Mark Sa Franko - Theater Productions and Acting

Theater Productions and Acting

SaFranko’s plays have featured on Off-Off Broadway venues, and through theaters in Northern Ireland and Éire. These include: Dancing For Men, The Bitch-Goddess, and Incident in the Combat Zone. The plays represent SaFranko’s emphasis on dark themes, mixed with equally dark humor: “SaFranko's two black comedies are mini-masterpieces of acute observation and dark humour, but at all times entertaining and captivating.”

For SaFranko, playwriting is a double-edged sword: “There's nothing like seeing your words come to life on the stage, nothing like the response of a living, breathing audience. The other side of the coin...is having to listen to everyone's opinion of what you've done before it gets to the stage: directors, producers, actors, the audience at the workshop. They have no clue in many cases what you're trying to do, and yet they have opinions. It's maddening. It makes you vow to quit. Then you go back for more.”

SaFranko has also appeared in a series of low-budget films. Some met with critical success (A Better Place), whilst others did not (The Road From Erebus). “Some of the films I've done I still haven't seen. I've got mixed feelings about what I've done up until now. I don't know if I'll do any more. Acting can't compare to writing or composing as an art. So much more goes into a purely creative art.”