Franklin Stage Company Wins New Play Commission Grant

The Franklin Stage Company has been awarded a Support for Artists Grant for the commission of a new play titled The Civilities, written by Kyle Bass. Mr. Bass is the author of Possessing Harriet, which FSC produced during their 2019 summer season and of TOLIVER & WAKEMAN, produced at FSC in 2022.

“We're thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Kyle Bass again,” said Artistic Director Patricia Buckley, “Possessing Harriet and TOLIVER & WAKEMAN were two of our audience's favorite shows, and we're very excited about this new piece, which is another exploration of life and history in Upstate NY.” The commission is funded by the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). Because NYSCA's Support for Artists grant requires a NY State non-profit arts organization to sponsor an individual artist, the Franklin Stage Company will act as a sponsor for the play. The final component of the grant is a public offering such as a reading, presentation, or performance of the work in progress. 

Set in a small town in Ithaca, NY in 1936 (the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War), The Civilities introduces Blessah Hart, a dynamic young Black graduate student of History and Anthropology at Cornell University, and M. Silas Jackson, an elderly white poet and Confederate army veteran who has resided in the North for 60 years. Conducting research for her graduate thesis on the narratives of surviving Confederates living in the North, Blessah reaches out to “son of the South” Jackson, whose poetry critiques and romanticizes Old Dixie. As researcher and subject, Blessah and Silas form an unlikely connection, and their relationship is tested when Blessah's perceptive nature leads her to “read between the lines” of Silas's work, prompting questions that strain his patience. When Blessah travels to Silas's hometown in the South to uncover the missing pieces of his story, neither historian nor poet is prepared for the revelation her research uncovers: a discovery linking them to a history of bondage, birthright, and bloodshed compels a reckoning with the past and the wrongs of the present. The Civilities explores profound questions about heritage, race, civility, and the tension between history and literature as two means of conveying truth.

“We'll be sharing more news this spring about staged readings we'll produce at FSC later in the year,” said Artistic Director Patricia Buckley. “Info will be available via our website and social media accounts.” 

NYSCA's guidelines state that the Support for Artists grant seeks to, "Enhance the vibrant and diverse artistic voices of New York State-based art makers, invest in projects that represent significant growth in the artistic development of individual artists, and strengthen the relationships between individual artists and the artistic goals and mission of the sponsoring or commissioning organization." For more information on Franklin Stage Company, visit www.franklinstagecompany.org. Programming at the Franklin Stage Company is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.

FRANKLIN STAGE COMPANY's dual mission is to produce professional, admission-free theater that brings together audiences and artists to create community and celebrate the enduring power of stories; and to ensure the preservation of Chapel Hall, our historic home, as both an architectural treasure and a center of community activity.

Franklin Stage Company is a professional Actors Equity, not-for-profit theater founded in 1997 in Franklin, NY. FSC is dedicated to producing classic and new plays that stimulate thought and provoke discussion to illuminate as well as entertain. FSC also presents both emerging and established artists working in a variety of performance disciplines. The company was founded on the principle that great theater should be accessible to all.