Nicole Jeannine Smith in ‘In McClintock’s Corn’ which runs at Powerstories Theatre in Tampa, Florida through March 12.

For Powerstories Theatre founder Fran Powers, 2023 is off to a rough start.

Last fall she asked Tampa City Hall to ask Tampa City Council to not rezone the property her theater stands on. Unfortunately, this didn’t go well for the 23-year-old theater—Powerstories has to be out by July 1.

“They rezoned everything,” Powers told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. “City Council gave all kinds of variances to the developers. I mean, the whole block is being torn down…”
The good news is that the delayed move-out date gives the nonprofit professional theater time for a two-show swan song in their current location.

“In the very early discussions about the development, we had to get out earlier,” Powers told CL. “But then they allowed us to stay until the end of our lease, which is June 30.”

The bad news is that the decision has essentially cut Powerstories Theatre’s 23rd season in half. The first two shows—“In McClintock’s Corn” and “The Girls in the Boat”—happen at Powerstories’ current location. The Voices of Women Theatre Festival is virtual this year. The dates and location of the season’s final two plays—Kenneth Jones’ “Alabama Story” and Power’s original musical, “Raising Twelve on a Nickel and a Prayer”—are to be determined.

When Powers chose women’s strength as 2023’s theme, she had no idea how much she’d require her own strength this year.

“This was even before we knew that the building was being torn down,” Powers told CL. “We had three shows that we really liked, and when we saw the three shows, that was kind of a commonality—women’s strength. Women’s strength is something that we feature all the time, I think. We were just kind of a little more clear about it with these three shows.”

The three shows Powers is referring to are “In McClintock’s Corn,” “The Girls in the Boat,” and “Alabama Story.”

“In McClintock’s Corn,” which premiered Feb. 23 and runs through Mar. 12, tells pioneering geneticist Barbara McClintock’s story. If you’ve never taken a class in genetics, it’s quite possible that you’ve never even heard of her. McClintock won the 1982 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering transposons, also known as jumping genes, in corn. This was during the Great Depression, decades before Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA (1953).

I’ve seen her name in textbooks, but I’d never considered what McClintock’s life was like until I saw Carolyn Gage’s play. And I’d certainly never thought about McClintock’s personal relationship with her graduate student, Harriet Creighton.
When most people describe McClintock’s personal life, they say something like, “she never married or had children” or “she was married to the corn.”

Creighton also never married.

People didn’t speak about homosexuality in the 1930s, which is probably why encyclopedia entries don’t say much about McClintock’s life outside of the cornfield. It was an extremely challenging time for women in science, and it would have been even more challenging for a gender non-conforming woman like McClintock to find success as a researcher. “In McClintock’s Corn” shows how one woman managed to live an extraordinary life despite these challenges.
Powers discovered the play a couple of years ago during the pandemic.

“When COVID happened and we couldn’t use our space, we began doing digital festivals,” Powers told CL. “Carolyn Gage, who’s just a wonderful prolific writer, sent me this play, ‘In McClintock’s Corn,’ and I loved it immediately. Not everybody did. Not everybody’s into women in science, and things like that, but most of our artist committee really liked it. During that time, we had the playwright do a Zoom production of it, and I loved watching the Zoom production. So when it came time to decide our season for this year, I put that one in the pile to consider…”

Powers discovered “Girls in the Boat,” showing April 20-May 7, through an online search for “women true stories.”

Alice Austen’s “Girls in Boat” tells the history of women’s rowing, centered on a crew of from Yale which fought for equal treatment in the 1970s. This was just after Congress passed Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, which states that “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

Despite the new piece of legislation, Yale denied these women the locker rooms, showers, and bathrooms enjoyed by their male counterparts.

“The play showcases nine women rowing a boat,” Powers told CL. “So they’re going to be rowing a boat on stage, and I have no idea how we’re going to do that yet.”
The season openers exemplify what Powerstories Theatre is all about—true stories that open minds and hearts and make you think. These are the things that Powerstories Theatre’s artistic committee look for when considering new works. And playwrights send them a lot of new works.

“People send us plays all the time that they want us to consider,” Powers told CL. “That’s the fun part of what we do.”

More than 40 playwrights submitted works to this year’s Voices of Women Theatre Festival, happening July 17-23, 2023.

“Our committee read a bunch of plays, and we discussed them, and we came up with six plays that we’re going to do digitally,” Powers told CL. “We’d love to do it onstage, but we don’t have a physical space in July, so we’re going to do a digital festival.”
After that, everything’s up in the air.

Will Powers find a way to continue her vision in a new location? We certainly hope so.
She’s already started touring properties in Ybor, and she’s planning an event for the community to share in Powerstories’ plans for the future.
A quick visit to Powerstories Theatre’s website confirms the theater’s resolve to carry on in a new location.

“After 21 years, our location may be changing in June 2023, but our story continues,” the banner reads.