The top 10 plays of the decade: Wild Party, Cloud Nine and more

The fact is, there have been 40 or 50 terrific productions in the Tampa Bay area over the last decade, some of which will stay in memory for decades to come. But if I have to pick 10, then I think they’re these:

1. THE WILD PARTY (freeFall Theatre, 2008). Eric Davis’ freeFall Theatre announced its arrival with a pageant so stunning, it marked an epoch in Bay area theater history. At St. Petersburg’s Studio@620, the freeFall troupe brought us a mile-a-minute parable of sex and race, bathtub gin and cocaine, desire and aggression. Director Davis’ superbly talented cast sang Michael John LaChiusa’s jazzy anthems with Broadway assurance, and acted LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe’s script as if their hedonistic, thrill-seeking lives depended on it. Call it Theatre of the Overwhelming. (Photo, right: Wild Party‘s Lee Anne Matthews and David Foley.)

2. CLOUD NINE (Jobsite Theater, 2003). It was with Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine that Jobsite burst from its erratic past into a splendid future, repeatedly marked by top-notch productions. This dizzying examination of gender roles started off in Victorian-era Africa, then moved on to London a century later. But the characters who figured in both acts only aged 25 years, and a man played a woman, an adult played a child, a white man played a black man, straight and gay couples proliferated, and everyone tried vainly to hold on to a life that refused to be grasped. It was also hilarious.

This article appears in Dec 23-29, 2009.