Jobsite Theater is making a substitution within the 2015-16 season, replacing Shakespeare's ANTONY & CLEOPATRA with another classic in Jean Genet's unequivocally literate 1947 play THE MAIDS. This production runs the same dates scheduled for A&C, April 29 - May 22, 2016, in the Shimberg Playhouse at the Straz Center where Jobsite is resident theater company.
THE MAIDS was French poet, novelist, art critic, essayist, and film-maker
Jean Genet's first play to be produced, coming hot on the heels of the publication of his most famous book, "Our Lady of Flowers." It is inspired by the famous 1933 French murder trial of Christine and Lea Papin, two sisters employed as maids, who gruesomely killed their employer and her adult daughter. In THE MAIDS two sisters role-play while the lady of the house is away, ritualistically acting out fantasies of both love and revenge. As the games intensify, the incipient violence escalates as they await Madame's return from a romantic rendezvous. Genet's potent poetic psychodrama explores power, dominance and submission, class struggles, and the various ways we role-play and create illusions in our daily lives. A highly and self-consciously theatrical play, Jobsite's production of THE MAIDS is directed by Producing Artistic Director David M. Jenkins and stars Georgia Mallory Guy (seen locally in productions like The Divine Sister at Stageworks and freeFall's Bernarda Alba) as Solange,
Katrina Stevenson (American Stage's Intimate Apparel, Virginia Woolf's ORLANDO at Jobsite) as Claire, and
Roxanne Fay (Jobsite's Twelfth Night, freeFall's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) as Madame.
Jenkins notes that "while we were looking forward to continuing our tradition of offering first-rate productions of Shakespeare at the Straz, we hit a few snags that made it clear to us that it was a better idea to push the production of ANTONY & CLEOPATRA back to a later time rather than sacrifice the quality audiences have come to expect from our handling of Shakespeare. We are thrilled, however, to offer another literary classic in Genet's THE MAIDS. I guarantee that this will be an intense, smart, and sexy production that audiences will devour. We encourage area Bard-lovers to get their fix in the spring from productions by our colleagues at Tampa Shakespeare Festival and St. Petersburg Shakespeare Festival."
Jobsite begins the year with
Israel Horovitz's Lebensraum in January with the playwright in residence for opening week (there will be a talkback including Mr. Horovitz after the opening night performance on Jan. 8) and then produces the area premiere of
Christopher Durang's hilarious take on Chekov in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike in March.
THE MAIDS opens on Fri., April 29, and runs through May 22, 2016. All tickets are priced at $28. If seats are available, rush tickets for students, persons 65+, military/veterans and their dependents, and Theatre Tampa Bay members are $14 as of 30 minutes to curtain with cash and ID at the Straz Box Office window. Special preview performances will be held on April 27-28 at 8p with all tickets priced at $14. Jobsite Theater season tickets are still on sale for 20% off and reduced handling fees for the remaining four shows in the current season and include FREE admission to all staged readings, side projects, and other special events. There is also an opening night party after the Jan. 8 performance at Fodder & Shine in Seminole Heights. Write to info@jobsitetheater.org to enquire about attending.
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