Remember STEAM Park?
Back in the teens, a group of civic-minded Durangoans developed a vision of a convention center that would include meeting and performance spaces for a variety of purposes. Known as the Durango STEAM Park Project, Bud Franks had been elected president and his wife, Fran, was a board member along with Terry Bacon, Christina Erteszek, Fritz Geisler, Carol Solomon and other community activists.
The Franks brought decades of experience working in professional theater as performers, stage managers, directors, producers, financial planners and community advocates.
“We helped launch the National Alliance for Musical Theatre and we helped establish its Festival of New Musicals,“ Bud said.
In addition, Team Franks helped launch Houston’s Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, San Antonio’s Tobin Center and the Briscoe Western Art Museum.
Back in Durango, where the Franks decided to retire, the STEAM Park project hit a bureaucratic wall. Out of that crucible, and others before it such as standalone professional productions featuring Equity actors Wendie Malick and Dan Lauria (“The Guys” and “Love Letters”), not to mention the creative projects initiated by New Face Productions, the Durango New Play Festival was born.
In 2017, DNPF became known as PlayFest.
“We suggested a timeline to get a new festival organized and produced successfully would be 2019,” Bud said. “It could operate under the umbrella of the STEAM 501(c)(3) while waiting for its own nonprofit status.”
From the beginning, PlayFest Artistic Director Felicia Lansbury Meyer said, “Bud and Fran helped transform the dream of a play-development festival into a reality – in 2018 – and did it in just over seven months.”
PlayFest officially opened Aug. 6, 2018, with works by Lee Blessing, Stephen Nathan and Emily Dendinger, plus a new play by Fort Lewis College graduate Jake Yost.
“We knew that a new play festival would have a small staff and to make it a success, the board would have to be very active,” Fran said.
As a result, Bud and Fran have worked for more than nine years behind the scenes in countless capacities.
From the start, Bud has been board treasurer, developing the annual budget with his finance team, plus “tracking, reviewing, and approving monthly expenditures,” he said.
Beyond finances, the Franks have never been above quotidian tasks: bartending, hauling trash, greeting playgoers, carting and setting up chairs, or holding down a wobbly outdoor tent during a windy matinee on the FLC campus.
In 2021, Bud directed Lindsey Kirchoff’s “Golden Gate.” In 2023, he stage managed Molly Carden’s “I Came Back for Molly,” as a “member of the union when the budget did not allow bringing in another professional,” Fran said.
Fran has served as an unofficial photographer and proofreader for programs and advertising texts.
“We’ve both served on the Hospitality Committee, providing refreshments at special events,” she said.
And now in 2026, after helping to launch PlayFest way back when, the Franks have decided to leave the board.
“It was just time,” Fran said.
“Bud and Fran have seen every challenge, every breakthrough and every milestone along the way,” Meyer said. “Their wisdom and steady belief in our mission helped guide us these past eight years.”
PlayFest’s final 2026 offerings are Sunday. Consider thanking Bud and Fran Franks for nine years of behind-the-scenes efforts. And feel free to add anniversary greetings for their July 7 celebration.
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theatre Critics Association.
