Franklin Fry, Redhouse Arts Center

*Note: The following text is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Bill Berthel: On this episode of Driving Leadership, I didn’t need the vehicle. I’m walking just down the street from our downtown office here in Syracuse, New York, to the Red House Theater and Performing Arts Center. I’m gonna have the opportunity to meet with the executive director, Franklin Fry, and he’s gonna show us the theater. He’s gonna talk about his leadership style, and, well, I just know we’re gonna have a creative, fun time. So come on, let’s go meet Franklin.

Franklin Fry: Bill, good to see you.

Bill Berthel: Thank you. Good to see you. Oh, thank you. I just. I can’t wait for this. I’m so thrilled to meet you.

Franklin Fry: Absolutely.

Let’s begin. We would want to be able to build out the resources we need.

Bill Berthel: That is fantastic.

Franklin Fry: So, like, this barn door that goes into the theater that we were just in. Yeah. Leads right into our scenic shop.

Bill Berthel: Oh, right, right.

Franklin Fry: So this is where we build all of our sets. This is where we design and craft all of the pieces that we’re doing. Everything from welding to carpentry to in the back. There’s puppetry being created at the moment. All of that is a part of our overall workshop here.

Bill Berthel: So it can be built here and simply rolled across.

Franklin Fry: Literally rolled across. There is not a one-inch step, in this entire facility. So not only is that good for us, for theater in terms of rolling, but it also means we are 100% compliant and welcoming and inclusive for anybody who needs wheelchairs, for access.

Bill Berthel: Yeah. Very accessible.

Franklin Fry: So, nobody has to worry about a single thing. So that’s another nice thing. Wide hallways. Wide, you know, the whole piece.

Bill Berthel: That is fantastic.

Franklin Fry: And then we can even go into the larger theater at this point. This is where we do our bigger productions. So when I talked about rearranging the space, Godspell, for example, is a musical about parables and storytelling. So that will actually be in the round, the seating on all four sides. So we just want to use the space in a more creative way.

Bill Berthel: Right.

Franklin Fry: than what you might have normally m seen.

Bill Berthel: Oh, it’s beautiful.

Franklin Fry: But, yeah, it’s an incredible space.

Bill Berthel: This is. This is. And the youth programs tell me, because there’s a connection to the schools. You mentioned Arc of Onondaga. Yeah.

Franklin Fry: So, we have two basic halves of this entity, our main stage artistic productions. Five shows in the two different theaters, connecting the themes that we want the community to discuss or just be entertained. coming out of COVID our artistic director, was asked, what do you want the play to be? And people were saying, oh, we should do something that people should think about. And he goes, no, no, no, no. I want a show where people can just get together and laugh.

Bill Berthel: Yeah.

Franklin Fry: They just need to remember what it was like to laugh in a room with 100 other people. So he did sister act.

Bill Berthel: Oh, fun. Perfect.

Franklin Fry: Just something to say. Don’t forget there’s joy in the world, Charlie Brown. That was the whole theme of your good man Charlie Brown that we did, was, don’t forget there’s joy.

Bill Berthel: That’s awesome.

Franklin Fry: Even in this national and international stresses and dynamics. Reconnect with what finds you joy, and help find joy in others. And that’s part of what theater can do. So that’s half the artistic programs, and then we have the educational program. So we’re in morning and after-school programs of Syracuse City school district. During the breaks in April and over the summer, we do camps in house for youth. Everything from six-year-olds up to high school. Everything from kids, learning how to write their own shows to our probably more acclaimed Camp rock camp, where we get a whole bunch of teenagers together. And on one of the first couple days, they have to form bands. They have to name their band, create a look, create a poster, create a set, and then we take them on tour out into the community. So this past summer, we had the rock camp tour. Go to Salt City Market and Funk and Waffles and the Everson for the food truck Fridays, and to Hanover Square for the musical, Thursday.

Bill Berthel: That’s awesome.

Franklin Fry: And the students learned at Hanover, they were told they would have a 60-minute set.

Bill Berthel: Okay.

Franklin Fry: They get there and there’s an electrical storm.

Bill Berthel: Oh, no.

Franklin Fry: And so they’re told your set is now 30 minutes.

Bill Berthel: Right?

Franklin Fry: And their first response was, and our teachers said, hold on. That’s what this camp is to teach you.

Bill Berthel: Yeah.

Franklin Fry: this will happen in the world. In the real world.

Bill Berthel: You are in the real world.

