Here’s what’s behind the curtain this week in Tampa Bay theatre...
USF PLAYWRITING MAKES TOP 5, NATIONWIDE: Class of 2000 USF Theatre grad Matthew Lopez’s The Whipping Man is the fifth-most-produced play (in a four-way tie) nationwide this season, according to an article in this month’sAmerican Theatre magazine. The play about race, family and war has made the top 10 three years running, and was produced in Tampa by the Gorilla Theatre in 2012 (photo). Not one to rest on debut laurels, Lopez already has three more plays in production around the country.
MAYBE IT’S NOT JUST THE DONUTS THAT ARE SUPERIOR: Just as two high school students from theHoward W. Blake School of the Arts in Tampa are about to close in American Stage Company’s drama The Chosen after this weekend’s performances, Blake senior Travis Brown is already in rehearsals for his professional debut as “Franco” in the Tracy Letts comedy Superior Donuts at Stageworks Theatre. Somebody oughta see what’s in the water fountain at Blake, and bottle it.
HOME FIRES ABROAD: Area Renaissance womanRoxanne Fay, seen most recently as conformity enthusiast Nurse Ratched in freeFall Theatre’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, will perform her anthology Home Fires Burning in New York City this Sunday at United Solo, the world’s largest solo theatre festival.
SHE DIDN’T TAKE “NEXT” FOR AN ANSWER: Brianna Larson auditioned for a role in a production of David Auburn’s Proof not long ago, and lost the part to another actress. So she picked herself up and pitched the same play to Gypsy Stage Repertory, who will produce Proof at Studio@620 this Thursday, Friday and Saturday, starring Larson in the role she lost… and won. It’s been a good year for Larson, who also recently landed a $500 grant fromTheatre Tampa Bay to help fund a 24-Hour Short Play Festival (stay tuned).
YESSIR, DANCE CAN DO ALL THAT: The Dance Program at HCC Ybor will present The History House by Niurca Marquez this Thursday and Friday at 7:30 p.m. in the Mainstage Theatre on campus. The piece “pushes the limits of dance and flamenco aesthetics into an experimental space that shatters stereotypes and takes us on a journey of cultural memory,” according to publicity materials. Top that without singin’.
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