Franklin College will present its final production of the academic year this weekend, when students stage “The Submission,” a play by Jeff Talbott.
The play centers on a gay white playwright who produces a play about an alcoholic Black mother and her son who live in a housing project and are trying to get out. The issue is, the story is fabricated and the mother doesn’t exist.
From there, themes of race relations make inroads, with viewer discretion advised due to homophobic and racist language, said Nick Crisafulli, who is directing the play and has taught at Franklin College since 2009.
The play will run today through Sunday at Théâtre Margot in the Johnson Center for Fine Arts.
Crisafulli, who has directed “After Ashley,” “Becky Shaw” and “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” at the college, said he wanted to put on this play because it contained challenging elements and addressed contentious issues.
“I selected this play because I like the story and I like the themes present in this play. It is a play that is very challenging, addresses social issues and is one of those issue-based plays that asks as many questions as it answers and that really interests me,” Crisafulli said.
“This is dealing with many of the conversations that we have around race relations in common dialogue and I find it interesting as a play to see how someone’s ambitions as an artist can lead them to discount or abandon their ethics in pursuit of artistic ambition.”
Since he’s never seen the play performed, the Franklin College production will be original, Crisafulli said.
Robert Pollard, a freshman, is playing the role of Danny, the playwright. This is his first Franklin College production, although he has theatre experience from high school, when he played the lead role of Billy Flynn in “Chicago.”
“I read the play with Nick Crisafulli and I love the play and the commentary it was making, what is sheds light on and how people are in the real world sometimes. I wanted to spread awareness of the type of people that exist and hopefully people understand that message,” Pollard said.
Pollard described his character as ignorant and self-centered.
“He’s unaware of anyone but himself,” he said.
Spencer Downhour, a junior, is acting in his first play after previously serving as a stage manager. His character, Trevor, is a Midwestern college friend of Danny who moved with him to New York. Downhour describes him as empathetic and conscious of how he expresses himself.
“I think it’s a really powerful play. It’s really relevant and is also more of a modern play I think our audience will really enjoy,” Downhour said. “The themes of race are really relevant, especially for people to see and learn from. It’s really entertaining and the back-and-forth dialogue is crazy and not like anything I’ve ever seen.”
Jordan Hoard, also a junior, plays Emilie, a Black actress Danny hired to act as the author of the play, as he used a pen name when publishing in order to increase the chances it gets produced.
“I did a read-through with Nick while reading the play. It’s very relevant to today, which intrigued me about it,” Hoard said. “It’s an issue that still happens today, things Emilie experiences I’ve experienced here. Last week, I had the issue of people calling me things people called Emilie in the play. The issue of race and comparing people’s problems is something very prevalent in today’s society. It’s disheartening. People don’t like talking about it, but the play does a good job pointing it out.”
