Here’s what’s behind the curtain this week in Tampa Bay theater…
ELEVENTH NIGHT ENDS A HALF-HOUR EARLY: Anyone who enjoys the panoply of up-close plays presented in the Straz Center’s intimate Shimberg Playhouse by resident company Jobsite Theater and others knows that the odd performance is sometimes sullied by loud party music bleeding down from Maestro’s restaurant, directly above. To block the dreamy ‘20s Ybor atmosphere of its current hit staging of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night from penetration by some Whitesnake cover band or overly enthusiastic Polka combo, Jobsite has moved the curtain time for tomorrow night (1/15) ONLY back to 7:30 p.m. The final bows should be done before the Maestro’s crew plugs in the woofers, which is good news for patrons with sensitive ears or early bedtimes.
ZORA ZORA ZORA! Lost for more than 50 years, Zora Neale Hurston’s 1944 play Polk County was rediscovered by a Library of Congress researcher in 1997. Described by Hurston as “a comedy of Negro life in a sawmill camp,” the Florida-set play was never published or produced during the lifetime of the Harlem Renaissance novelist, anthropologist, folklorist and playwright, and though lauded as a lost masterpiece is still rarely produced thanks to its huge cast and other barriers. This Saturday at 2 p.m., Improbable Athenaeum will present a free, script-in-hand staging of scenes from the Florida-set play at Tampa’s Seminole Heights Branch Library, starring local professional actors Tia Jemison, Robert Richards Jr., Amber Wilson Forbes and Robb Lee.
CLOTHING FOR PATRONS IS NOT OPTIONAL: In freeFall Theatre’s The Buffalo Kings (opening Saturday) by local playwright Natalie Symons, one actor appears sans pants for more than half the show, according to freeFall reps, who say you’ll have to see the show to find out who and, more importantly, why.
BRENDAN MCGALA: For its ninth annual fundraising gala this Saturday night, Stageworks Theatre is featuring Velvet Williams, a former country singer turned R&B chanteuse, plus popular WFTS “ABC Action News” anchor and Stageworks supporter Brendan McLaughlin as host. The “multi-sensory evening of artistic blend, connection and passion” kicks off at 6 p.m. with a red carpet arrival, and the dress code is black tie or “fusion mix,” whatever that is. FUN FACT: McLaughlin happened to be filling in as a substitute host at station WMNF 88.5 FM on the morning of 9/11/01, and hung around the airwaves throughout that terrible morning to deliver equal doses of news updates and steady reassurance to community radio listeners.
“TOMORROW, TOMORROW AND TOMORROW” NO MORE: Ever since St. Pete’s American Stage Company pulled the plug on its annual outdoor Shakespeare stagings a decade ago, Tampa theatermakers have been itching to get a new Bardfest going east of the bridge… and it’s finally a thing. Seeded with a Jeff Norton Dream Grant awarded to actor/director/producer Jack Holloway by Theatre Tampa Bay last fall, the Tampa Shakespeare Festival has already cast its upcoming productions of Macbeth and Romeo & Juliet, to be performed in repertory outdoors at the new Water Works Park downtown this March. Besides rehearsing, the company will spend the next few months doing what most theater companies, new and old, spend most of their time doing: raising money.
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This article appears in Jan 8-14, 2015.
