Here’s what’s behind the curtain this week in Tampa Bay theater…
REDBANNED TRAILER: If you frequent theater company websites or Facebook pages, you may have noticed that Hollywood-style video trailers have emerged as the hip new way to market stage productions in the Youtube age. Ahead of the trend, Jobsite Theater has produced such ads for half a decade or so. But the clip for the company’s dystopian thrillcom Occupation, opening July 10, hit a snag on its way to that youthful social media market theaters chase: When Jobsite attempted to post the video as an ad, Facebook content police blocked the post and sent Jobsite a very pleasant message explaining their opinion that the trailer “may shock or evoke a negative response from viewers.” Jobsite appealed the ruling, to no avail. Fans have responded by sharing the trailer anywhere and everywhere, because the ad apparently is not too scary to be ON Facebook, it’s just too scary to be an AD on Facebook, because as we all know from experience, advertisers are far more careful about our delicate sensibilities than we are with one another’s (sarcasm directed at YOU, Bud Light). Brave readers can watch the plug, mostly a montage of late-model nightly news clips showcasing the political tensions that provide the pretext for Occupation’s goofy premise, on Jobsite’s home page.
HOW TO LOOK COOL AT A TALKBACK: A select subset of patrons enjoys keeping their seats for the post-show “talkbacks” occasionally hosted by some stage companies. While actors often enjoy the exchange as much as the patrons do, they enter the encounter acutely aware of the three things that happen at every talkback ever: 1) A patron asks, “How did you learn all those lines?” 2) A patron exploits some slim personal connection to the material in order to regale everyone present with his/her life story while the actors on stage check their watches and wonder what time the bar stops serving food, and 3) A deeply confused, often elderly patron asks a question and a circuitous series of follow-ups that demonstrate his/her having entirely missed the point of the play he/she just watched. Wanna be the hippest dude at a talkback? Don’t do those things. You can practice your new talkback skills at the chat following tonight’s showing of multiple Tony winner Red at American Stage Company, or at the talkbacks following Sunday’s show and next Thursday’s show. CL Theater Critic Mark Leib gives the production 3.5 stars.
TWO! TWO! TWO PLAYWRITING FESTIVALS IN ONE! Stageworks Theatre’s venerable TampaWorks event has merged with Gorilla Theatre’s nationally recognized Young Dramatists Project (YDP) this year to form a new playloozafest debuting this weekend and next at Stageworks’ digs in Channelside. The imaginatively titled TampaWorks 2015/Young Dramatists Project stages new playlets about the Tampa Bay experience (the TampaWorks beat) and plays by local teens (YDP’s silo) in full productions with professional actors. Highlights at the intergenerational event include a play by CL Editor in Chief David Warner *COUGH* bootlicking *COUGH* featuring a talking pelican, something about a wacky flight over Bayshore by Palladium Theatre Executive Director Paul Wilborn, and fresh young plays by kids from Blake, Northeast and Shorecrest Prep high schools. At least one play will feature a guy in a gorilla suit, according to rumor.
SOMETIMES A MELTING WATCH IS JUST A MELTING WATCH: If you missed last night’s premier of A Little Freudian Slip: Dali Dreams Davinci at the Dali Museum, you can still catch the show June 21 at the Studio@620. The new play by celebrated actress, playwright and BotB winner Roxanne Fay (freeFall Theatre’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) stars David Mann (BotB winner for freeFall’s Cabaret) and explains what could have happened had Salvador Dali applied Freudian meditationstechniken to dream Leonardo up from the grave, and then explores what Leonardo might have had to say about genius, art and artists once he showed up.
Got a tip for SCENE BREAKER? Email Scene Breaker in care of A&E Editor Julie Garisto, julie.garisto@creativeloafing.com.
This article appears in Jun 4-10, 2015.