4 SeasonS Resident Playwright 2021
Franky Gonzalez
Franky D. Gonzalez is a playwright and TV writer of Colombian descent based in Dallas, Texas. Franky was a recipient of the 2020 Charles Rowan Beye New Play Commission, co-recipient for the 2018 MetLife Nuestras Voces Latino Playwriting Award, he won the 2020 Crossroads Project Diverse Voices Playwriting Initiative Award, the Short+Sweet Theatre Festival Manila Best Overall Production Prize, and was a staff writer for the fourth season of 13 Reasons Why. His work has been read or seen at The Lark, Sundance Institute, Goodman Theatre’s Live@Five Series, HBMG Foundation’s National Winter Playwrights Retreat, The New Harmony Project, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Great Plains Theatre Conference, Bishop Arts Theatre Center, Repertorio Español, LAByrinth Theater Company, Dallas Theater Center, Austin Latinx New Play Festival, Stages Repertory Theatre’s Sin Muros Latinx Theatre Festival, Ammunition Theatre Company, Antaeus Playwrights Lab, The Mid-America Theatre Conference, The Road Theatre Company, Kitchen Dog Theater, Prop Thtr, The Midwest Dramatists Conference, Imprint Theatreworks, and the One-Minute Play Festival. Franky holds a BA in Theatre from the University of North Texas, and his work has been featured throughout the Dallas Ft. Worth metroplex where he served proudly as the 2018 Dramatists Guild Regional Representative.
“To serve as Resident Playwright for 2021-2022 is a tremendous honor. There are few things more exciting than the opportunity to develop work in the nurturing environments crafted by these arts organizations – be they virtual or on-site. Of greater significance however, is the confidence that I and my plays have been given homes that will shelter during that most vulnerable of moments: the creation of new work! It’s a reminder that, through dark nights and bright days, peaks and valleys, indeed through all four seasons, we are not alone. Thank you 4S for vanquishing the loneliness and welcoming me into your stories.”
Franky GonzalezPlays
Even Flowers Bloom in Hell, Sometims
An examination of the inmates within a system trying to discover meaning in the face of isolation and doubt in one’s own worth over a 25 year bid. The play explores familial ties, love, race, inmate-correctional officer relations, the passing of time, and the succeeding generation of individuals who deal with the challenges of trying to avoid a life of crime or resigning oneself to becoming a part of the system that swept up previous generations.
Paletas de Coco or, The Letter Unspoken or, The Christmas Eve Play
A playwright searching for his father and for someone to read aloud a letter he’s written recruits a Performer who, along with the audience, is taken with the playwright on a journey through four Christmas Eves, coconut popsicles, depression, Santería chants, Times Square, male breastfeeding, reunions with long-lost siblings, Applebee’s Nacho Plates, child birth, suicide attempts, fatherhood, and robbing Chinese buffets.
Escobar’s Hippo
Shortly after the arrival of a hippo in a village near the Magdalena River in Colombia, three friends must solve the mystery of why the townspeople are turning into hippos and how they connect to the famed drug lord.
“I’ve no interest in plays that privilege self-satisfaction at not being the worst antagonist on stage. Rather, I’m interested in plays with protagonists who owns their failings, who make the audience care for the issue that created the worst in a play’s characters. Humanizing an issue, in lieu of virtue signaling towards it, wins the buy-in of those who need to push for reforms.
– Franky Gonzalez
Upcoming Events
2021
To Be Announced
.