The Goat or Who is Sylvia?

By Edward Albee

Directed by Karla Hartley

March 23 – April 9, 2006

Thu. – Sat. 8pm, Sun. 4pm

Tickets: $16.50 – $21.50

Shimberg Playhouse, Straz Center for the Performing Arts

Winner!

  • Creative Loafing Top 10 Plays of the Decade
  • Creative Loafing Top 10 Shows of 2006
  • Creative Loafing Best of the Bay – Best Play
  • Creative Loafing Best of the Bay – Best Actor – Steven Clark Pachosa

Jobsite continues their 2005 – 2006 Season with Edward Albee's controversial The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, which swept all the major theatrical awards for best new play in the New York 2001 – 2002 season and was also nominated for the Pulitzer that same year (which Topdog/Underdog won).

If everything is going right, then one can be sure that soon, everything will go wrong. Such is the case in the household of Martin Gray – a fabulously successful and prize-winning architect, his adoring wife Stevie and their gay son Billy. When Martin reveals a forbidden love that threatens his marriage, career and life, all bets are off as comedy and tragedy intertwine in the most humane and surprising work from one of our greatest living playwrights.

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Jobsite Presents Steven Clark Pachosa, Monica Merryman and Eric Burgess (top) in
The Goat or Who is Sylvia?

Click to enlarge

From Jay Reiner at Hollywood Reporter: "Albee has turned his attention to what looks like a conventional marriage, only to discover all sorts of unconventional feelings and ideas percolating beneath the surface. The difference is that in this play, Albee is asking better questions, albeit packaged in the same astringent language that can make us laugh, wince and think at the same time."

Among the questions raised are: What is love and how does it differ, not only from sex, but from ordinary satisfactions? What do we owe the people we love besides loving them? What do we do when a part of our nature, lying beyond our control, urges us to overthrow our settled habits and ideas? And perhaps the most troubling question: How much pain do we have the right to cause someone who loves us, no matter how pure the motive (or how pure we think it is)?

The Goat has divided theatergoers and critics alike, but it no doubt got them talking, something a new Broadway play hasn't done in a long, long time.

"Possibly (the) most provocative play from the chronically provocative Edward Albee." — Variety

"...as startling as it is satisfying. In fact, it is one of the most satisfying productions of the Broadway season." — Associated Press

"Unquestionably one of the wittiest and funniest plays Albee has ever written." — New York Post

Age recommendation: 18+ Contains adult language and subject matter.

About the Artists

The Goat is directed and designed by Shimberg Playhouse Artistic and Production Manager Karla Hartley (Always... Patsy Cline; I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change; Lysistrata) and features the talented cast of Steven Clark Pachosa (Martin), Monica Merryman (Stevie), Eric Burgess (Billy) and Ward Smith (Ross). See more about the cast and crew.

Poster

"Compelling, crazy, sometimes brilliant.... The combination of an outrageous premise and its authentic, heart-rending aftermath creates a strange, often exhilarating tension between laughter and pathos." – Tampa Tribune

"...a superb production... the most provocative American play of the last quarter century. See this fine play and you'll not only be entertained, you'll be challenged to remember – and examine – your deepest beliefs." – Weekly Planet