We have just a few short weeks until we open David Mamet’s RACE on May 10. We’re hoping that you’ve marked your calendars to join us for this potent play that addresses one of our most controversial topics. Let me be clear though, this play isn’t out to solve the problem of race in this country, it just adds to the conversation. That’s what we’re here to do, right? It’s a fascinating, honest, ambiguous, and tense work that “adroitly mixes comic darts with tragic arrows” (Bloomberg News).
RACE features the lights-out cast of Ned Averill-Snell, Tia Jemison, “ranney” and Paul J. Potenza under my direction, with designs from Brian Smallheer and Katrina Stevenson. We plan to announce a schedule of post-show community talks soon with special guests, TBD. Watch this space!
Coming up in July we have our season closer, Rhada Baradwaj’s Closetland, featuring yours truly and Katrina Stevenson, directed by A Simple Theatre’s Gavin Hawk.
Season tickets for the 2012-13 season go on sale this Monday, April 23. We’ve made some changes for next season in order to help us continue to grow, extend our show schedule, and provide more access to the community. Season tickets are now an even better way to save, and you can get the best deal possible by ordering your season tickets by July 29.
The lineup features Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, a re-imagining of Gorey Stories including an encore mini-concert of music from The Tiger Lillies’ album The Gorey End, Noel Coward’s Hay Fever, Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, Wendy Graf’s Behind the Gates (in partnership with the Tampa Jewish Community Center and Foundation), and we close the season with a return to the work of Jobsite favorite Martin McDonagh and his hilarious story of brotherly dysfunction, Lonesome West.
Finally, we’re very excited to announce that we will be unveiling massive structural changes as an organization this summer, which we plan on having in place by the start of the coming season. These changes will include a restructuring of our board of directors, the development of an advisory board, and a new staff plan that will all help facilitate our long-term goals. We’ve grown so much as an organization, and this change is necessary not only to keep up with how far we’ve come, but to ensure we can continue to grow. We will likely need the help of our community to put these plans into action, so stay tuned. There will be more opportunity than ever for our community to get more directly involved in what we do.
These are exciting times, both organizationally and artistically. Thank you for your continued belief in what we do and support of our theater. I truly hope to see you all at opening weekend of RACE (May 10-13) and that you do us the favor of purchasing your tickets in advance. I am already very proud of this work and guarantee you that this is a play you’ll be talking about well into the evening after the performance.
Best,
-dj
