Franklin Stage Will Again Be ‘A Beautiful Place’
Edition of: June 6, 2014
Remarkably, the Franklin Stage Company has survived 17 years on the kindness of strangers. There are no tickets. Audience members donate what they will.
After each show, there’s a moment Carmela Marner, the Franklin Stage’s font of vitality, lives for.
“We’ll get these envelopes that have been sealed and prepared before the show with just a few dollars in them and a note that says, ‘To use however you wish’,” she said.
“It moves me profoundly. Remaining free, relying on these donations is crucial to our identity – we all deserve theater, we need this experience.”
“This experience” continues. The curtain rises on the 18th season Friday, June 6, with “La Voix Humaine,” a one-act opera starring Barbara Paterson. “I saw her perform it at Hartwick College last year and it was tremendous,” she said. “We wanted to do it then, but this year, it just all fell into place.”
It’s the first performance in a typically eclectic season that combines jazz and Aesop, puppets and folktales, Jane Austin and Moliere. “I follow my instinct,” she said. “I figure out what draws me and who it’s going to satisfy.”
Last year, she was surprised by how many kids came out to “A Winter’s Tale,” which inspired her to bring in more family programming. The Metawee River Theatre Company returns for its third year with a Friday, July 18 performance of “The Dancing Fox: Wisdom Tales of the Middle East.” The show, featuring a variety of puppets, will once again be held outside on the playing field of the Franklin Central School.
David Gonzalez will also perform two family-friendly music shows, “MytholoJazz” on Friday, June 20 and “Aesop Bops!” on Saturday, June 21. “I constantly want to challenge what people see in the space,” she said.
But the season really came together when Carmela decided to stage 14 performances of Moliere’s “Tartuffe,” starting Friday, July 25. Oliver Wadsworth, who will play the eponymous imposter, wrote and will perform a solo show, “The Tarnation of Russell Colvin,” a “Rashamon”-style murder mystery.
“When we were doing readings, I just thought he’d make the greatest Tartuffe,” she said. “The season took off from there.”
In the midst of experimental theater and music, “Tartuffe,” helps cement FSC’s mission of bringing classical theater to the hills of Franklin. “It’s all universal,” she said. “These plays are always relevant to how humans relate to one and other.”
It’s a lot of work, but she has a team of eager interns to help her out. “They run our shows,” she said. “They come back year after year; they’re my favorite part of the season.”
And when the curtain comes down and she makes her announcement asking for donations, “hat in hand,” as she always says, she is never disappointed by what she receives.
“If you set your sights high enough, people will live up to them,” she said. “And every summer, Franklin Stage reinforces my belief that the world is a beautiful place.”
