Here’s what’s behind the curtain this week in Tampa Bay theatre...
THE BIG DOG IS BACK: Long one of the Bay Area’s busiest performers, accomplished stage and screen actor Petrus Antonius has been little seen since his lauded performance in Stageworks’ How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents last year. Now on the mend from the lingering illness that kept the BotB winner and graduate of New York’s storied star factory HB Studio out of the spotlight, Antonius will come barking back in Improbable Athenaeum’s free, script-in-hand staging of Tom Stoppard’s John le Carré-inspired spy comedy The Dog It Was that Died this Saturday at 2 p.m. at the new Seminole Heights Branch Library in Tampa.
WW MARY MAGDALENE D? A “first person narrative of the life of Mary Magdalene and her journey as a follower” of you-know-who, Upon this Rock: The Magdalene Speaks will be performed by its playwright Roxanne Fay (freeFall Theatre’s …Cuckoo’s Nest, Stageworks’ Superior Donuts) this Sunday and Monday at the Shimberg Playhouse, as part of Jobsite Theatre’s Job-Side series. Based on Fay’s novel of the same title, the play presents Fay as Mary, telling “the story of her journey, from meeting the man Jesus to conflicts with the apostle Peter to her final ministry in France and her own transfiguration.”
SHE PROMISED NEVER TO TELL ABOUT THAT TIME YOU POOPED IN THE TUB: For its latest Black Coffee staged reading of new work, Carrollwood Players presents a morning of original monologues by mothers about mothering this Saturday. According to organizers, the Momologues include pieces about facing momhood at 19, mothering a gifted child, and a mom coping with “something disgusting her daughter did that has happened to most new moms.” Coffee and pastries are included in the ticket price.
THEY GOT A LITTLE LIVIN’ TO DO: The kids in St. Petersburg City Theatre’s Children’s Theatre Workshop will mock their elders Saturday night by performing the “Young Performers’ Edition” of the tuneful ‘60s musical Bye Bye Birdie. The show is at 8 p.m., but the full Birdie experience starts with an optional dinner at 5.
SO, PICASSO, EINSTEIN, DALI AND STEVE MARTIN WALK INTO A MUSEUM: Actor/comedian/writer/banjoist Steve Martin’s hit play Picasso at the Lapin Agile comes Tuesday night only to the Dali Museum in a reading co-produced by A Simple Theatre and Circle in the Water. The play attempts to answer that old question, “What if Einstein and Picasso met in a Parisian café in 1904 and cracked wise?"
BRAND SPANKING NEW, YET ON THE EDGE ALREADY: Surprisingly or not, the little city of Bartow has incubated a number of artists who have gone on to glory in the Tampa theatre scene after moving slightly west, including at least one artistic director and at least one technical director. But now the Polk County seat has given us a new outfit, The Edge Theatre Company, which brings its inaugural production, the musical Edges, to Studio@620 this weekend. According to the company’s website, Edges is “an energetic contemporary musical about four young adults on a journey of self-discovery,” a journey which one might suppose could involve moving from Bartow to Tampa. Or not.
Got a tip for SCENE BREAKER? Email Scene Breaker in care of A&E Editor Julie Garisto, [email protected].