Jobsite Theater Stages Virginia Woolf's ORLANDO, Now thru 3/29
Jobsite Theater offers the southeastern United States premiere of Pulitzer and Tony Award nominated playwright and MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship recipient Sarah Ruhl's adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Orlando, which plays tonight, Mar. 4-29, 2015, in the Shimberg Playhouse at the Straz Center where Jobsite is resident theater company.
Sarah Ruhl, one of American theater's most exciting young playwrights, adapts Virginia Woolf's quasi-autobiographical gender-bending novel about sex, love, and history into a joyous, dreamy piece of theater that toys with identity, time and space. Often called the longest love letter in literary history, Virginia Woolf's Orlando tells the story of an English nobleman and favorite of the Queen who lives for hundreds of years before falling asleep and waking up as a woman. In her new body, Orlando sets to the task of adapting to the strict gender roles of English society. Complicating Orlando's new life is one fantastical problem: she is destined to live for hundreds more years. She survives the 19th and 20th centuries grappling with what it means to live fully in the present, in our own skin, and in our own time.
Jobsite has previously staged Ruhl's Dead Man's Cell Phone. Virginia Woolf's Orlando displays Jobsite's ongoing commitment to contemporary translations, approaches, and adaptations of classic works. The company has previously undertaken staged literature as varied in style and substance as The Hound of the Baskervilles, Fahrenheit 451 and Einstein's Dreams.
Virginia Woolf's Orlando is under the direction of Giles Davies, whom Jobsite audiences should be very familiar with as an actor from his roles in Twelfth Night, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Macbeth, Fahrenheit 451 and Quills. This is his first mainstage production as director for the company, having previously directed the stunning side-project 4.48 Psychosis, the Best of the Bay award winning production also named one of the Top 9 performances of 2013. Virginia Woolf's Orlando stars Katrina Stevenson, Ami Sallee (both most recently seen in Twelfth Night), Jonelle Meyer (in her Jobsite premiere), Emily Belvo (The Last Night of Ballyhoo) and Nicole Jeannine Smith (Inventing Van Gogh).
Virginia Woolf's Orlando officially opens to the general public on Mar. 6 and runs through Mar. 29, 2015. All tickets to public performances are $28. Rush tickets for students, seniors, military and Theatre Tampa Bay members are $14 and are available as of 30 minutes prior to curtain with cash and valid ID at the Straz Ticket Office window. Rush tickets are subject to availability. Special preview performances will be held on Mar. 4-5 at 8p with all tickets available in advance for $14. Jobsite also has 2014-15 season tickets on sale now at a substantially reduced price than that of individual tickets, which gets patrons into the remaining mainstage shows in the season as well as all side projects at no extra charge.
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