Daily Loaf

Paula Vogel’s And Baby Makes Seven has all the ingredients for a successful play, and none of the results.

This ultimately tedious exercise has one wonderfully interesting idea – that a lesbian couple has invented a small group of imaginary sons – and then restates it relentlessly without any real development or variation. The three actors in the play – Alison Burns (pictured center), Jessica Rothert (right) and David Jenkins – are talented enough, and Karla Hartley as usual offers vibrant and intelligent staging. But this is a text without real insight, without larger meaning or even suspense, and no collection of artists can make it stageworthy for more than a half hour.

I’m a big fan of Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning How I Learned to Drive, but you’d never know from watching Baby that its author is the same one who gave us precocious Li’l Bit and her deviously abusive Uncle Peck. Read the rest of this entry »

The city closes down two blocks of Central Avenue for the third edition of Creative Clay’s now-annual fundraiser, FolkFest St. Pete. The free two-day street party celebrates all things folk with food and drink, art booths spotlighting the works of a range of local artisans, and a solid lineup of music throughout. Florida’s finest singer-songwriters,  folk and blues artists join national talents on the outdoor stage. South Carolina kicks off the music on Saturday, with sets by Dave Hardin, Green Grass Boys and TC Carr, Sarasota Slim and Nitro, Rebekah Pulley and the Reluctant Prophets, Ben Prestage, and The New Familiars of Charlotte, S.C. to follow (and in that order). The Sunday bill features Veronica Jackson, Ella Jet, a “Tribute to Woodstock,” Have Gun Will Travel and the main headliners and a big score for the fest – NY’s Donna the Buffalo (pictured), their folky, rootsy jams marked by elements of zydeco, old time fiddle music and three-part harmonies. Sept. 26-27, beginning at 10 a.m. both days, Central Avenue, between 11th and 13 streets N., St. Petersburg, free admission. –Leilani Polk

Time to start mapping a route that hits every major museum and attraction this side of the Bay: ArtsAlive 2009: Free Museum Day includes the Salvador Dali Museum, the Dr. Carter G. Woodson Museum, the Florida Holocaust Museum, Florida International Museum, Great Explorations, the Fine Arts Museum, the St. Pete Museum of History, the Morean Arts Center, the Pier Aquarium, the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art, the Florida Craftsmen Gallery and more. Visit stpete.org/artsalive for museum hours and more info. Sat., Sept. 26.

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Last December, just a few months into Jobsite’s 10th anniversary season, I wrote this blog for Creative Loafing about lessons learned trying to run a theater for an entire decade.

We’re now just a few days away from the end of this 10th season, and I’ve had time for further reflection.

Left to right: Amy Gray, Chris Perez, Ami Sallee Corley, Spencer Meyers, Katie Castonguay, Stephen Ray and Jason Vaughan Evans in "Pericles." Photo by Brian Smallheer.

We finish the final show of our season, a rousing and hilarious punk rock mob reimagining of the Pericles story, with a video tribute to 10 awesome years in Tampa Bay.  From the genesis of the company, represented by a photo of five awkward and rebellious 20-somethings on the loading dock of USF’s Theater I, cycling through all of our productions and major milestones, to a staged promotional shot of our dead-sexy board in one of the Carol Morsani Hall dressing rooms, photographed by Steve Widoff.

It moves me every night.  Oh, yeah, I’ve watched every single performance of Pericles — from lights up to lights down — something I’ve never done before. Read the rest of this entry »

Ami Sallee Corley and Stephen Ray in "Pericles." Rehearsal photo courtesy of David Jenkins.

Pericles is a fitting cap to Jobsite Theater’s tenth season, a noisy, funny, unpredictable rock musical featuring the impressive guitar work of Joe Popp and the splendid performances of seven inspired actors.

Neil Gobioff and Shawn Paonessa’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s play makes more sense than Shakespeare does; by turning the Bard’s characters into Mafia thugs, and his locations (Tyre, Tarsus, Pentapolis) into recognizable American locales (Coney Island, the Bronx, Cape Cod), Gobioff and Paonessa have succeeded in domesticating one of the wildest, hardest-to-follow plays in the canon, while still showing remarkable fidelity to the original. Read the rest of this entry »

I interviewed Joe Popp the weekend before opening night of Pericles in a dark, smoky bar in downtown Tampa. He was affable and talkative — I guess I expected more of a pissed-off punk guy. I mentioned that I had seen his punk rock Macbeth at American Stage’s Shakespeare in the Park series in 1997. It was a kick-ass production that still stands as one of the theater’s best-attended events ever. For that reason, I can’t wait to see Pericles at Jobsite Theater.  Joe wrote the music and lyrics for Pericles and also plays guitar and functions as the narrator.

See what Popp had to say about how he turned Shakespeare’s least-produced work into a modern, pop-punk-riddled tale of incest, intrigue and murder in the streets of New Jersey, where Pericles becomes Perry the mobster.

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David Jenkins

The Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center laid off 20 of its 140 full-time employees today, said TBPAC Vice President of Marketing Michael Kilgore. The layoffs occurred “in various departments at various levels,” he said, emphasizing that the cuts were a business decision and not related to performance. The Center has experienced declines in ticket revenues, donations (particularly at the corporate level) and endowment, and the changes were necessary both “for the budget now, and the budget going forward.”