Franklin Fry: You’re gonna find out that when you get to your venue, your set has been cut in half. So let’s use this as a lesson. M, you have about 30 minutes before your set starts. How are you gonna cut your set from 60 to 30 minutes? Go and just make them learn in real time. So that’s what the camps do. And then for Arc of Onondaga we do a production for ten years now on our main stage with all of the lights, all the sound, all the costumes, everything else that our main stage shows get with our arc artists. And the majority of the cast are somewhere on the developmentally challenged spectrum, but they are fully in the show.

Bill Berthel: Awesome.

Franklin Fry: All the different roles and the inclusivity of that, even down to you, might have, an individual who’s nonverbal, and your initial thought might be, well, how can they be in a show? Well, examples that we’ve had is a nonverbal actor may be on stage with a puppet while the verbal actor is offstage. And to see the inclusivity, of people being able to see themselves on stage, so we would have a nonverbal audience member finally seeing someone on stage just like them.

Bill Berthel: That’s awesome.

Franklin Fry: And that’s the power of what this place can do, that is.

Bill Berthel: Right.

Franklin Fry: so lots of really cool blending of making the space open to all, reflective of all, and giving all an opportunity to participate, which leads to some of those skills and leadership. Everyone has a role to play. And when I look at my experience in theater in terms of how it built leadership skills, stage managing. So, yeah, I started as an actor, got my degree in acting, and I did all these different things off-Broadway and worked at the half-price tickets booth in Times Square, did all these different roles in theater early in my career. But the one that sort of stuck with me was stage managing, because the producer helps pull it together, the director helps put it on, the authors and composers help write it, but the stage managers with that process from the very beginning. The day after the show opens, the director goes It’s the stage manager who maintains the show through the production run. And so the stage manager has to have these skill sets of time management. I have to get something done between here and here, seven months later, but I have to know that this has to happen now because this domino is going to impact that domino three days later. So it’s time management and getting to know the long timeline versus the immediate timeline, and understanding that all the players are equally important, because if one prop person misses placing a prop in the right spot at the right time before a show, the show will suffer.

Bill Berthel: Right, right.

Franklin Fry: And so every little detail that goes into a theater piece is because someone is paying attention to it. And the stage manager was sort of managing that whole piece. And so that it was through my career in stage management where I honed a lot of these leadership skills. if I’m a leader, I need to know every single person who contributes to my vision and what they are expected to do, what they could do. More importantly, do they know what they can do? Am I able to start empathizing with them on understanding from their perspective, their experience, maybe their lack of experience, what level of self-confidence are they communicative with others? So if someone is struggling with something, are they going to be able to speak up and say that they’re struggling? So I have to create a team, spirit, where if someone is struggling, they’re not embarrassed to speak up, they can say, I need help, because that’s how a leader can really get all the different components to all be on fire at the same time. And in a not-for-profit environment, you have not only the staff, but I have to do that with a volunteer board of directors. I have to do that with supporters and sponsors. I have to get people’s buy-in into the vision of what we’re trying to create. So I need a board that a board and volunteers who are versed in what the vision can help express that to others. So we can then inspire others to be a part of this process. and so, yeah, I’ve been thinking a great deal about the role of empathy in leadership. So key.

Bill Berthel: Absolutely.

Franklin Fry: and I think too often, sometimes people think good leaders are ones who are directing. And it’s more than that. I need to know. I can’t tell you to do something unless I’m fully paying you to do it, and you know that you’re doing a free job. But if I want you to give 110%, which in a not-for-profit, I need to get people to do more than what they’re being paid for, because we’re all being underpaid. So I need to get people so bought in that they want to give that extra 10% above and beyond what they’re doing.

Bill Berthel: How do you pull it all together? Like, what’s your. Is there a secret sauce? Is there a. What do you do to pull this all together?

Franklin Fry: And I’m presuming many leaders have this, I need to constantly remind myself I can do this because I think sometimes if I allow myself doubt because so much is reliant upon others, I can’t do it. I have to get others to be inspired and own it. And moments where it’s like, ah, am I gonna get paralyzed? And I have to, in those moments, go breathe, breathe. Things take time. You just need to keep doing it. You just need to stay on it, stay on the vision, stay on the focus. And, there are times where my meditation is swimming.

Bill Berthel: Okay.

Franklin Fry: I love swimming. I like being in the water because you’re disconnected. I can’t take my ipod or my earbuds into the water. I have to just be in my own head, and I’ve gotten to the point where I use my swims to say, what am I trying to figure out? And I don’t want to get out of the water until I’ve at least figured out how I can approach what I need to do. The skill that I have honed is a little bit okay. I don’t want to waste time. I want so I can get this much done towards that long view. I need to get to there by seven months from now. But maybe I can do something now to at least just move it forward and just using my time.

