Fransesca Quartey

Fransesca Quartey was born in in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1964, the daughter of a Swedish mother and a Ghanian father. In 1986 she was accepted to The National College of Acting in Gothenburg in Sweden from which she graduated, with an B.F.A., in 1989. Between 1990 - 1993 Fransesca was a member of the prestigious Unga Klara Company, under the internationally acclaimed theater director Suzanne Osten. She later went to work at The Royal Dramatic Theater where she stayed for two years. Performing first in Strindberg's "The Ghost Sonata" with the renowned Polish film and theater director Andrej Wajda and later in another Strindberg play " A Dream play, in the lead role as Indra's daughter, with Canada's most celebrated director, Robert Le Page. In 1995 she initiated a musical show "Hot'n Tot". Performances included special appearances before the Swedish Prime minister as well as His Majesty King Carl Gustaf of Sweden and Queen Silvia. During 1995 to 1997 she was in a film, numerous television shows and also had two shows of her own, had a successful one woman show, before leaving for Los Angeles where she attended an extension program at UCLA. She returned to Sweden to work at Helsingborg's City Theater where she also made her directorial theater debut in 2001. Since then she has directed a number of plays in Sweden and abroad. Fransesca Quartey was also selected to take part in an exclusive leadership program for women that the organization for Swedish Performing Arts and the Swedish Union for Theater, Artists and Media arranged together with the intention to increase the numbers of female head of theaters. In 2010 she directed a large Swedish-Ghanian production at Ghana National Theater in Accra, Ghana. The play, African Cinderella, by Efo Kodjo Mawugbe, was a huge success. After touring Ghana the play later went on tour in Nigeria and Sweden. Fransesca Quartey resides in Stockholm, Sweden where she continues to direct and act.