 interns, Brianna Coppolino. A truly magical evening that gave the audience moments of introspection and emotion as they listened to the gods interrogating human beings about each others’ fate, with both humor and depth.

Video by Colin Keys

The musical, vocal and choral direction was entrusted to David Fraley of the Cali School of Music, joined by Marco Savatteri as visiting director. In five intense days of workshops, Savatteri guided a cast of sixteen students in understanding and interpreting the roles of classical myth, demonstrating how ancient themes can still be close to the sensitivity of generation Z. The cast included:��Grant Anderson (Poseidon), Eoin Betancourt (Dionysus), Elizabeth Caldon (Echo), Brianna Coppolino (Trojan mother, Hera), DJ DeJesus (Faun, Perseus), Zack Dooley (Orpheus), Madison Fair (Cassandra), Mia Grizzuti (Anake), Noelle Hammond (Bacchante), Lorenzo Hilliard (Narcissus, Apollo), Elizabeth Johnson (Aphrodite, Medusa), Jaxson Louhisdon (Hephaestus), Esther Olmo (Demeter), Desirae Powell (Athena), Diogo Ramirez (Ares), Tishaun Turner (Hermes).

led the workshop with his assistant Toti Maria Geraci, who wondrously turned into a white faun just moments before the show, and started hopping on and off the stage. Other members of the Savatteri company — Davide Maria Incandela, Giulia Tarantino, and Matteo Valentini — traveled to Montclair on a separate independent program. In the course of the week, they supported the American students in studying the libretto, accompanying them as their alter egos until the performance on stage. The elegant Leshowitz Auditorium of the Cali School of Music was enriched by select projected images of the musical in Agrigento, immersing the audience in the splendor of the temples and the Mediterranean landscape of Agrigento. In the audience, students, teachers, musicians and local residents experienced ancient and, at the same time, surprisingly contemporary theatre.

A CULTURAL BRIDGE BETWEEN SICILY AND THE USA

The project was born in 2024 during Marco Savatteri’s visit to the U.S., when Prof. Fiore (Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies in the Italian Program) started a conversation with Prof. Lori McCann�� (Voice) and Prof. Ryan Kasprzak�� (Musical Theatre), two programs of excellence in the College of the Arts, where the internationalization of the curriculum is encouraged.

The objective of the project is to create a two-way exchange: to offer American students an international professional experience in an island rich in history, art, and natural beauty and to promote the Italian language and culture on campus. In the last two years, Savatteri has conducted workshops on immersive theater and “The Reawakening of the Gods,” while some students have participated in internships in Agrigento at Savatteri Produzioni. The Italian part of the project began with the summer 2025 internship of three Opera and Musical students — Mia Grizzuti, Emma Mason and Brianna Coppolino — who lived for two months in Agrigento spending their time in rehearsals, performances and tours of the area.

THE ENGLISH LIBRETTO

Besides an insightful exchange with the translator on stage, the performance was followed by a conversation with Mia Grizzuti, 2025 intern, who described the unique characteristics of performing in the musical in an archeological site and the transformative experience of being part of a different, yet familiar, culture for two months. And a few days before the performance Marco Savatteri, Prof. Fiore and Prof. McCann were interviewed about the project on ����vlog’s WMSC FM 90.3 radio, as part of an original program presented in an Italian café, Caffè Classico ().

FUTURE HORIZONS

After the success of the reading, the project now focuses on the 2026 edition internship with Tishaun Turner and Lorenzo Hilliard as interns, within a collaboration with Nexo Sicilia on logistics. Future prospects include an international production of “The Reawakening of the Gods,” in partnership with ����vlog, the Valley of the Temples Park and Savatteri Produzioni, combining classical tradition and contemporary innovation. A collaboration with the Center for Holistic Integration of the NYC College of Technology (City University of New York) for an immersive staging of the Temples abroad would bring visibility to the UNESCO site thanks to sophisticated visual projection, thus bringing the ancient myths into the present in ever new and modern forms.

This multi-part project entails an inter-college and international collaboration between ����vlog (Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies, Musical Theatre Program, the Cali School of Music) and , a musical theater company based in Italy. The related internship involves the��Office of International Academic Initiatives at ����vlog, Nexo Sicilia for logistical aspects in Agrigento, and the .

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Related events:

• March 2025: A workshop and auditions with Marco Savatteri
• Summer 2025 Paid internship program: Three MSU students perform in a musical in Sicily
• October 2025: Workshop and presentation about Summer 2025 internship (with Marco Savatteri and Toti Maria Geraci)��
• March 2026: Public Reading in English of The Reawakening of the Gods
• Summer 2026 Paid Internship in Sicily (read news story about 2026 interns)

Media coverage:

(28 aprile 2026)

(29 aprile 2026)

(28 aprile 2026)

The Ecocultures of the Scala dei Turchi is a digital and environmental humanities research project that offers alternative paths to experience the iconic “Turkish Steps” geological formation in the Province of Agrigento in Sicily. Co-conceived and co-realized by Prof. Vetri Nathan (UCLA) and Prof. Teresa Fiore (����vlog), the project is based on Prof. Nathan’s research on the co-existence of various species and forms of life (vegetable, animal, human, mineral, etc.) in his Multispecies Futures Lab at UCLA. This event will officially unveil the project for North American audiences and feature a lively conversation among the various researchers involved.

