Here’s what’s behind the curtain this week in Tampa Bay theatre...
MAYBE THEY SHOULD CHANGE THE NAME TO “PHOENIX”: As CL theater critic Mark Leibreported last April, Pinellas Park’s venerableVenue Theatre closed up shop last spring, a victim of the recession, a rent hike and other maladies. But founder and Lee Strasberg survivor Corinne Broskette has announced the hard-to-kill company’s resurrection this month in a new location at 4989 72nd Ave North. Broskette says the reborn Venue will open with adult acting classes, and soon add a new intro to acting workshop, teen acting classes, private coaching and more.
LOOKING LIKE HELL DOESN’T JUST HAPPEN, IT TAKES WORK: To costume the zombie played by David Barrow inGhost Light Theatre’s Halloween spookfest A Haunting at the Meteor, opening tomorrow night at Ybor’s Silver Meteor Gallery, producers were not content with a few zombiesque rips and smudges. The costume was rubbed with wet coffee grounds, repeatedly run over by a car, and lent to a 40-pound dog to enjoy as a chew rag and tug-o’-war toy. Directed by April Bender, the show comprises six scary plays by local playwrights and an original song, plus the talents of local performers including Barrow, Emily Belvo, Ryan Bernier, Theory Cooper, Steve Fisher, Kara Goldberg and Molly Leigh Healy.
SPEAKING OF THE SILVER METEOR: A converted shotgun shack a stone’s throw from Ybor City’s originalColumbia Restaurant, theSilver Meteor Gallery has served as birth canal and incubator for many local theatre companies, and for many years has been the Number 1 local destination for theatergoers craving the cheap and offbeat… sometimes really offbeat. After a recent fallow period for renovations, the Tampa institution is re-opening its doors for A Haunting at the Meteor, with more weird and wonderful shows already booked for coming months.
NEW KID IN CLEARWATER: Founded nine years ago as an acting school for kids,2nd Stage Studio Theatre has stepped up to producing professional shows at Clearwater’s Italian American Club, starting this Saturday night with Anne Frank and Me. The drama about a teenaged Holocaust denier will be followed up in November by A Christmas Carol.
ART THRIVES ON LIMITATIONS, THEY SAY: The main event atFIVE by FIVE, the annual exhibition that helps the Arts Council of Hillsborough County fund grants and workshops for local artists, has always been the funky, anonymous five-inch-square artworks sold for $25 apiece. But five-minute live performances are also part of the party, and this Friday night’s do will feature pint-sized scenes and monologues from theGorilla Theatre,Stageworks Theatre,Tampa Rep and other companies, plus the prize-winning monologue from the Tampa Bay Theatre Festival, the popular Burlesque act Miss Vulva Va-Voom, and something organizers are calling an “interactive multimedia happening.”
SPEAKING OF ARTS COUNCIL GRANTS… Just a few weeks ago the Arts Council’s Board of Directors awarded a third of a million dollars in grants to 26 organizations, includingBits ‘n Pieces Puppet Theatre, the Gorilla Theatre,Jobsite Theater, Stageworks andPowerstories Theatre.
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