The Move From Manhattan
“I can’t believe that was my life,” Francesca Van Horne says in the same light tone she used to describe her recent career changes. But the topic is anything but light.
Francesca is a talented actor, writer, producer, and director. She’s a mother. She’s an active member of her local community, this community. She does it all and more.
Looking at her happily conversing with the baristas at Cantine, a small coffee shop in the Columbia Waterfront District, you would think that her world had always been exactly what it is now—full of energy and joy.
Life isn’t all that simple, though.
Life looked perfect
Not all that long ago, Francesca found herself trapped in an abusive marriage. She had the “Wall Street husband” and the Tribeca loft. It all looked perfect on the outside. No one knew that beneath the surface, an entirely different story was playing out.
Her most recent show, Tales from the Trundle, a one-woman performance written by Francesca, pulls inspiration from her personal journey. She leads audiences from the darkness of an abusive past into the bright world of freedom, growth, and discovery.
“It’s important to me to tell the story authentically,” Francesca muses over coffee. “It’s a story of self-transformation, grief, joy… It’s about getting out of a toxic marriage with 3 little kids at the time… It touches on body image, self-love, why you shouldn’t get married at 24, addiction, what we think is the American dream—you know, keeping family together.”
In the show, Francesca plays 13 characters, using inflection and her own sense of physicality to transform before audiences into diverse characters of different ages and genders.
When Francesca first wrote the show, back when she was trying to get up on her feet again, she could not have known that it would meet such success. Before long, she was taking her show on the road, touring not only in New York, but in London and Paris.
“I was concerned the humor wouldn’t translate, but it turns out, I sort of have a Frenchman’s sense of humor… all dark and sarcastic,” Francesca joked.
It turns out, Paris loved her. London, too. Her story translated well and wherever she went, people appreciated her story. They thanked her for sharing it.
That’s the thing about Francesca’s story, it spans beyond her circle, beyond her culture. It’s a story echoed throughout the world, throughout time. People hurt other people. And hurt people can survive. In fact, they can thrive.
“I think the biggest thing I want the audience to come away with is that we’re all entitled to joy,” Francesca says simply, adding, “Anyone who robs you of that, you have to let go of.”
Now, Francesca is hoping to bring that message to young people across the country by performing at universities and getting students to talk about domestic violence.
Abuse is unexpected
“With domestic violence in general, abuse in general, it creeps in slowly. These are not devils with pitchforks, they’re usually charming, good-looking,” Francesca explains. “They choose strong, intelligent women and slowly wear them down because people don’t expect it.”
As you might expect, it’s not easy to dive back into these memories.
To help get herself ready for each performance, Francesca meditates, listens to charged music, and reads letters from her past that she knows will bring up some of the emotions she’s about to portray.
“It takes a lot out of me. I’m always asleep until one the next day,” she reflected as she looked back on her performances. “At the end of the Europe tour, I couldn’t even pick up the phone.”
Luckily, no matter how exhausting Francesca’s work life gets, her relaxed new Brooklyn lifestyle sets her back on track.
THE LIFE
Though Francesca’s history has played an important role in her story and, in some ways, always will, it is clear in talking to her that in so many other ways, her life has moved on. Francesca’s life is growing in directions that she never imagined when she sat in the Tribeca loft she used to inhabit.
A few years after her marriage ended, Francesca’s landlord raised her rent and she decided to start over somewhere else. She “cast a wide net,” in search of somewhere she could call home, and it wasn’t long before the search led Francesca to Carroll Gardens.
“I stopped at Frankie’s and started talking to the owners. They went on and on about the neighborhood,” she recalled. “It’s so crazy, you can live so close to Manhattan and it’s another universe. [Carroll Gardens is] like living in a quiet little vortex where you feel safe and relaxed.”
In Tribeca, Francesca felt like everyone was were constantly looking her up and down, assessing her and passing judgments.
Now she spends her free time frequenting her favorite local spots—Fort Defiance, Sunny’s, Brooklyn Yoga Project, Cobble Hill Cinema. Francesca is learning how to live her best life and feels like she has the freedom to do so without judgment from the people around her.
“People ask how I’m adjusting to Brooklyn,” Francesca exclaims before bursting into laughter.
In her show, the main character, based on Francesca herself, starts each day with a triple espresso drunk through a straw (to avoid stains on her perfectly white teeth). This is, Francesca explains, a slight dramatization of a very real problem.
In Brooklyn, Francesca’s days start with a “Latte Walk.” Each morning, she sips her coffee while she walks her youngest child to school, chatting with the neighbors on the way and conversing with her daughter. It’s a completely different lifestyle and Francesca loves it.
“It was an adjustment for the kids,” Francesca conceded, “but they fell in love. They have this great 1950’s-style childhood, hanging out on the stoop, going to play at the park. You don’t have to be as on guard as you do in Manhattan.”
In Carroll Gardens, you can relax knowing your neighbors will look out for you.
As she’s gotten to know the people around her, Francesca has seen how very far they’ve been willing to go to give her a hand. One neighbor, a French soccer player, connected her to the theater scene in Paris, which opened up doors for her to tour there. Another helped her set up connections in Cuba.
Listing the things that she loves about the neighborhood, Francesca concludes, “I love that I’m treated like family; my neighbors have been very supportive.”
THE BRIGHT FUTURE
As she looks ahead, Francesca shrugs with a smile, her open palms raised with a graceful flick of her wrists. Her optimism is apparent.
Francesca is excited to announce that she was asked to produce “Undying Love,” a musical based on a book by Ben Harrison. It’s a “macabre story” of a German scientist who has a post humous love affair with a young Cuban woman.
Based on a very real story out of Key West, this musical is exactly the kind of story that Francesca loves.
“Here [in the US], there is such a disconnect with bodies and emotions. Latin culture is visceral,” Francesca expresses, balling her hands into fists to emphasize her point. Having grown up in both St. Louis, Missouri and Buenos Aires, Argentina, she developed a deep love of the storytelling culture in South America.
However, though she loves producing these kinds of stories, at her core, Francesca loves to create. As an actor and a writer, Francesca shines.
In recent years, she has starred in a number of movies and is currently working on a new play, a sequel to Tales from the Trundle. The working title of the new play is “Stumble,” after the dating app “Bumble,” and it focuses on the funny world of dating post-divorce.
“Love for those 38 and over,” Francesca laughs.
As she discussed her new play, Francesca explained how difficult and funny it has been to get back into the dating world. When is the right time to text a guy back? Do you send an emoji? Do you not? Is it ever appropriate for your date to bring you to his AA bonfire?
On second thought, she definitely knows the answer to that last one.
The point is, this new chapter of Francesca’s life isn’t about her ex-husband. It’s about love and fulfillment and the luxury of living life at the gentle pace of a Carroll Gardens summer.
Emily Kluver is a prize-winning journalist presently studying architecture.
