Sparky’s Playwrights’ Festival: fundraiser Saturday, July 11

11 Jul Sparky’s Playwrights’ Festival: fundraiser Saturday, July 11

The play's the thing….

Jennie Franks and Sparky Productions brings the 3rd annual Telluride Playwrights' Festival to town this week. The idea is to get playwrights and actors working together to develop new plays. The general public is encouraged to attend workshops and readings to give the playwrights the feedback they need to refine their scripts.

Last week was the preview. The Telluride Playwrights' Festival opened with a reading at the historic Sheridan Opera House. Written by Jennie Franks, the one-act black comedy, "Dr. Freeman & Hilda,"  is ostensibly about the famous lobotomist Dr. Walter Freeman. Jennie, however, is a keen, sometimes harsh chronicler of society's foibles, and she generally paints with a much broader brush.

Jennie Franks' "Dr. Freeman" is not  just about a man-monster who performed over 6,000 lobotomies. Leitmotifs included the ways this decade is really the new 1950s, the Great Divide between men and women, and the extremes to which we are prepared to go to transform ourselves to feel "normal," accepted. The weapons of choice may have changed – ice pick through the temple then, plastic surgeon's scalpel, lasers and needles now –  but the message is clear: we have not come a long way, baby.

Nicholas Day of The Royal National Theatre of Great Britain, played the role of the good doctor.

To celebrate and support the Telluride Playwrighting Festival, on Saturday, July 11, 6:30 p.m., at the home of John & Kimberly Kirkendoll, the community is invited to a theatrical cocktail party fundraiser. 

Next week, Monday, July 13, and Tuesday, July 14, 7 p.m., at the Opera House, the Playwright Festival offers FREE readings of Jan Buttram's "The Phantom Killer" and Todd Kreidler's "A Small Legacy."