As I write to you this afternoon, the Shimberg Playhouse is bustling with activity with the cast and crew spending all day in the theater for the big technical rehearsal. They’re in costumes, lights and sound are beginning to swirl around them, and after today they have two more dress rehearsals before that first preview crowd on Wednesday. Will you be among them?

Previews are not only a great bargain for you (just $14) but they are a critical final step in our process. Theater is after all a live, dynamic and emergent art form and we never know what we have or how exactly best to perfect what we are doing until we have our “scene partners” on the other side of the house in you, our audience. I love that I see many of the same faces from production to production at these preview performances – your attendance is truly helping us shape our work and we’re glad we can offer a less expensive ticket in return. If you can’t make it to a preview but are a student, are 65 years plus, carry military ID, or are a Theatre Tampa Bay member you are eligible for $14 rush tickets on any night we have remaining inventory as of half-hour to curtain (which we can usually guarantee on a Thu. night and are equally certain they will not be available on Saturdays since those tend to sell out in advance) with cash and ID at the Straz Box Office window.

Check out more about this dreamy, quirky, funny piece of theater adapted by one of the country’s most lauded young female voices. You may recall other Ruhl productions around the region, most recently In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play at freeFall, Eurydice at Stageworks or Dead Man’s Cell Phone with us. That unique sense of humor and subtle profundity found in those works is fully on display here as well. I’m thrilled to finally have the brilliant Giles Davies direct for our mainstage, and this all-female cast is a true dream team of Tampa Bay talent. I hope you’re able to make it this week.

Bonus Announcement!

Come out during the official opening weekend performances (3/6-8) and you’ll be among the FIRST to see our 2015–16 season. We’re pretty darned proud of it. I won’t give too much away, but I can say that several Jobsite traditions will remain intact, some new things we’ve been testing look to be taking another step forward, and all signs point toward us heading back to the Jaeb with another musical. You excited? We are!