THEAARTTER
20TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON
Jobsite Theater at the Straz
By Marlowe Moore Fairbanks
Pluck, luck and a whole lotta chutzpah cleared the 20-year
path of daring regional theater company Jobsite Theater.
Twenty years is an epoch in regional theater company
time, and twenty successful years is borderline fantasy.
However, the Tampa Bay area’s working class, Everyperson
ensemble celebrates just that –– twenty successful years –– in
their 2018-2019 season.
“If you would have told any of us that we’d have made it 20
years back in 1998 when we agreed to throw it all out on the line
and self-produce two short one-acts in a dingy house literally on
the wrong side of the tracks in Ybor City, I’m not sure we’d have
believed you,” says Producing Artistic Director David Jenkins.
The risk paid off, launching a young theater company
determined to build its wings on the way up. With the goal of
producing socially and politically relevant theater for the most
people possible, Jobsite decided to form a collective of likeminded
theater professionals to work toward creating theater
that developed the notion of citizenship instead of entertainment
consumerism. Throughout their two decades, Jobsite has built a
catalogue of outstanding productions with well-known and littleknown
titles from canonical writers (Shakespeare) to emerging
talents (Ken Ferrigni). A rough survey reveals the troupe’s joyous
willingness to jump into the humorous, divine, dirty, high-brow,
low-brow, slapstick, gut-wrenching and intellectually and morally
challenging aspects of life as we know it.
This season returns the resident theater company of the Straz
Center for the Performing Arts to their intimate, small-space roots
164 TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018
CRAWFORD LANG
Twelfth Night was a 2015
production of Jobsite Theater.
with the entire season unfolding in the Shimberg Playhouse at
The Straz. “We’re bursting with enthusiasm to celebrate this
major milestone with the region,” says Jenkins. “The shows we’ve
picked could hardly be a better way to honor our past while
celebrating the company we’ve grown into. Despite setbacks
ranging from acts of God (Hurricane Irma) to the state of Florida
cutting arts and culture by over 90 percent, our amazing base of
season pass holders and donors have kept us up and running.
They’re perhaps the real MVPs as we look to celebrate in the
coming year.”
For an in-depth explanation of the show lineup for Jobsite’s
anniversary season, visit the company’s blog, “Why Our 20th
Anniversary Shows Are for You and Why We Chose Them” at
jobsitetheater.org/blogsite. Part of the recipe for Jobsite’s staying
power comes from its relationship to the greater community
and to the shared responsibilities of citizens in a community.
As Jenkins notes in the blog, “the relationship has to be a twoway
street.” This ethic of the shared experience, that theater
is a working-class endeavor for a greater purpose propels the
company’s success and reshaped the regional theater landscape
for this area.
“We’re proud to have Jobsite Theater as our resident theater
company,” says Straz CEO Judy Lisi. “Their work speaks for itself.
We see it every year with the enthusiastic audience response to
their cultural contributions. They have brought great life to the
Shimberg Playhouse, and I congratulate them on a spectacular
twenty years.” 9
2018-2019 JOBSITE SEASON
Jobsite Theater performs
in the Shimberg Playhouse
at the Straz Center for the
Arts in Tampa, (813) 229-
STAR (7827) or (800) 955-
1045. Season tickets are also
available at jobsitetheater.org.
The six shows for 2018-2019
include the current Hedwig
and the Angry Inch (through
Sept. 9); Edgar and Emily
(Oct. 10-Nov. 4); Othello, (Jan.
9-Feb. 3); The Complete Works of
William Shakespeare (Abridged)
Revised (March 13-April 7);
Hedda (May 8-June 2); and
Constellations (July 10-Aug. 4).