FRANKLIN — Franklin Stage Company will present the world premiere of “The Civilities,” a new play by playwright Kyle Bass, continuing the theater’s commitment to developing original works during its summer season.
The production marks the company’s second world premiere and follows earlier collaborations with Bass, whose plays Possessing Harriet and Toliver & Wakeman were staged by Franklin Stage Company in 2019 and 2023. Development of The Civilities began through a 2024 Support for Artists Grant from the New York State Council on the Arts.
Directed by Gilbert McCauley, the production features Wynn Harmon and Taji Senior.
Set in a small upstate New York town in 1936, the play follows Blessah Hart, a young Black graduate student in history and anthropology at Cornell University, as she researches former Confederate soldiers who settled in the North after the Civil War.
Her work leads her to M. Silas Jackson, an elderly white poet and Confederate veteran whose writings both critique and romanticize the antebellum South. As Hart studies Jackson’s life and poetry, the two develop an unlikely relationship that is challenged when her research uncovers troubling questions about his past.
A visit to Jackson’s Southern hometown reveals long-buried family connections tied to slavery, identity and violence, forcing both characters to confront the enduring legacy of the Civil War and its impact across generations.
Through the relationship between historian and poet, The Civilities examines questions of race, heritage, memory and the ways history and literature shape public understanding of the past.
The production runs through Aug. 23 at Chapel Hall, 25 Institute St., Franklin.
Evening performances begin at 7:30 p.m. Saturday matinees are scheduled for 3 p.m., and Sunday performances begin at 5 p.m.
Admission is free, with a suggested donation of $25 per person. Seating is general admission, and reservations and additional information are available at www.franklinstagecompany.org
