Katrina Stevenson

If its the weird and somewhat twisted that you seek...if you find entertainment in exploring a warped sense of fantasy, then look no further than the genius that is the Ensemble Company of Jobsite Theater. Ever since its production of Shockheaded Peter, Jobsite has harnessed a niche in the realm of the weird, and unexpected. Damn do they do it well.

The 2023-24 season is Jobsite's 25th year of bringing the Tampa Bay area exciting, engaging live theater experiences between the Jaeb Theater and Shimberg Playhouse as the Straz Center's official resident theater company.

Read BroadwayWorld's review of Hamlet at Jobsite Theater, and see how to purchase tickets.

The latest standings as of Monday, December 19th, have been released for the 2022 BroadwayWorld Tampa Awards! Nominations were reader-submitted and now our readers get to vote for their favorites.

The latest standings as of Monday, December 12th, have been released for the 2022 BroadwayWorld Tampa Awards! Nominations were reader-submitted and now our readers get to vote for their favorites.

The latest standings as of Monday, December 5th, have been released for the 2022 BroadwayWorld Tampa Awards! Nominations were reader-submitted and now our readers get to vote for their favorites.

The first live standings have been announced for the 2022 BroadwayWorld Tampa Awards! Nominations were reader-submitted and now our readers get to vote for their favorites.

Dracula, a novel written by Bram Stoker and published in 1897, became Stoker’s most definitive work. Told in an epistolary style through letters, journal entries, and newspaper articles, Stoker’s novel is never told through the eyes of a single protagonist. Our tale begins with a businessman by the name of Jonathan Harker traveling to the Transylvanian Castle of one Count Dracula, in order to procure a deed. Having merely escaped the castle with his life, after finding out the Count is a Vampire, Harker makes his way home to England, where the Count has now taken up residence with plans to plague the small seaside town of Whitby.

Jobsite Theater, resident theater company at the Straz Center in downtown Tampa and recipient of the 2022 Best of the Bay Award for Best Professional Theater Company, will continue their 24th season with Steven Dietz’s adaptation of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA. The show runs Oct. 21 - Nov. 23 in the Straz Center’s Jaeb Theater. Specially-priced preview performances will be held Oct 19-20.

In its complexities of storytelling, we find a narrative grounded in teacher-student relationships that surround the 100-minute One-Act currently onstage at the Shimberg Playhouse at Tampa’s Straz Center. Written by Rajiv Joseph in 2008 this one-act quirky romantic comedy packs a punch just boiling below the surface. Analyzing the relationship between student/teacher/mentor we meet three unlikely individuals whose lives are impacted by lessons grounded not just in origami, but also in the way that as humans we feel pain and how we adapt/deal with such. Rajiv Joseph won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2010 with his work Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, which enjoyed a stint on Broadway featuring the late great Robin Williams. Rajiv Joseph also went on to win an Obie Award for his work Describe the Night in 2018. No stranger to telling the inner workings of human relationships, Rajiv Joseph has garnered critical acclaim for his many works, and yet still is considered slightly unknown in certain arenas.

Director Scott Cooper has done it again with this incredible production!

The show opens with a Ghost Light center stage. As most shows of a Brechtian nature go, characters of nondescript fashion layout the evening events in the manner of Prologue. The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, or as it is subtitled “The Parable Play,” tells the story of the rise of Arturo Ui a fictional Chicago Mobster as he ruthlessly tries to control the Chicago vegetable market despite opposition. A political satire based on Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Nazi Germany prior to the events of World War II.

Murder on the Orient Express a stage adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel was written and adapted by Ken Ludwig and premiered in New Jersey in 2017. Based on the Christie novel that was first published in the United States in February 1934, and originally published under the name Murder on the Calais Coach. The twisted plot is full of a wild cast of characters. As Poirot puts it, “It was like a painting by Pablo Picasso.” We open the play in Istanbul at the Tokatlian Hotel, as we meet Poirot we understand he is due in London in three days' time due to the delivery of a telegram, and he runs into his old friend Bouc. His friend then arranges a trip on the Orient Express which he is the owner, and the two climb aboard with Poirot hoping he makes it to London on schedule. Upon boarding the Orient Express one by one Poirot meets an oddity of characters much like boarding a train to Carnival. As the train departs the station amidst the snowy conditions like an onion we see the layers of each of the passengers peeled back one by one.

In 1962 English author Anthony Burgess published the Dystopian-Black Comedy novel entitled A Clockwork Orange. The novel itself was partially written in a Russian-influence argot called “Nadsat” which in a Russian suffix took on its namesake for the equivalent of “TEEN” in English. In 2005 the novel was included by Time Magazine in a list as one of the 100 best English Language novels of the 20th Century. The novel is divided into three parts: Alex’s World, Ludovico Technique, and After Prison, and each of the novel’s three parts contained only 7 chapters. 7 x 3= 21 which was an intentional nod to the age of 21 which is considered a milestone in adult maturation.

The year 1985, the setting Fair Verona where we lay our scene. Over the years Romeo & Juliet has been translated, interpreted and conceived in many different forms and fashion. Outside of literature none more so than that of film and stage. Diverting back to literature briefly, Romeo & Juliet was first translated into English in 1562 as a poem entitled The Tragic History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke.

This is the last chance to vote for the 2021 BroadwayWorld Tampa Awards! The 2021 Regional Awards honor productions which had their first performance between October 1, 2020 through September 30, 2021.

Time is running out to vote for for the 2021 BroadwayWorld Tampa Awards! The 2021 Regional Awards honor productions which had their first performance between October 1, 2020 through September 30, 2021.

Our readers set the nominees, and now voting is open for the 2021 BroadwayWorld Tampa Awards! The 2021 Regional Awards honor productions which had their first performance between October 1, 2020 through September 30, 2021.

Our readers set the nominees, and now voting is open for the 2021 BroadwayWorld Tampa Awards! The 2021 Regional Awards honor productions which had their first performance between October 1, 2020 through September 30, 2021.

In 1983, Sally Ride, or as proclaimed in the play, “She should be called Dr. Ride,” an Astrophysicist became the first and youngest American woman in Space aboard the Orbiter Challenger. Liza Birkenmeier’s play is not about Sally Ride, even though her name is mentioned throughout the 85 minutes. However, under the veil of the ’80s in St. Louis, Missouri we meet four women living out their lives and by a matter of opinion telling stories that boldly go where none of them have gone before so to speak. At its heart, Birkenmeier’s script is compelling, enlightening, and stunning from top to bottom, a true marvel of live theatre. In her script, we get to meet characters that are not as often displayed on-stage, and that is what makes this show so endearing. Being that this show is set in the 80’s smartphones, and other things like social media, don’t exist yet; which renders the compelling humanity shown throughout the script. It’s a breath of fresh air as we learn of these women, and how they may or may not enjoy their current way of life, and yet so different in a matter of opinions and lifestyle they are all one and the same.