Franklin’s Pull-Tight Players are working together with the Franklin City Parks Department to present a special free one-day-only performance of “Incident at Fort Granger,” on November 8, at 3:00 p.m., at the Eastern Flank Events Facility next to Carnton Plantation. The play will be performed on the back porch. Attendees should bring folding chairs or blankets to sit on, and they are advised to dress warmly. It is recommended for adults and children age 10 and older. Refreshments will not be available for sale. Visitors are allowed to bring their own, although no alcohol is allowed in City Parks.
The play is about an hour and a half long, without an intermission. It will end shortly before sunset. In the event of inclement weather, the play will be performed inside the building. This is being done as one of the town’s Sesquicentennial events commemorating the Battle of Franklin.
The incident, well known to historians and Franklin natives, occurred on June 8, 1863, shortly after the Union fort was built. Two Confederates, disguised as Union officers, came to Fort Granger for a reason still being debated, but were discovered and tried as spies.
The play, written by former Franklin resident Bob Holladay, was well researched and much of the dialogue was taken from newspapers and official records of the trial. Directed by Peggy Macpherson, the cast features Vince Cusomato, Jeanne Drone, Ron Geagan and Nelson Bryan as the four Watchers. Union soldiers are played by Jim Anderson, John Fraser, Jerry Sharber, Stan Ferguson, Jake Cannon, Jonathan Wilson, Hanes Sparkman, Mike Foster, Bill Jones and Mark Hyssong. The two visitors to the fort are played by Preston Crook and Hunter Mason. Several re-enactors led by Mike Hoover, Captain of the 1st Tennessee Infantry, Company D, will be in the cast as Union guards and also as Confederate ambushers.
This play has been performed many times by the Pull-Tight Players since 1998. It was first performed on the Public Square during Franklin’s Bicentennial. Most of the cast have performed in it multiple times — sometimes in different roles. It has been done on the Pull-Tight stage, outdoors at Carnton Plantation, in Historic Franklin Presbyterian Church, and, by special invitation, on the lawn of Tudor Place in Georgetown, Washington DC (the ancestral home of one of the two Confederates). Last year, on the 150th anniversary of the incident, the play was performed on the grounds of Fort Granger.
For more information, go to www.franklin150.com.
