Vivian Allvin presents Everybody Loves Italians

The ‘shadow side’ of stereotypes

Allvin pokes fun and explores ‘shadow sides’ of stereotypes in her upcoming one-woman show Everybody Loves Italians, portraying more than twelve distinct characters that each embody an Italian stereotype, including “La Modella”, “The Entrepreneur”, and “Chef Donatella”.

The two-performance production will be Allvin’s first performance in Philadelphia after taking another one-woman show, Ulysses in Babel, to Edinburgh Fringe 2025. Where Allvin drew upon her career in linguistics to examine the intersections of language and classism in Ulysses in Babel, Everybody Loves Italians represents a more personal, intimate portrayal of the Italian culture she grew up in. “It felt more like a tribute, like a dedication”, Allvin said of writing her upcoming piece, “you might poke fun at people, but ultimately you’re writing about the things and people you love.”

Who has the right to define someone?

Born in Brazil to Brazilian and American parents, raised in Italy, and educated across multiple nations, Allvin’s complex international identity has proven central to her artistic work. “I’m not really ‘of’ a place 100%..” Allvin explained, “I feel, like, always a bit ‘in’ and always a bit ‘out’, and that probably informs my inquiry because who gets to decide in society, in academia, in certain niches—who holds the strings?”

In bringing Everybody Loves Italians to Philly, Allvin seeks to engage debate around who is allowed to claim a ‘truly Italian’ cultural identity with Philly’s large Italian-American community. Allvin finds satire to be an effective means of de-escalating the defensiveness often found in this debate, asking “ultimately, who has the right to define someone other than themselves? It’s an individual thing, it’s a group thing, I feel like it’s such a fraught conversation, and I wish it weren’t so undermined by righteousness… something I try to recover in the show is, however strongly you feel about ‘your story, your narrative’, at least the possibility of a conversation.”