Celebrating Ben Franklin at Yale

Yale University will continue its celebration of the 300th birthday of Benjamin Franklin with a presentation of an original play, “Franklin in Love,” on October 20 at 3 p.m. in the Whitney Humanities Center auditorium, 53 Wall St.

The program, which will be introduced by two Franklin scholars, is free and open to the public.

“Franklin in Love,” by Patrick Huguenin, is based on Claude-Anne Lopez’s “Mon Cher Papa: Franklin and the Ladies of Paris” (Yale University Press, 2nd edition, 1990). The book covers Franklin’s years in Paris and the friendships and romantic relationships he enjoyed there, drawn from letters written to and from Franklin that are housed in the Benjamin Franklin Collection in Sterling Memorial Library. Huguenin graduated from Yale College in May 2006.

The play will be presented as a rehearsed reading, with actors in period costumes designed by Long Wharf Theatre’s Valerie Webster. Frank Alberino, also of Long Wharf, is the set designer. Musical accompaniment will be provided by Yale student Jacob First at the piano. The cast includes two professional actors, Sarah Peterson as Mme Helvetius and Henry Strozier as Franklin, and two undergraduate Theater Studies majors, Carly Zien as Mme Brillon and Paul Spera as Franklin’s illegitimate grandson Temple. Associate Professor of Theater Studies Toni Dorfman is directing the production.

The program will include a talk by historian Ellen Cohn, editor-in-chief of the historic Yale publication project known as “The Papers of Benjamin Franklin.” Her talk is titled “Franklin in France.” Lopez, a special consultant for “The Papers of Benjamin Franklin” and author of several books based on her research, will speak about “The Birth of ‘Mon Cher Papa.’”   

The event is cosponsored by Gary Haller, master of Jonathan Edwards College at Yale, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library and the Whitney Humanities Center.