Franny’s Way
- Written and directed by Richard Nelson
Richard Nelson's plays include Farewell to the Theatre, Nikolai and the Others, Sweet and Sad, That Hopey Changey Thing, Conversations in Tusculum, How Shakespeare Won the West, Frank's Home, Rodney's Wife, Franny's Way, Madame Melville, Goodnight Children Everywhere, The General From America, New England, Misha's Party (with Alexander Gelman), Columbus or the Discovery of Japan, Two Shakespearean Actors, Some Americans Abroad, Left, Life Sentences, Principia Scriptoriae. He was written the musicals Unfinished Piece for a Player Piano (with Peter Golub), James Joyce's The Dead (with Shaun Davey), My Life With Albertine (with Ricky Ian Gordon), the screenplays for the films Hyde Park-on-Hudson (Roger Michell director) and Ethan Frome (John Madden director). He has received numerous awards both in America and abroad, including a Tony Award (Best Book of a Musical for James Joyce's The Dead), and Oliver Award (Best Play for Goodnight Children Everywhere), Tony nominations (Best Play for Two Shakespearean Actors; Best Score as co-lyricist for James Joyce's The Dead), an Olivier nomination (Best Comedy for Some Americans Abroad), two Obies, a Lortel Award, a New York Drama Critics Circle Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Lila Wallace-Readers' Digest Writers Award. He is the recipient of the PEN/Laura Pels Master Playwright Award, an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and he is an Honorary Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He lives in upstate New York. (As of January 2007)
Summer, 1957. The streets of Greenwich Village sizzle with the insistent rhythm of jazz. Accompanied by their grandmother, two teenage sisters from the country visit their married cousin in the city. Soon, the young women have embarked on their own private missions involving love, a forgotten child, and a lost mother. Set against the bustling backdrop of New York at mid-century, Franny's Way is a sensual, provocative ode to desire, longing, and the bittersweet collision of youth and adulthood.
Featuring
Domenica Cameron-Scorsese
Elizabeth Moss
Jesse Pennington
Kathleen Widdoes
Yvonne Woods
Playwrights Horizons: Franny’s Way (also Geffen Playhouse), Rodney’s Wife. Other Off-Broadway: Richard II, The False Servant, The General from America (also Alley), A Place at the Table, The Winter’s Tale, The Taming of the Shrew. Regional: Maple and Vine (Actors Theater of Louisville), Vera Laughed (NYS&F), Major Barbara (Guthrie), James Joyce’s The Dead (Huntington/ACT), Goodnight Children Everywhere (ACT).
Creative Team
Thomas Lynch
Scenic DesignerLinda Ross & Susan Hilferty
Costume DesignerJennifer Tipton
Lighting DesignerScott Lehrer
Sound DesignerJane Pole
Production Stage Manager
Photos of (1) Elisabeth Moss, Kathleen Widdoes, Jesse Pennington, Domenica Cameron-Scorsese, and Yvonne Woods; (2) Domenica Cameron-Scorsese, Kathleen Widdoes, and Yvonne Woods; (3) Jesse Pennington and Yvonne Woods; and (4) Elisabeth Moss by Joan Marcus.