Speakers:

• Dr. , Associate Professor, European Languages and Transcultural Studies, UCLA, Lab Founder and Director -Multispecies Futures Lab
• Dr. Teresa Fiore, Professor of Italian and Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies, ����vlog
• Dr. , Lecturer and Project Scientist, Digital Humanities Program, UCLA
• , Research Assistant
• , Project Digital Tech Research Assistant

Originally launched as part of the project, within the initiative Agrigento Capitale della Cultura 2025, the project is hosted on an ArcGIS platform and has been supported by an inter-university partnership (UCLA and ����vlog) and local entities, including the Comune di Realmonte and the Polo Universitario Territoriale di Agrigento, Università di Palermo. This specific event is sponsored by:

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Linked to a class on Italian American film taught by the director Dr. Fulvio Orsitto that explores issues of the mixed cultural identity of Italian immigrants and descendants in the U.S., the talk allowed the students to explore how this identity was further complicated as Italian descendants were sent back to Italy as fighting soldiers and governing officers of the AMGOT (Allied Military Government Occupied Territories). Included in President Roosevelt’s strategy of turning the American forces from enemies to relatives, this approach proved to be successful as illustrated in the Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel A Bell for Adano by John Hersey (1944) and its film adaptation by Henry King (1945), which were at the core of Fiore’s talk for the attention they also pay to food availability during the war.

The second part of the talk was an interactive session in which students were invited to look at Fiore’s gallery of video clips about food practices around the time of the Landing. The students’ comments and questions about the interviews with direct witnesses of the war opened up a debate about content and methodological issues, from the differences in food access depending on social class and geographical location to the tension between actual experience and recollection, as well as institutional historiographic reconstruction and propaganda about hunger and feeding.

The talk was part of Fiore’s current sabbatical project titled��“Memories of the Landing,”��the in-progress documentary that she is working on in collaboration with Awen Films.

Given the goal of this original radio program, which literally brings our students and equipment to the nearby community to connect with local listeners and boost MSU engagement off campus, WMSC chose an Italian spot, in Pompton, NJ. The interviewer, Allen Macaraeg, addressed questions to Prof. Teresa Fiore (Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies, Italian program, CHSS), Prof. Lori McCaan (Voice Program Cali School, CART) and our special guest from Agrigento, in the region of Sicily, composer and director , to explore the different aspects of this exciting multi-phase initiative.

In the course of a lively exchange with Allen, Fiore explained the history of the project, born from Savatteri’s first visit on campus in Nov. 2024, and unfolding through three workshops with our students, a two-month summer internship in Sicily for three Opera and Musical Theatre students in 2025, and the March 27, 2026 Public Reading bringing together members of the Savatteri company and MSU students. McCann, also on behalf of Prof. Ryan Kasprzak (Musical Theatre, CART) highlighted the importance of the internationalization of the curriculum for Montclair State students in the Performing Arts, especially those in Opera and Musical Theatre: Italian constitutes a key language for their training and career opportunities.

Savatteri commented on the ancient and yet incredibly contemporary content of a musical that carries the timeless lessons of classical mythology. Precisely because of this eternal quality, Savatteri was excited to bring the musical from the UNESCO World Heritage site The Valley of the Temples of Agrigento – where the show is presented in front of the 5^th-century BC Tempio della Concordia – to the United States and have it speak English, thanks to the translation of the 2025 intern and Opera student, Brianna Coppolino. Her precise and poetic version was completed under the supervision of Prof. Trubiano (Italian program) and encapsulates the type of translation of knowledge, talent, experience, languages and cultures that the overall initiative activates in three departments (Musical Theatre, Voice at the Cali School of Music, and Italian), two colleges (CART and CHSS), two kind of entities (public university and private company ) and effectively locations in two continents, Montclair (USA) and Agrigento (Italy).

Sponsored by the Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies, in collaboration with the Cali School of Music, the , , and , this international intercollege initiative reflects the Expand Reach and Amplify Impact commitment of ����vlog’s mission: “Increase global engagement by creating international experiences, broadening access to Montclair programs and promoting a global mindset.”

Special thanks to Communications and Media major, Allen Macaraeg, and his team of students from the award-nominated WMSC radio, supervised by Annabella Poland, who joined at Cafè classico for a cappuccino. And a special “grazie” to the owners of Caffe classico for their hospitality and generosity. It’s always nice to find arancine and cannoli on the other side of the Atlantic after a long flight from Sicily!

