Good lord, why are we already thinking about September? Well, maybe because in addition to it being pumpkin-spiced-latte season and Best of the Bay Season, it's also a new theater season. Tampa Rep announced its next season — it'll be the small but sturdy company's eighth —this morning. Here's what to expect from C. David Frankel's legendary prowess.
The uncertainty principle Tampa Rep's season opens Sept. 5 with Simon Stephens' Heisenberg, a drama about a forty-something who charms a seventy-something into hopping across the pond from the UK to the US to search for her kid. The name kinda says it all: This show's gonna be about uncertainty and decisions we make that alter our lives. Nobody doesn't love Emilia Sargent, either, and she's cast against Michael Mahoney for this two person show that'll be staged at the HCC-Ybor Studio Theatre, which is great news for us because we can use our CL parking cards to not pay for parking (actually, there's a ton of free parking in the HCC student lot — and at USF for the shows there, but, you know, we take what we can over here in terms of staff bennies). Everyone else'll have to satisfy themselves with a show that looks engaging and a rice bowl and bubbles at The Bricks, which really isn't too shabby, come to think of it. HCC Studio Theatre, Ybor. Sept. 5-23.
Nothing's rotten in Denmark While C. David Frankel will direct Heisenberg, for Copenhagen, Emilia Sargent will step offstage to direct. This play revolves around the question as to why Heisenberg came to Copenhagen, making this the most the famous physicist's name has ever been mentioned in a Creative Loafing article. It's also an interesting play, with a good dose of history, no obvious conflict and ghosts. We're in — nothing uncertain about that. Studio 120 at USF Tampa. Jan. 10-27, 2019.
Birdfucking OK, not really, but we're kinda interested to see what kind of hits that gets us on Google Analytics. Aaron Posner's Stupid Fucking Bird takes Anton Chekhov's The Seagull and brings it current. Plus, if you've ever been to the beach while the tourists from Michigan are feeding the gulls, you know that this is the real name of Chekhov's play. It's… complicated. You kinda have to see it. Seriously, you have to see it. Studio 120 at USF Tampa. May 30-June 16, 2019.
Of course, Tampa Rep still has one show left in its current season — Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge opens June 1.
This article appears in Apr 5-12, 2018.