Date posted: 10-19-04

Editors: You are encouraged to use this story in your publication. Please credit the author and DeKalb News Service as shown. And, please send two tearsheets to: Jim Killam, Department of Communication, Watson Hall, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115.

For source-contact information, contact Jim Killam at jkillam@niu.edu or 815-753-4239.

Editors: Note Malta, DeKalb angle. Play mentioned runs Oct. 20-23

Life's a stage: Nadine Franklin puts Kish students in spotlight

By Matthew Scott
DeKalb News Service

Malta -- The lights dim, the curtain is pulled back, a stage light is lit and an actor steps out on stage. Right away he messes up his lines.

"Uh, can I try that again, Nadine?"

Nadine Franklin just sighs and puts her hand to her forehead. "Of course you can, Chris. That's why this is called rehearsal. You're supposed to do your best, I tell you what it is that you're doing wrong and then we go over your performance and try to make it better."

Franklin heads the theater department at Kishwaukee Community College in Malta and directs all of the plays performed there. She also devotes her spare time to helping her students become great actors, by having them act out scenes and perform monologues.

Chris G'Fellers happens to be one of these actors. He performs in front of Franklin and then asks her to criticize him and point out all of his faults.

"Experience by performing in stage productions is the best way any of them will have a chance of becoming great actors and possibly getting discovered," Franklin says. "The moment an actor sets their foot on a stage, they become that character. Past, present, future. What that character feels, what they think, all of it. You are not you, anymore. You are someone else."

Franklin gives this little speech to all of her students who enroll in her acting classes. She has them make copies of scenes they are required to perform for a grade, and has them mark every sentence with what they think that character is thinking at that precise moment. This exercise helps her students to better understand their characters, and to make their performances more realistic.

"I give everybody a shot at whatever role they would like to try out for," she says. "Unfortunately, most of the students do not know how to act when they first try out. So I judge them a little harshly." She laughs.

Franklin has told her students many times that she is to criticizing acting as Simon Cowell is to judging "American Idol."

"I am not lenient at all when it comes to acting," she says. "If you're a person who is terrible at performing a specific piece, I will come out and tell you just how terrible you are. I won't sugarcoat anything, because the real world won't sugarcoat anything for you. Acting takes years of practice and hard work, and even then, the chances of you making it big are miniscule."

Franklin herself has been acting since age 17 when she won the lead role in her high school play, "Butterflies Are Free." The play was about a young, free?spirited young woman who falls in love with an attractive blind man with whom she is forced to become roommates. The play centered on both characters struggle for freedom and independence from their families.

"After I did that play, I knew that I wanted to be an actress," she said. "I began to audition and act in all of the plays that my school had to offer, as well as the Illinois Stage Company and the Wisconsin Summer Company. I won the roles of many female leads, and have gained something from each experience."

She decided to take a job as a teacher at Kishwaukee College - an opportunity that arose by accident.

"In 1989, a friend of mine told me that they needed someone to teach a speech class" she said. "So I decided to give it a try, since I had no job and needed money to support myself. After my first semester of teaching, I also began to help out with forensics and theater, until the current theater teacher quit in 1990, and I have been running it ever since."

On this September day, Franklin is wearing a pair of dark blue jeans, white shoes, a black sleeveless shirt, and a pair of wide-rimmed glasses. She has her notebook in front of her, and writes down all of the things that she sees and hears that are going wrong with the rehearsal. The play they are rehearsing is called "The Dinning Room" by A.R. Gurney, scheduled to run Oct. 20-23 in the Kishwaukee College auditorium.

Mark Andres, one of Franklin's two assistant directors, stops biting his nails, and shouts out.
"Chris, you suck!"

Right away everyone on stage laughs, as Chris G'Fellers, looks at his critic, amused. He raises his hand and gives the finger as the cast begins to laugh even harder.

Carolyn Davis-Hoeve, Franklin's other assistant, tries to take charge of the situation. "All right, come on. It's 8 o'clock and we still need to get through the first scene."

Everyone begins to calm down as they force the rest of their laughter out of them so that they can get serious again and concentrate on memorizing their lines.

"I don't know why I put up with this ----." Franklin says softly while writing in her notebook.

Mark taps her lightly on the shoulder. "Because you love us."

"I don't love you, Mark."

"Nadine, I'm hurt." He clutches his chest as if he is wounded in the heart, and both grin at each other.

"Seriously, we only have a few weeks left before the show starts, and we need to make sure that everyone is ready."

As with every other play she has directed since 1990, Franklin worries that her cast won't be off book and have their lines memorized or their blocking of movements completely perfect by opening night. At the same time, she knows everything will turn out all right.

"It's just one of those feelings that every director has," she said. "I'm worried that the audience is going to think that this show is terrible because my kids are all new at acting and don't have a clue what is going on around them. However, at the same time I know that it'll all come together. It always does for me."

When debating about which she likes better, acting or directing, Franklin said, "I really can't choose. Of course I love acting, but I also love directing and passing on what I have learned to others. I guess my favorites would have to be the plays that I have directed but have also been privileged to star in as well. Those plays give me the best of both worlds."


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