Jobsite Theater, resident theater company at the Straz Center for the Performing arts in downtown Tampa, is please to announce the cats of Michael Gene Sullivan’s adaptation of the literary class 1984, a prescient sci-fi dystopia written by George Orwell in 1949.
Winston Smith: Giles Davies
O’Brien: David M. Jenkins
Party Officer 1: Adam Workman
Party Officer 2: Jenny Casler
Party Officer 3: Nicu Brouillette
Party Officer 4: Derrick Phillips
We are excited to welcome back 5 of 6 of the cast members from previous Jobsite productions. Davies and Phillips were both last seen in The Tempest, Davies as the feral Caliban and Phillips as the drunken jester Trinculo. Jenkins, also Jobsite’s Producing Artistic Director, appeared as Betty/Edward in last summer’s Cloud 9. Casler joined the Jobsite ensemble last fall as one of the 24 on-stage artists who brought Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera to life. Brouillette last appeared on the Jobsite stage in 2013 in Behind the Gates. Workman is a recent transplant from the Washington D.C. area where he worked at the Riverside Center and with Rude Mechanicals.
1984 warns us with the story of Winston Smith (Giles Davies), 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 (Brouillette, Casler, Phillips, and Workman), 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 the Academy Award winning actor, director, screenwriter, and activist Tim Robbins.
In addition to the 17 regularly-scheduled mainstage performances we have made 12 weekday matinees available for high school students. Please call 813.222.1047 to learn more about our education outreach opportunities or to book your group of 10 or more!
Jobsite’s current show, Taylor Mac’s HIR, is on stage through April 1 in a highly-acclaimed production. Creative Loafing Tampa awarded the show their highest rating, five stars, and The Tampa Bay Times exhorted it is “one of the best to grace a Tampa Bay stage in a long time.” HIR is also Theatre Tampa Bay Recommended.
1984 is made possible in part by a gift from Hal Freedman and Willi Rudowsky.
