Arts

Franklin Stage Company Presents 'Magdalen'

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The Franklin Stage Company welcomes actress Erin Layton in her play ‘Magdalen’ about the Magdalen Laundries of Ireland.  She and director/collaborator Julie Kline talk about the journey from the shock of learning about the Magdalen Laundries to crafting a one-woman play that gives voices to the many characters involved in those tragic circumstances. http://wskg.org/audio/magdalen.mp3

 

Photo credit: Erin Layton

Arts

Franklin Stage Presents 'Orson Welles/Shylock'

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Franklin Stage Company presents ‘Orson Welles/Shylock’.  Writer/actor/director Matt Chiorini tells about Welles’ life-long quest to portray this enigmatic and disturbing character from Shakespeare’s ‘The Merchant of Venice’, and how difficult it was to boil down the 70 years of this larger-than-life actor into just 70 minutes of theatre. http://wskg.org/audio/chiorini.mp3

 

Photo credit: Franklin Stage Company

Arts

Franklin Stage Presents 'Cry Havoc'

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The Franklin Stage Company presents three performances of Stephan Wolfert’s one-man show ‘Cry Havoc’, which tells of Wolfert’s own war-time experiences,  and then trying to fit back into civilian life, illuminated with the words of characters from Shakespeare. “Stephan Wolfert recounts his own experiences of military service, weaving his personal narrative with lines from some of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches. Wolfert proposes that the military recruits citizens and trains them to kill, but asks what does the “de-cruit” process look like? How do civilians and Veterans re-learn to live together?” http://wskg.org/audio/cryhavoc.mp3

 

Photo credit: Franklin Stage Company

Arts

Two Actors Play All the Parts

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The Franklin Stage Company presents Shakespeare’s ‘The Merchant of Venice’ in a version adapted for two actors.  Director Daniel Swern has had experience adapting Shakespeare in unusual ways to bring new immediacy to the sometimes disturbing themes of the play, and new playfulness to the comic scenes. “In this arresting two-hander adaptation, two strangers discover the text of William Shakespeare’s play ‘The Merchant of Venice’. Armed with costumes and books-in-hand, what starts as a game turns into a confrontation of personal prejudice and reconciliation with our past. A stunning and innovative feat from director Dan Swern of New Brunswick, New Jersey’s Smugbug Productions.”  

 

Photo credit: Franklin Stage Company

 

 

Arts

Hamlet's Ophelia Steps to the Front of the Stage in Franklin

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The Franklin Stage Company present ‘The Ophelia Project’ this weekend.  In Shakespeare’s play ‘Hamlet’ she is the victim of Hamlet’s feigned madness and a reason for her brother Laertes to challenge Hamlet to a duel.  In operatic treatments she gives the composer an excuse to write a mad scene. But what is she really about? Soprano Cree Carrico and director Christopher Mirto present a musical exploration of this familiar, yet enigmatic character. http://wskg.org/audio/ophelia.mp3

 

Photo credit: Franklin Stage Company

Arts

Chekhov's 'Three Sisters' Speak for Themselves at Franklin Stage

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The Artistic Director of the Franklin Stage Company, Carmela Marner, admits that having been an only child, she has always been fascinated with Chekhov’s play ‘The Three Sisters’. Over the past year Marner has been paring down Chekhov’s multi-character play into a story told by only those three sisters.  The result is ‘We 3’. http://wskg.org/audio/we3mix.mp3

 

Photo credit: Franklin Stage Company

Arts

A Familiar Opera in a New Guise

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The Franklin Stage Company presents Opera MODO’s production of Bizet’s ‘Carmen’.  At its premiere in 1875, ‘Carmen’ challenged audience with title character’s courage, sense of liberation, and her dark sense of humor. This opera company from Detroit has reset this tuneful favorite in a women’s prison, with the title character as a transgender woman sung by a countertenor. http://wskg.org/audio/carmenfranklin.mp3

 

Photo credit: Franklin Stage Company and Opera MODO

Arts

Franklin Stage Company presents "An Ideal Husband"

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Carmela Marner, Artistic Director of Franklin Stage Company talks about their production of Oscar Wilde’s comedy An Ideal Husband.  The play addresses some very serious subjects: class, bribery, blackmail, and divulging state secrets, still it was successful enough that it took the theatre that premiered it from the brink of bankruptcy to financial success. It also premiered just as Wilde’s life was about to fall apart.  

Arts

Franklin Stage Company presents Moliere's "Tartuffe"

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Carmela Marner of Franklin Stage Company speaks with WSKG’s Bill Snyder about the new production of Moliere’s Tartuffe in a translation by Richard Wilbur. The Franklin Stage Company performs  a season of plays each summer with admission offered only a voluntary basis, in Chapel Hall the in Franklin, NY. http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wskg/local-wskg-1035373.mp3

 

Photograph Courtesy Jade Goodrich

 

Arts

"The Human Voice" is heard at Franklin Stage Company

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Carmela Marner and Barbara Paterson speak with WSKG’s Bill Snyder about Francis Poulenc’s one-woman opera which opens the Franklin Stage season. Poulenc based the opera on a play by Jean Cocteau, and worked closely with Cocteau and the soprano Denise Duval while composing it.  It depicts the last conversation a woman has with her lover, who now loves someone else.  

 

 

Photograph courtesy machinate via Flickr