3rd annual Telluride Playwrighting Festival opens with reading July 1

29 Jun 3rd annual Telluride Playwrighting Festival opens with reading July 1

On Wednesday, July 1, the Telluride Playwrights Festival opens with a reading, 6 p.m., in the Gallery Room of the Sheridan Opera House.

Nicholas Day and local Jennie Franks will read "DR. FREEMAN & HILDA," a 40 minute one act black comedy written by Franks about the famous lobotomist Dr. Walter Freeman, who specialized in frontal lobotomies from the 1930's to the late 1960's. The dark doc performed over 6000 lobotomies.

$10 Donations accepted.

Who's Who:

After graduating from Bristol University, Nick Day spent a few formative years in British repertory theatres. Since then he has had a widely varied career in theatre, television, and film.

Nick Day has worked several times at the Royal Shakespeare Company, most recently during  the 2006 "Complete Works" season. With Britain's National Theatre, he has visited the U.S, twice, memorably creating the role of Stephen in the award winning "Dealer's Choice" which opened the Atlanta Cultural Olympics.

Day has appeared in "The Iceman Cometh" at the Almeida Theatre with Kevin Spacey, and in U.S. playwright Rebecca Gilman's "Boy Gets Girl" at the Royal Court Theatre. He has also worked at London's prestigious Donmar Theatre, and has appeared several times in London's West End, latterly in "The Country Wife" at the Haymarket Theatre.

Day is a founder member of the Original Shakespeare Company, which specialized in First Folio text productions and performed with astonishing success at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. That work led to his delivering lectures and workshops on performing Shakespeare both here and in the UK.
On television, Day has had major roles in such series as "Minder", "Midsomer Murderrs" and "Foyle's War." He has recently completed two major series in the UK: "The Take" and "Garrow's Law".  

Earlier this year, Day completed filming on the Univeral Pictures movie, "The Wolf Man" scheduled for release this November, with Anthony Hopkins, Benicio del Toro and Emily Blunt. His previous movies include the William Wilberforce biopic, "Amazing Grace" and Merchant Ivory's "The Golden Bowl".
Nick created and directed "A Christmas Night" for Telluride Repertory Theatre in the late 1990s and has since returned several times to run workshops and take part in the artistic life of the town. He was last here for the Playwrights' Festival in 2007.

Actor/writer Jennie Franks has performed in the West End, London, and all over Great Britain in productions as varied as Thornton Wilder's  "The Matchmaker" to Alan Ayckbourn's "Mr. Whatnot". She has worked with the New Shakespeare Company at Regents Park Open Air Theatre and was a regular on the Ronnie Corbet series "Sorry" for the B.B.C.  

Since living in Telluride, Jennie Franks wrote and directed "Cinderella in Telluride" and filmed "The Ballad of Arthur Muldoon with Terry Jones from Monty Python, which aired on PBS.  She also wrote and directed "Soft Smoke, AIDS in the Rural West".  

Last year, Jennie Franks performed her one woman show "Stuck" off off Broadway,in New York City. This year,  she performed "Dr. Freeman & Hilda" at the Strawberry One Act Festival, where the play was a finalist and also winner, Best Actor Award.  

Franks has just returned from The Omaha Theatre Conference where  "Dr. Freeman & HIlda" was selected for a reading.  

Franks is the Artistic Director of THE TELLURIDE PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL, Sheridan Opera House, July 6 – 14.