Theater for the New City hosted Love N’ Courage, a benefit for the theater’s emerging playwrights program.

Held at the National Arts Club, the event honored Mario Fratti with the theater’s Distinguished Achievement Award.

The gala evening began with a cocktail hour followed by dinner and a star filled show.

Among the luminaries performing were Liliane Montevecchi, F. Murray Abraham, Anna Bergman, Inma Heredia, Phoebe Legere, David Lewis and KT Sullivan.

The equally star-studded audience was presented a new short play by the evening’s honoree, Mario Fratti.

World Premiere of "The Vatican Knows (about the kidnapping of that young woman)," a new play by Mario Fratti.

A young girl's fantasies about being fathered by the Pope lead to a brutal kidnapping.

Fratti's play is inspired by a New York Times article of May 15, 2012 about the kidnapping of Emanuela Orlandi, daughter of an employee of the Vatican City State.

Clues to the crime have led investigators in many different directions and the unsolved case has become a mystery of particular fascination to Italians.