“Sometimes I worry, should I cry in this scene? Is it too obvious a choice? A wise director told me once, ?It’s not important that I cry ? it’s important that you cry.’ But sometimes I can’t help it.”
Award-winning actor Sharon Gless shows genuine emotion as she takes a short break from shooting her new film “Hannah Free” in Chicago.
“I start to say Claudia Allen’s words and my mouth stops. This is just a beautiful part to play.”
“Hannah Free” is the first of acclaimed local playwright Claudia Allen’s 30 plays to be filmed. Alternative media mogul Tracy Baim is producing under the Banner of Ripe Fruit Films and Wendy Jo Carlton is making her directorial debut.
When Gless starred in Allen’s play, “Cahoots,” eight years ago,” says co-producer Allen, “I told her back then, I have another play we need to do.
“So when Tracy Baim said, ?I want to produce a feature, there just aren’t any good lesbian films out there and we’re hungry for our own ?Brokeback Mountain,’ I called Sharon and asked her to reread ?Hannah Free,'” Allen recalled.
But rereading the play was unnecessary, “because it’s Claudia, it’s so good,” says Gless, an Emmy and Golden Globe winner and best known for the TV police series “Cagney & Lacey” and as the mother in “Queer as Folk.”
The micro-production takes place inside the landmark Prairie Avenue Keith mansion and its coach house, the micro-budget feature is based Allen’s play.
Every room in the mansion is doubling as one of its seven sets, or as dressing and make-up rooms, plus an editing bay and production offices.
“You can feel the love in here on the set. I’ve never done a low SAG like this before,” says Gless. “It’s a totally different attitude. Everyone’s here because they want to be. This movie is about something else. It’s not about money.”
