ACTRESS, PLAYWRIGHT, ARTIST


The Game to Play

World Premiere at United Solo Festival, Theatre Row, NYC
November 19, 2025

The Game to Play is a poetic solo performance where fragments of memory and visions of the unseen trace the delicate edge between sorrow and transcendence. It is both a meditation and a call—embodying the eternal Mother who keeps walking, carrying the seed of life itself, reminding us that even within the game of existence, love endures.

Presented as part of the United Solo Theatre Festival 2025—the world’s largest Solo Festival.

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Let's Play The Game

Winner of Best Short Production - New York Theatre Festival
July 2025

In a seemingly ordinary family gathering, a mother and daughter slip into chaos, sorrow, and existential crisis. Beneath it all runs a deeper thread: life itself as a game of forgetting and remembering. The play leads its audience through devastation into a quiet but profound moment of awakening—a reminder that even in grief, transformation is possible.

Credits:

Written by: Iryna Scarola
Directed by: Brooke Tyler Benson
Stage Manager: Sharon Jewell

Cast:

Iryna Scarola — Olga
Isabella Garbani — Maria (Mother)
Dasha Bavykina — Nadia (Daughter)

Let’s Play the Game began as a response to the devastating war in Ukraine—but it quickly revealed itself to be something larger. At its core, this is not only a story about one war, one family, or one country. It is a story about what it means to be human: to suffer, to question, to remember.

More about Let’s Play The Game — New York Theatre Festival