Woman in Mind
By Alan Ayckbourn
Directed by David M. Jenkins
Jun. 7 – 24, 2007
Thu. – Sat. 8pm, Sun. 4pm
Tickets: $19.50 – $24.50
Shimberg Playhouse, Straz Center for the Performing Arts
Creative Loafing Best of the Bay
- Best of the Bay – Best Actress – Ami Sallee
- Best of the Bay – Best Costume Designer – Katrina Stevenson
- 2007 Top 10 Plays
Jobsite Jobby
- Best Actress – Ami Sallee
- Best Supporting Actress – Kari Goetz
Sir Alan Ayckbourn (Norman Conquests, Absurd Person Singular, Absent Friends), one of the most popular and prolific playwrights in the world, goes deeper and darker in this play about a bored housewife named Susan who is married to a stodgy vicar.
After regaining consciousness from a comical accident, Susan experiences a series of hallucinations in which her tedious, loveless and oppressive everyday life is replaced by a fantasy world where she is the ideal wife and mother of an ideal family. The two halves of her life eventually collide with hilarity and heartbreak.
Woman in Mind opens in a traditional English garden where Susan (Ami Sallee Corley) wakes up after she stepped on the tooth end of a garden rake and knocked herself out. She is tended to by the bumbling-yet-sweet local GP Bill Windsor (Shawn Paonessa ) whose words slowly turn from complete gibberish to clear English as she regains consciousness and her composure.
The opening scene, like the play that follows it, is both wonderfully comic and deeply unsettling. Following her initial recovery, Susan lapses and begins to hallucinate. Her real world – inhabited by nebbish husband (Jason Evans), eccentric sister-in-law (Kari Goetz) and distant son (Stephen Ray ) – is replaced with a world populated by a loving husband (Steve Garland), perfect daughter (Caitlin Eason) and dapper brother (Matt Lunsford).
Her simple English garden morphs into a vast estate, where poorly-made coffee is replaced with flutes of Dom Perignon. In all aspects of the production the boundary between the real and the ideal world is blurred and broken until the entire experience is simultaneously surreal and harrowing.
We laugh ourselves though [the] characters and the experience is at once painful and exhilarating.
Sunday Express, London
Media
Picture pages, picture pages …
A quick report on the closing of Woman in Mind: final numbers show that it was our second most attended/grossing show of the season, behind
My favorite feedback on WIM
This is from friend and ensemble member Leah LoSchiavo, sent via MySpace: Awesome show last night! congratulations on an excellent production. I had to run
Actors honored, auditions and Woman in Mind closing weekend
Just a week removed from a stellar review of Sir Alan Acykbourn’s Woman in Mind (only 4 performances remain!), three Jobsite ensemble members are recognized
St. Pete Times review: Woman in Mind
“Woman in Mind takes off like a rocket, propelled by Ayckbourn’s trademark obsessions with egoism, arrogance, pretension, loveless marriage, ungrateful children, middle-class misery and the
Tampa Tribune: Woman in Mind ‘exhilarating,’ other news
The first review of our production of Woman in Mind printed today in The Tampa Tribune, and it’s a thoroughly positive one. Here’s a pullout
Previews
Mind Over Matter – Creative Loafing
Cast & Crew
- David M. Jenkins – Director
- Erica Porch – Production Stage Manager
Cast
- Ami Sallee Corley – Susan
- Jason Evans – Gerald
- Steve Garland – Andy
- Kari Goetz – Muriel
- Matt Lunsford – Tony
- Caitlin Eason – Lucy
- Shawn Paonessa – Bill
- Stephen Ray – Rick
Crew
- Jaime Giangrande-Holcom – Rehearsal Stage Manager
- Xylina Golding – Rehearsal Stage Manager
- David M. Jenkins – Set & Sound Design
- John Lott – Light Design
- Matt Lunsford – Master Carpenter/Dialect Coach
- Katrina Stevenson – Costume Design
- Brian M. Smallheer – Technical Director
Patron Reviews
- Thank you so much ... We thoroughly enjoyed the show. Congratulations on your success. – Deborah Kobritz
- Awesome show last night! Congratulations on an excellent production. ... Please pass on to the cast I think they committed extraordinary acts of theatre magic last night. Truly exceptional work from EVERYONE. I was trying to think of a word to describe my reaction to the production and what comes to mind is: charmed. I was sincerely charmed by the talent and quality of work, and charmed by my own complete submersion into the world of the play, in great part I think to the wonderful commitment of the cast. You kids is hypnotic! I totally, totally dig it, man. Thank you for a great night of theatre. – Leah LoSchiavo
- I was absolutely blown away by your performance on Saturday night! ... I am also in awe of Jobsite Theatre, and it's ability to mount such a complex production with so few financial resources! The play was as wonderful as anything I have seen on Broadway! – Carolyn Sachs
- I was so honored to see it. I just really felt it, every bit of it, and felt privileged to be among those in the audience. – Susan Hussey
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