Our purpose in creating Franklin Street: An Experience was to not only give people a look at one of the most distinctive aspects of the UNC Chapel Hill campus, but to also give an inside view of some of inner workings of the famous street. We wanted to go beyond the one-sided perspective that students get from only walking down the street and show the shop owners and waiters who work there. A major theme that arose later in the writing process was the issue of homelessness on Franklin Street, and our play began to illustrate our societies practice of brushing off members of the homeless community. As several of my group members mentioned, there is an air of ignorance and indifference that surrounds the homeless community, an air that with this play we hope to dispel.
Our main challenge with this play was definitely the time restraints. While an unavoidable problem, due to the time restraints I feel like we weren’t able to fully develop our script and our play. That being said, we also had a difficult time finding the message behind our play. With so many topics available to discuss about Franklin Street, it was difficult to narrow down a message or theme to drive our play. Eventually several themes did emerge, but it was a difficult task to find them.
Fortunately, our play did not require many props or stage equipment. Everything in and of itself is fairly self-explanatory. Because of this, it would be exceptionally simple to perform the play outside. Performing Franklin Street: An Experience on Franklin Street itself could add so much to the production, making it infinitely more real and connectable. It would also eliminate our problems with stage business, allowing actors to literally walk right off of Franklin Street into the play, strongly enforcing the actor’s character.