The other thing I was thinking about is choice and having everything be a choice. If you look at any visual, every single thing on that screen has been a choice.

Franklin Fry: An art director or someone has decided what’s there and what’s prominent, what’s not prominent, what’s included, what’s not included. Nothing is by chance. When you get to that level of film and television and that level of money and budgets, nothing is left to chance. It’s very carefully chosen. And I would say that’s a skill set through art that I’ve definitely applied to. Leadership is everything needs to be a choice. Even if that choice is, I’m gonna let it go random for a moment to see what happens.

Bill Berthel: Right. Right.

Franklin Fry: My mom was a fiber artist. She sewed and she dyed her own fabric and dyed her own threads. One, of her pieces, someone, was looking at it and saying, well, why did you end the gold thread there? And she turned to the person and said, that’s where it ran out of gold thread. But she could have bought more gold thread and finished it or pulled it out.

Bill Berthel: That’s right.

Franklin Fry: But no, she left it. It was a choice. And so everything that we do as a leader needs to be based in at least me knowing what my choice is. So I can go, that was not a good choice. Or what can I learn from that next time? Or, that was a good choice. How can I keep this particular thing up? So a choice is definitely a skill.

It was interesting, the very last question of my interview process for this position was, I think maybe what inspires me? And I said, the empty room with just the ghost light, because that represents potential. The empty space, the empty canvas, the blank page, all of that. Yes, it can be intimidating. It can be paralyzing for me and paralyzing. but it represents potential. The potential, yeah.

Bill Berthel: I love that.

Franklin Fry: And that, for me, is what makes this kind of space magical.

Bill Berthel: Franklin, what else should we see?

Franklin Fry: What else should we see? let’s go and look at some puppets.

Bill Berthel: Oh, that’s awesome. All right, let’s go do that.

Franklin Fry: So this is the room that we use as a recording studio. Subcat and others have also used it here. The acoustics are even more fine tuned, so all the audio can get piped together to the sound board and then get mixed with the board. Sometimes we’ll put an orchestra in this room. The conductor’s up on the platform with a camera on them. The actors then can see the screens that we have above the audience’s heads to take the cue for the music. But the orchestra is all in here. Percussion tends to live in this other room just because the percussion needs are so different. it’s a really top of the line recording studio as well.

Bill Berthel: That’s phenomenal.

Franklin Fry: And then, I don’t know if you remember, open hand puppet theater.

Bill Berthel: I do. Okay.

Franklin Fry: Do you remember what happened to open hand puppet theater?

Bill Berthel: I don’t.

Franklin Fry: Merged into Red House in 2018.

Bill Berthel: No kidding.

Franklin Fry: So here we are. Here are some of the open hand, puppet pieces that we are now the honored curators and owners of. And that is why puppetry is definitely a part of the culture of Red House Art Center. When Open Hand was looking at where they wanted to sort of bestow all of their artwork and stuff, they looked at the programs we do and how we do it, and so the combination of it was just too perfect.

Bill Berthel: This is awesome.

Franklin Fry: so this is our essential state of the art costume and wardrobe room. And what’s being worked on right now is these are puppets for production that we’re doing, for a, project that Onondaga county is providing some funding for. And it’s a puppet show to address opioid awareness with elementary school kids. Okay, what you’re gonna be talking about drug use in elementary school kids? No, it’s an allegorical puppet play.

Bill Berthel: Okay.

Franklin Fry: So drugs never get mentioned. Narcan is never mentioned. And so it’s a show that’s being put together that will be in, it’s available to all elementary schools, in Onondaga county. And we’re also working with other youth groups as well.

Bill Berthel: So, Franklin, how does a program like that get born? Where did that come from? It’s brilliant.

Franklin Fry: our staff, our incredible staff that put these things together and come up with these brainchilds. And so it was part of the, settlement of the opioid pharmaceutical deal.

Bill Berthel: Okay. Right. Yes.

Franklin Fry: Those lawsuits. So we got funding from the county to start the project, and that helped us. we have an internal staff member who’s a creative writer. We, also, had someone who wrote the original songs and music. Our folks directed it and choreographed it, built all the sets, built all the costumes and the pieces. And then our goal is hopefully going to be to, at some point, license this m so that the production with puppets or as actors.

Bill Berthel: Right.

Franklin Fry: Do this across the country.

Bill Berthel: Oh, Franklin, thank you so much.

Franklin Fry: My pleasure. Thank you so much for coming in. Really love it.

Bill Berthel: So.

Franklin Fry: Thank you. Thank you for the conversation.