James Rayfield is one of the most respected theater professionals in the Tampa Bay area.
As an acting teacher for many years at the Blake High School of the Performing Arts, he educated and inspired some of the best performers still in the region and others who have moved on to bigger cities for bigger prizes.
As a producer, he’s one of the forces behind the new Revolve Theatre Company, and the artistic director of the Young Dramatists’ Project at Gorilla Theatre. He’s a director, too: of full productions and of dramas in the Gorilla Reading Series (full disclosure: over the years he’s directed two of my own plays there).
And he’s a successful playwright, mostly of plays for high school audiences – eight of which have been published. His influence is everywhere: it seems that every few months I meet more young people who want to talk about “Mr. Rayfield,” and his powerful effect on their lives. He’s a precious local resource whose influence has been extensive.
And now his adult play Christmas Stopping is playing at Gorilla, and it’s a pleasant but not very memorable experience. Rayfield chooses to work here with a limited canvas — four actors and one gently comic theme at under 90 minutes — and though the play is visually inventive, it doesn’t say anything that we didn’t already know.
This article appears in Nov 18-24, 2010.