Paul Szmal: Good morning, it's 7.50 now on FX Morning. Surprise guest, we have two guests in the studio, Steve Dupre is going to do his play from train to train, a new one-act play at Fringe Festival, and Pete Ciricino is here and he's going to put on Robert Frost in his own words. Welcome to you both.
Steve Duprey, Pete Saracino: Good to be here, Ted. Good morning.
Paul Szmal: So let me start with you, Steve. Tell us a little bit, it's always hard because we don't give away too much, but tell us about from train to train. It's a real romance story and it sounds neat.
Steve Duprey, Pete Saracino: I mean, from my own perspective, it's an adorable little romance that is hard because two people are meeting in a train station and she's out there searching for the perfect soul. And it's one of those, I wrote the play so that it could be played by two younger people or two older people or two middle-aged people and the way it plays out changes significantly depending on the age of the actors. So instead of two ships passing in the night, it's two trains passing in the night.
Paul Szmal: And this is going to be at Fringe Fest in Rochester, Friday, September 13th, 715, Saturday the 14th at 3, Sunday the 15th at 3 o'clock. That's Temple Theater, the main stage, and rochesterfringe.com for tickets.
So how do you get into the Fringe Festival? Do you have to submit and go through a vetting process?
Steve Duprey, Pete Saracino: You do. You submit and you hope that one of the venues contacts you and says, yes, we like the idea of your show. So generally you submit maybe to five or six of the different venues because they're more in control than the actual Fringe is. And you get offers and you decide, yeah, that's the place that I want to be and then you contact them and set up the show schedules.
Paul Szmal: Now people might think it would be easier to write a shorter play, like a one-act play, but I remember a quote from a writer a long time ago who said, this is kind of long, I didn't have time to make it shorter, that it's actually more difficult sometimes to shorten something down and cut out all the fat.
Steve Duprey, Pete Saracino: And basically what I'm trying to do with From Train to Train is get two complete strangers to have the inkling of a romance at the end of 25 minutes. And so it's really a chore to create that kind of spark early on in the conversation so they're open enough to share. And this is what the two of them do, they share an incredible amount because of the comfort level that is created in the first few minutes.
Paul Szmal: Now Greg reminded me to talk to you about this, Women of a Certain Age is blowing up. Women of a Certain Age has been translated into Polish. Which is another play of Steve's for those who don't know what we're talking about. And that's been translated into Polish and we'll have a touring show in Poland soon. And it's also been published. It's been published by a company in Portland, Oregon called Art Age Publications and they are a publisher that deals directly with older actors, shows for older actors. So it's a perfect fit.
Now Pete's doing Robert Frost in his own words, Peter Saraceno brings this legendary poet to life, Saturday the 14th at 2.30, Wednesday September 8th, 8.30, Ballroom Stage at JCC and RochesterFringe.com. So tell us how you're going to bring Robert Frost to life.
Steve Duprey, Pete Saracino: I'm going to bring Robert Frost to life by basically Robert himself telling his life story and how the poems came out of his experience. Now I don't know, I don't think anything about his life story, so tell us what did he go through that helped him shape his poetry? He was a person who was born in San Francisco, California, spent the first 11 years of his life in California. His father died basically of tuberculosis. He moved to live with the grandfather in Massachusetts and that's how he became a New Englander. And he had a really difficult life. Four of his children pre-deceased him, his wife pre-deceased him, and basically he kind of navigated his life through metaphor, using his poetry to kind of either enjoy the fact that he was in the land of the living or try to work his way back into the land of the living. And basically he said, my poems are momentary stays against the confusion of the world. And every one of them solves something for me in my life. So what you're going to get is a sense of the man, of his relationships, his inner life, and how the poetry was born out of his experiences and his relationships.
Paul Szmal: What do you think makes Robert Frost so timeless? I mean, almost anybody who loves poetry loves Frost, and even people that aren't huge poetry fans gravitate to Robert Frost.
Steve Duprey, Pete Saracino: That is a great question. And what he really tried to do is aim his poetry at people who weren't necessarily comfortable with poetry. So instead of all this rhyming stuff, he really tried to cultivate the sense of conversation in his poetry to make it accessible to everyday people. And he really tried to, he was really inspired by the tones of voice of his neighbors and he tried to create a conversational style, meshing meter, rhythm, and rhyme with the flow of conversation, and that way making it accessible to people. Very, very new for its time.
Paul Szmal: Now for people who don't know, you are Clarence, and it's a wonderful life weekend in Seneca Falls. Can you give us a little Clarence?
Steve Duprey, Pete Saracino: Let me see. Oh God, there's one, there's a line I really, really love, when a man isn't around, he leaves an awful hole. Doesn't he, George? Oh, that's right. Yeah. Very nice. Every life has meaning and every life has dignity.
Paul Szmal: Well this is terrific. From train to train, it's the newest one-act play from Steve Dupre. Friday the 13th, 7 to 15, Saturday the 14th at 3, Sunday the 15th, 3 p.m., Temple Theater Main Stage, and go to dupreyart.com, d-u-p-r-e-y art dot com to keep up with all Steve's latest stuff because you'll be scrambling to do that. He's always doing something. Tickets at rochesterfringe.com and Robert Frost and His Own Words by Pete Saraceno, Saturday, September 14th, 2.30, Wednesday, September 8th, 8.30, and again rochesterfringe.com for tickets.
Thanks for coming in, both of you. Steve, I know you'll have some new project in about a week or two. Coming up soon. You want to talk about it as well, so thanks for your time.
Steve Duprey, Pete Saracino: Thanks so much for having us. Thank you. Appreciate it very much.
Paul Szmal: 7.56 now, it's FLX Morning, Wednesday, Guest-O-Rama edition.
