2nd Act Players’ Cofounder John N. Frank has been a prolific playwright since penning his first work, New Year’s Eve at Grandma’s House, in 2013. But the play he’s written this year with his daughter Jenny Frank, Moving Boxes, may be the last he creates for the foreseeable future.
“Health issues have been slowing me down since 2012 and these past two years have been especially tough with three surgeries since last July,” Frank recalls. “I need to scale back my activities. So to everyone who keeps telling me they want to see one of my plays but they’ve never been able to find the time, this could very well be your last chance to see one.”
Since writing and acting in New Year’s Eve, Frank has written four additional plays, while also creating the 2nd Act Players, finding the theater a home in Evanston thanks to Northminster Presbyterian Church, acting in several plays and directing a one-act play during the 2nd Act Players One-Act Play Festival this March. He’s also directing Moving Boxes this November.
“I’ve gotten too old to play my younger self in my plays,” he jokes. “I had originally planned to write four plays, but then heart disease intervened and I wrote Talking with My Dad (in 2014) which looked at heart disease and the toll it can take on a man.”
Frank has had two angioplasties since 2012 and, in 2016, had two ear surgeries for health reasons unrelated to his hereditary heart issues. He has since developed an irregular heart beat. “The doctors keep saying I’m fine, but all the medications, plus the constant uncertainty of what may happen next, are slowing me down tremendously,” he says.
“So come see Moving Boxes. I would love to hug some old friends one more time. These days, the only physical contact I get is when medical personnel take my blood pressure,” Frank says.
Tickets for Moving Boxes can be bought online by clicking here. Advance tickets cost only $17, sales at-the-door are $22. Shows are every Saturday evening from Nov. 4 through Nov. 18 and every Sunday afternoon from Nov. 5 through Nov. 19.