Photo Flash: Jobsite Theater's ALMOST AN EVENING by Ethan Coen Begins Tonight

Ethan Coen (of Coen Brothers fame)'s Almost an Evening is set to play the Straz Center, tonight, September 9, through October 4, 2015. Scroll down to meet the cast!

Most people know Ethan Coen as half of the award-winning Coen Brothers who have written, directed, and produced films like Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and No Country For Old Men. Now Tampa Bay audiences will be treated to Ethan Coen's first foray as a playwright, Almost an Evening, which played an extended sold-out engagement Off-Broadway in 2008-2009.

The overall theme of these three satiric shorts by Oscar-winning screenwriter Ethan Coen, who is responsible for some of the most critically acclaimed pieces of popular culture of our time, is hell -- both on earth and in the hereafter.

In "Waiting," a man faces an uncertain future in an uncertain location that seems to be some kind of waiting room. The anxiety and despair hark back to dramas of the fifties -- Sartre, Beckett, Pinter. "Four Benches" depicts an unlikely meeting in a steam room between a straight-talking Texan and an uptight Brit. Both men learn from the encounter, though only one survives it. In "Debate," the cantankerous God of the Old Testament roundly abuses the mealy-mouthed God of the New. His profanity and ill-humor receive a startling comeuppance, and further reversals and changes of point of view lead to a denouement that is no more preposterous than anything else in the play.

Clever, provocative, and as engaging as the best fiction, these short plays showcase yet another talent of one of our most celebrated contemporary writers.

Photo Credit: Brian Smallheer