2024 – 25 Season
A mixture of wild comedies and dark delights, the exciting slate of offerings epitomizes the aesthetic Tampa Bay area audiences have come to crave from the resident theater company of the Straz Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Tampa.
The company is unveiling a new benefit for passholders, a swap-a-seat program that allows a move out of any single show in the season in exchange for additional tickets to another. Producing Artistic Director David Jenkins offers “We listen to our fans, and this is probably the most-requested thing. As much as we hope people trust us and how we curate a season, it’s a fact that sometimes – after plenty of trying – folks simply don’t enjoy musicals, or broad comedies, or Shakespeare, or Halloween stuff. Or maybe they’ve seen something before and just aren’t interested in going again. We get it. This new benefit allows one free swap-out, no questions asked.“
Tickets
A season pass is the best way to save money and provide meaningful support to Jobsite’s ensemble of over 70 regional artists. A pass for the six mainstage performances will be available April 29 for $168 out the door, with no added fees. Passes are not subject to additional per-ticket fees or demand-based pricing (saving folks up to 80%), they come with unlimited free ticketing exchanges (up to 24-hours in advance of the show time), passholders may swap their tickets out from any one show in the season in return for additional tickets to another, and passholders may purchase additional tickets to any show at a 20% discount. A special preview pass is available for $138 and carries all benefits except free exchanges, the difference in ticket price from date to the other must be paid if exchanged.
Single tickets start at $42 for standard performances, previews at $26, and increase by date based on demand. Single tickets are subject to ticketing and restoration fees levied by the Straz Center. A schedule of when single tickets to the individual shows go on sale will be released this summer.
Mainstage Season
POTUS
or Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive
By Selina Fillinger
Directed by Summer Bohnenkamp
Sep. 4–29, 2024
Shimberg Playhouse, Straz Center
Prepare to pop with laughs at this delicious farce! One four-letter word is about to rock 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. When the President unwittingly spins a PR nightmare into a global crisis, the seven brilliant and beleaguered women he relies upon most risk life, liberty, and the pursuit of sanity to keep the commander-in-chief out of trouble.
Gorey Stories
Adapted by Stephen Currens
Music by David Aldrich
Based on the stories of Edward Gorey
Directed by David Jenkins
Music direction by Jeremy Douglass
Oct. 23 – Nov. 17, 2024
Shimberg Playhouse, Straz Center
This award-winning neo-gothic cabaret is unlike anything you’ve seen! Performed first by Jobsite in 2009 and then in new form in 2012, the 2024 reimagining of Gorey Stories weaves together a changed-up compilation of stories, poems, and limericks from the late, great Edward Gorey. Full of wild creatures, weird characters, and humorous, horrid happenings, Gorey Stories is a play with music featuring live accompaniment throughout the 90-minute entertainment from the inimitable Jeremy Douglass behind a cast of regional favorites.
Macbeth
by William Shakespeare
Adapted and directed by David Jenkins
Featuring a score by Jeremy Douglass
Jan. 15 – Feb. 9, 2025
Jaeb Theater, Straz Centger
“A drum! A drum! Macbeth doth come!” A tale of ambition, greed, and murder under the influence of supernatural forces, Macbeth is a haunting examination of one couple’s ruthless quest for power and its bloody aftermath. On his return from war, three “weird sisters” offer Macbeth the prospect of ultimate control. Desperate for a new future, he and his wife set out to make it a reality with devastating costs.
The Pillowman
by Martin McDonagh
Directed by David Jenkins
Mar. 12 – Apr. 6, 2025
Shimberg Playhouse, Straz Center
The Pillowman is an exhilarating comedy-drama about a fiction writer in an unnamed totalitarian state who is interrogated when several bizarre incidents occurring in town resemble the gruesome content of their short stories. When the writer’s mentally disabled brother is also brought in by two officers, the police procedural takes unforeseen twists and turns. This thriller was one of London’s hottest tickets when it premiered in 2003 with Billy Crudup and again just last year in a revival starring Lily Allen.
The Butterfly’s Evil Spell
Adapted from the play by Federico Garcia Lorca
Developed by the Ensemble
Music by Jeremy Douglass
May 7 – Jun. 1, 2025
Shimberg Playhouse, Straz Center
Devised in Jobsite’s captivating style as expressed in Shockheaded Peter, Gorey Stories, and Jobsite’s Alice, this imaginative English-language adaptation of Federico Garcia Lorca’s first play (El Maleficio de la Mariposa) fuses live music, visual art, puppetry, theater magic, and aerial and circus arts into thrilling theatrical experience. Lorca’s mystically poetic world of beetles, fireflies, and other magical creatures is disrupted when a hypnotic, wounded butterfly enters their dewdrop paradise. A young beetle is cast under a love spell, but a hungry scorpion is sure to shake things up in this timeless tale of beauty and desire.
Originally planned for the current 25th Season, this show was postponed due to a perfect storm of challenges and is now returning in a reimagined format.
Puffs
Or, Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic
by Matt Cox
Jul. 9 – Aug. 3, 2025
Jaeb Theater, Straz Center
For seven years a certain boy wizard went to a certain school and conquered evil. You Know Who He Is. This is not his story, sorry, but that of those who also happened to be there, too. Puffs is a play for anyone who has never been destined to save the world! This clever show “never goes more than a minute without a laugh” (Nerdist) giving you a new look at a familiar adventure from the perspective of three potential heroes just trying to place fourth at a very dangerous magic school for kids. Overlooked and underestimated, the Puffs are a perky, well-meaning, loyal group of outsiders with a thing for badgers. Their “hilariously heartfelt!” (Metro) and epic journey takes the classic story to new places and reimagines what a hero can be.
Command Performances
The Guys
By Anne Nelson
Sep. 11, 2024
Tampa Firefighters Museum
Jobsite is proud to support the Tampa Firefighters Museum through a special one-night fundraiser performance of Anne Nelson’s The Guys.
Days after 9/11, Joan (Roz Potenza), a New York City editor, is asking the same question Americans are asking everywhere: “what can I possibly do?” Then, she meets Nick (Paul Potenza), an FDNY captain who lost most of his men in the attack. He needs someone with the tools to help him craft the eulogies. The afternoon meeting turns to evening, as Nick and Joan recall these ordinary guys: their humor, their faults, their passions. In the process, they discover the possibilities of friendship, their shared love for the unconquerable spirit of the city, and of course, the tango. They realize that the common thread that made these men extraordinary is the same merit that can help unite and heal us all: brotherhood. The Guys is based on a true story.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised] [again]
By Adam Long, Daniel Singer, Jess Winfield, new revisions by Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield
Aug. 13-24, 2025
Shimberg Playhouse
Having shrunk Shakespeare’s wit and wisdom into manageable morsels of madness, Jobsite returns to tear around the stage in doublets and Chuck Taylor’s on a riotous romp through all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays plus the sonnets in 90 minutes. This special encore features new cast members, new gags, changed-up sketches, but the same guaranteed belly-laughs — even if you don’t know your Hamlet from a hole in the ground. Creative Loafing ranks seeing “an (abridged) anything at Jobsite” #12 on the list of the top 20 things to do to be considered a true Bay Area resident!
This show is not on the six-show package, but is available as an add-on to passholders for $25