Kilgore said the Center did not make a public announcement naming the individuals released, preferring “to let them tell people they wanted to tell.”  But CL confirmed that one of the people affected was Senior Marketing Manager David Jenkins, better known to most Tampanians as the artistic director of Jobsite Theater (and occasional CL blogger). The Jobsite relationship with TBPAC will not change, Jenkins said in an email. Read the rest of this entry »

It was maybe the first impacting death to reach me first via Twitter: Augusto Boal died at the age of 78 Friday from respiratory failure after a long battle with leukemia.

I was immediately transported back in time to the first time I’d studied the theater legend in undergrad at USF — I’m pretty sure it was during a course taught by Nancy Cole called something to the effect of The Theater of Post-Cultural Pluralism. I’d go a lot more in-depth the next year in Dr. Pat Finelli’s Senior Colloqium class (perhaps the best class I had as an undergrad theater student). By the time I’d moved on to UF for grad school, Boal would be shoulder to shoulder in my theatrical Mount Rushmore, joining Dario Fo, Jerzy Grotowski and Peter Brook.

Two of Boal’s books — Theater of the Oppressed and Games for Actors and Non-Actors — still hold special spots on my bookshelf. What was fresh and exciting about Augusto Boal to me as a student in the mid-’90s (he developed his methods in the ’50s and ’60s) was that he worked lifelong to completely demysitify the form, worked tirelessly to put art and power into the hands of the common citizen and worked to use the form as a tool for change.

He worked with professionals, he worked with farmers — give him bodies and he’d create. Some of his work laid the foundation for what we’d today call drama therapy (which he called Forum Theater), where “spect-actors” would work through scenarios of oppression toward change. Boal’s methods encourage an actual dialogue with the audience as opposed to simple one-sided conversation. Theater was to be an active relationship.  He created and taught others how to create theater ripped from local news or based on current or proposed legislation. He created what was called “Invisible Theater” that could spring up anywhere and where those witnessing wouldn’t be clued in that it was performance.

His work was regarded as dangerous — the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from the ’60s to the ’80s detained, arrested, jailed and tortured Boal before finally exiling him to Argentina.  He returned home in the late ’80s after that regime’s collapse. Read the rest of this entry »

We at Jobsite Theater have been collecting quotes sent to us via email or Twitter or what-have-you since Wednesdays preview production.  We’ve also culled a few soundbites from bloggers who’ve attended over this opening weekend.

The best quote though came from a bartender friend who saw the show Sunday afternoon who sent a text message late last night, as my wife and I sat on the couch watching a DVRed episode of The Dog Whisperer.

i loved your show more than pussy

Wow.  Immediately I asked the girl to text him back and ask if I could use it.  He didn’t have a problem with it (It was Jeff Diamond, New World Brewery). Thinking later on it, I REALLY wanted to use the quote but wondered if I could really get away with it officially in our online materials.  That quote actually screams to go into a print ad, which I know no paper would run (well, CL might …). Read the rest of this entry »

As a director and producer, I’m not typically easily rattled.

Jobsite Theater tends to pick material that we’re confident we can do well and that will still push us, our artists and our audience just enough to make it all worthwhile.  As a director I really only go for work that speaks to me on some internal level.  It doesn’t have to be all deep and shit, or something that has to change the world, but I certainly have my sensibilities and predilections. As a producer I’m a bit more conservative.
Every so often, though, a play comes along that everyone can see from a mile away will be a sick challenge, but one that would pay such dividends if it was pulled off well.  As a working collective, sometimes the intense discussion will in the end push us away from such work, or at a minimum hold us off for a year or so until we’re perhaps better prepared to handle it.

Kari Goetz caught this on her iPhone in rehearsal

Right now we are very literally knee-deep in one of those shows that sparked a lot of debate within the company – The Lieutenant of Inishmore.  It thrills me endlessly and makes me wanna poop my pants a little all at the same time.

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Jobsite Theater officially turned 10 years old last month, which we celebrated with Jobsite’s Rockin’ 10^th Birthday Party at New World Brewery.

The anniversary got me thinking.

At the very beginning, this company was an experiment I was willing to go along with for a year. Considering my initial move back to Tampa was supposed to be to get my head straight after too many years of continuous schooling, it didn’t seem such a heavy commitment. The end of that year saw Jobsite having its greatest success to date in our original mounting of The History of the Devil, it saw the door fly wide open for us to work regularly at TBPAC, donors and sponsors started falling into place and on a personal front I’d begun a relationship with a pretty cool chick who actually put up with me and wasn’t batshit crazy.

It’s been year to year since. How are we doing? Still moving forward? Am I settling? The end of the year analysis has always pointed to things being in good, if not always magically fantastic, shape.

I still consider myself lucky to be here at all, a blue-collar kid from Jacksonville whose cultural upbringing consisted of funny car races, fish fries and turkey shoots. Honored that this thing has become something durable, dependable and necessary. Blessed to have so many people on both sides of the curtain who care enough to give, collaborate and make time to spend with us.

So – what have I learned in 10 years? Let me see if I can make a list. 10 for 10.

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