JOBSITE THEATER ANNOUNCES NEW SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
“O brave new world that has such people in’t!”
– The Tempest (V.i. 186-187)
Tampa, FL: Jobsite Theater is happy to announce a new way for businesses and individuals in the community to show their support for the resident theater company at the Straz Center. In particular, the company is eager to find community sponsors to help underwrite their educational outreach programs tied to productions of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and an adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984.
Jobsite’s educational program has the potential to directly impact 2,500 students in the theater through weekday matinees in 2018, bringing students into the Straz’s Shimberg Playhouse on field trips. Jobsite also offers both pre- and post-show in-school visits by teaching artists where they can serve four times the number of students able to come on a field trip. Additionally, Jobsite makes teaching artists available to schools through the Arts Council of Hillsborough County for a series of outreaches not connected to the two plays. If properly funded, Jobsite has the potential to impact well over 10,000 students in 2018.
The company’s outreach efforts have grown by leaps and bounds. Just earlier this year Jobsite offered As You Like It to middle and high schools, benefitting over 1,500 students. Through generous grants from the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay and the Saunders Foundation, Jobsite was able to give free tickets to around 500 students who would not have otherwise been able to attend, and sent teaching artists into Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Hernando, and Volusia schools at no charge.
To address this year’s needs, the company has created two new membership levels: Production Community Sponsor ($3,500+) and Production Presenting Sponsor ($5,000+), allowing private individuals and area businesses to show their support for Jobsite and their programs. Staunch arts supporters Hal Freedman and Willi Rudowsky were the first to step up, offering to sponsor part of 1984’s outreach plan, followed shortly by Jann and Susana Weymouth who are supporting our educational programs connected to The Tempest. Jobsite is limiting these new sponsorship opportunities to two per production. The following shows are what remains on the current season, and all are available for sponsorship:
The Tempest, by William Shakespeare
Jan. 17 – Feb. 18, 2018
Jobsite is thrilled to continue our commitment to making the Bard accessible to regional audiences with this delightful fantasy. Our production reimagines the character of Prospero as a woman, to be played by Jobsite ensemble veteran Roxanne Fay. Roxanne has previously been seen in our humble cockpit as Touchstone in As You Like It, Feste in Twelfth Night, and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing as well as Madame in our Best of the Bay Award winning production of The Maids. On a distant island a woman waits. Robbed of her position, power, and wealth her enemies have left her in isolation. But this is no ordinary woman, nor an ordinary island. She is a magician, able to control the very elements and bend nature to her will. When the vessel carrying those who wronged her appears in the distance, she creates a vast magical storm to bring them to her — then they awake finding themselves in a place where nothing is as it seems. Jobsite will again double the number of daytime matinees made available to middle and high schools with their Shakespeare program in 2018 for a total of 12 to take place over a period of four weeks. Even our regularly scheduled performances are the perfect introduction to Shakespeare for young theatergoers and families! Directed by David M. Jenkins. Learn more about the 13-member cast here: https://www.jobsitetheater.org/tempest/
TO BE ANNOUNCED
Mar. 7 – Apr. 1, 2018
Jobsite expects to have a new title in place by the end of December. The company is looking at several exciting and noteworthy current plays, and is in the process of negotiating with various agents in the hopes of being able to work out a contract soon.
1984, adapted by Michael Gene Sullivan from the novel by George Orwell
April 25 – May 20, 2018
1984 warns us with the story of Winston Smith, a small cog in the giant machine-state of Oceania. Physically and mentally under the omnipresent eye of Big Brother, Winston has been caught struggling for scraps of love and freedom in a world awash with distrust and violence. With the brutal “help” of four Party Members, Winston is forced to confess his Thoughtcrimes before an unseen Inquisitor and the audience — who act as a silent witness. This ferocious and provocative adaptation of one of the most prescient works of literature was commissioned in 2008 by the Actor’s Gang under the direction of Tim Robbins. Jobsite has history here, having produced the Actor’s Gang/Tim Robbins EMBEDDED in 2008 to high acclaim. With 1984 Jobsite adds a second show in the season that will be offered up as weekday matinee field trips, this one specifically for high school audiences. Playwright Michael Gene Sullivan is a resident playwright for the San Francisco Mime Troupe and was given Stanford University’s Equity Award for using his work to achieve racial, gender, and age balance on stage. Directed by Shawn Paonessa.
June 13 – July 8, 2018
WINNER: 1991 Olivier Award Best Play, 1992 Tony Award Best Play, 1992 New York Critics Circle Best Play, 1992 Outer Critics Circle Best Play. This extraordinary play is the story of five unmarried sisters eking out their lives in a small village in Ireland in 1936. We meet them at the time of the festival of Lughnasa, which celebrates the pagan god of the harvest with drunken revelry and dancing. Their spare existence is interrupted by brief, colorful bursts of music from the radio, their only link to the romance and hope of the world at large. The action of the play is told through the memory of the illegitimate son of one of the sisters as he remembers the five women who raised him: his mother and four maiden aunts. He is only seven in 1936, the year his elderly uncle, a priest, returns after serving for twenty-five years as a missionary in a Ugandan leper colony. For the young boy, two other disturbances occur that summer. The sisters acquire their first radio, whose music transforms them from correct Catholic women to shrieking, stomping banshees in their own kitchen. And he meets his father for the first time, a charming Welsh drifter who strolls up the lane and sweeps his mother away in an elegant dance across the fields. From these small events spring the cracks that destroy the foundation of the family forever. Director TBA.
All performances take place in the Shimberg Playhouse at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts, where Jobsite is celebrating their 15th season as resident company.
To learn more about any of the shows, Jobsite’s educational outreach program, or sponsorship opportunities please contact David M. Jenkins, Producing Artistic Director, at 813.476.7378 or djenkins@jobsitetheater.org
To learn more information about the daytime matinees or to book a group for The Tempest and 1984 please contact the Straz Center’s group sales office at 813.222.1016 or groups@strazcenter.org.
Jobsite Theater is a professional 501 (c)(3) not-for-profit theater company that has been serving the Tampa Bay area since 1998. Jobsite is dedicated to the creation of socially and politically relevant theater and the pursuit of performing it to the broadest possible audience. Jobsite has established and will continue to evolve a collective of like-minded artists, creating a supportive environment where artists of all disciplines may experiment, hone, and apply their skills in a professional laboratory environment. Jobsite works exclusively with regional artists, hiring over 60 in 2017.
Through all forms of theater – experimental, new plays, contemporary masterpieces, and the classics – as well as our extensive educational and community outreaches programmed year-round, Jobsite hopes to inspire audiences to become not just consumers, but true citizens.
Jobsite is the only regional company to be recognized as a National Theatre Company Award finalist by the American Theatre Wing, and was won scores of annual awards from Creative Loafing Best of the Bay, BroadwayWorld Regional Awards, Theatre Tampa Bay Awards, and was given an Urban Excellence Award from the Downtown Tampa Partnership.