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Blending excerpts from audiovisual archival material, literary sources, and original video-interviews with direct witnesses of the 1943 Allied Landing in Sicily, the presentation read a largely forgotten pivotal historical event of WWII through the lens of foodways. In Fiore’s approach, as a memory and narrative device, food allows for an alternate history of the liberation campaign through complicating both the myth of the Land of Abundance incarnated by the U.S. military forces and the image of a destitute Sicily that the Americans embraced.

Included in the Jerre Mangione Lecture Series and sponsored by the Center for Italian Studies, the lecture fostered a lively debate among graduate students and faculty alike with a mix of touching family recollections, intellectual curiosity towards the subject, and careful inquiry about the research methodology.

This ever-expanding site available in both and , and configured in mobile-friendly mode accessible via cell phone, is an aggregator of pre-existing forms of knowledge as well as new textual, video, and audio material, gathered in collaboration with professors of the University of Palermo (including the Agrigento branch, Polo Territoriale), environmentalist guides, chefs, photographers, architects, local residents, etc., and co-implemented with Ph.D. students Giacomo Frazzetta and Doğa Tekin. The project was co-sponsored by the Agrigento 2025 Foundation, the Italian Ministry of Culture, the Region of Sicily, the Municipality of Agrigento, the Inserra Chair (����vlog), and UCLA, with the logistical support of the Municipality of Realmonte.

The project has already been covered in other media: , , and .

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City Hall of Agrigento, Piazza Pirandello, 1 – Multimedia room (inside the atrium on the right)
December 1-31, 2025 Hours: Mon-Fri 10am-6pm Saturday 10am-1pm
Info:

Guided tour: Sunday Dec. 28 at 5:30pm in the courtyard of City Hall, Agrigento. The main actress, Lucia Cammalleri, originally from Canicattì (Agrigento) will be in attendance. A light thematic tasting will be prepared by the pastry baker Federica Farruggia (Casa Barbadoro). We will write postcards to the artist currently in New York City.

Through an experimental narrative, the film tells the journey to the United States of the protagonist, a Sicilian woman forced to emigrate to the USA with an imposed arranged marriage, leaving behind a partner and her children. As such, the woman becomes “other” both with respect to the world she comes from and that of Lawrence, Massachusetts, in which she finds herself living after crossing the ocean. The theme of the video is highly relevant to the Agrigento 2025 dossier, entitled “The Self, the Other and Nature: Cultural Relations and Transformations” and places emphasis on the gender issue, in a province characterized by strong emigration, including female emigration, both in the past and today.

This work by Maria Rapicavoli is inspired by the words of Simone de Beauvoir in the 1949 essay “La donna like other:” its opening to the public takes place only one week after the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 25, established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1999.

The other: A familiar story is an installation included in the SPONDE project, within Agrigento Capital of Culture 2025, with the support of the Ministry of Culture, the Agrigento Capitale Foundation, the Sicilian Region, the Municipality of Agrigento, and the Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies at ����vlog.

Dr. Fiore shared information about the condition of Italian Americans at the time of Pearl Harbor and described their paradoxical experience of being at once “enemy aliens” in 1942 and supporters of the military efforts with the drafting of large numbers of soldiers of Italian descent, while also being concerned about the fate of their relatives back in the country of origin, since Italy was an enemy up to the Landing. Dr. Fiore also illustrated how the 82nd anniversary of the Landing was celebrated in Licata as part of the programs of Agrigento Capital of Culture 2025. Since the main topic of the evening was indeed the cultural value of the memory of the Landing as part of public history projects, she provided a model that embraces a multi-disciplinary approach in line with the mission of and its Italian chapter, (see SBARCO).

British cemetery (Siracusa)

While this history remains quite unknown to the general public in the U.S., and in Sicily it is still narrated by locals in a fragmented and often partisan way, the landscape tells powerful concrete stories of Italian defense systems developed before the Landing, Allied military structures built after it, and pre-existing places adapted to the war needs.

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Sept. 1943 Armistice location (Cassibile, SR)

Ruins of trenches, firing positions for cannons, and fuel tanks carved into the ground, as well as well-preserved cemeteries, bunkers, plaques, bomb shelters, and quarries functioning as arm deposits have revealed to Dr. Fiore a completely new way of seeing Eastern Sicily, often visited for Greco-Roman archeological sites and Baroque architecture.

 

It is a mostly silent history that is interestingly gaining voice through thematic tours such as those designed by Daniele Valvo and theater re-enactments in key spots (see ) that evoke the experience of frantically looking for a shelter against air-bombings or sadly killing a young soldier in what was a confusing war of allies turned into enemies and enemies turned into allies.

In the process, Dr. Fiore is discovering a plethora of small associations devoted to the collection of military gear (see Operation Husky organization) as well as organizations creating small museums and offering talks and debates: the memory of the event is a space of tension where nostalgia, ideology, archival research, and modern readings interweave and clash, providing rich materials for her sabbatical project.

Italian bunker (Siracusa)