Blogsite Theater

Blogsite Theater has moved!

2014-03-15T10:56:00.001-04:00

If you've been following all of Jobsite's posts here:

Thanks. You're awesome; and
We've moved.

Our blog is now integrated into our new site. Fear not, everything that was here is now there, as well as new posts. So check out the new Blogsite Theater, and thanks again for all the love and support.

A unique review of The Hound of the Baskervilles.

2014-01-28T16:25:00.001-05:00

This has to be a Jobsite first, a review written and submitted by a 12 year old who submitted this as a school assignment. We were way too tickled by this not to share. Thanks, Alexa B.! We're so glad that you enjoyed our production! :)

"Have you ever wondered how something happened and what caused it? I’m sure many people have and this is exactly what Sherlock Holmes does in one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous books, The Hound of the Baskervilles. There have been several remakes of this book and one of them is a highly entertaining play in downtown Tampa, Florida. You’ll laugh your socks off once you see this play; it’s full of hilarious skits and remarkable jokes that will have you begging for more.

The play takes place in the late 1800s with the first part in London, England while towards the end in Dartmoor, England. It follows Dr. Watson and his adventure to protect Sir Henry Baskerville from the mysterious hound that treks the moor at night and hunts the Baskerville family. What he and Sir Henry, along with Sherlock Holmes who has gone to Dartmoor in disguise, need to find out is: Who sent this unseen hound to hunt the Baskerville family and what are their intentions if they succeed? The story takes an incredible twist in the end but you’ll need to watch for yourself to find out what it is. Even though the whole story line is about a murder, the actors (Giles Davis, Shawn Paonessa, and David M. Jenkins) have done a fantastic job making the production funny.

My overall opinion about the play is that it was a fantastic mixture of comedy and mystery for a wide range of interests and this is definitely something I would love to see again. I strongly suggest this production for kids of 12 years or older since the actors tend to have a bit of strong language used throughout the performance. Make sure to have fun at this production, you’re sure to love it!"

Tech weekend, here we go!

2013-10-26T10:04:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I posted general thoughts about the process up to this point, and paid a lot of compliments to my cast and stage manager - most of whom are pulling double-duty.

Today we walk onto Brian Smallheer's set and get up under his lights. Brian pretty much always pulls double-duty. He is a One Man Gang. From initial concept and design to final implementation often Brian's hands will be the only ones that touch the scenic and lighting elements you see when you come into the theater. The size of our company being what it is and our budgets being reflective of that, we don't often have a lot of money to put toward hiring in people to help and so most of rely on the kindness of volunteers. A lot of the time that's a challenge. I feel his pain, generally. I too wear a ton of hats and struggle wrangling volunteers to help me out with certain tasks. It can wear you down, and a lot of it is not the "sexy stuff" that tends to get noticed, unless it's not there or just horrible. There are a lot of other similarities in the work we do, despite how very different that work is on a day to day basis.

I left Brian out of that post yesterday by name, which was not at all intentional. His contributions to this company are numerous, and weighty. I'm excited to see what he has in store for us in a little less than 2 hours when I go into the theater to work through cues with him before the actors arrive at 2p. Brian will pretty much live in the theater for the next week, working around our rehearsals with a paint brush, a c-wrench and his iPad.

Next time you see a barrel-chested guy with an anvil beard and likely a bit of sawdust and paint hiding out on him somewhere on opening night looking exhausted but satisfied, that'd be him. Buy him a drink, why don't you? :)

Or, better yet, sign up to be on our list for volunteer calls and give him a hand?

Macbeth thoughts 10/25

2013-10-25T12:51:00.002-04:00

I am almost in disbelief that we open in a week.

Not at all because it doesn't feel like we're ready, just because it seems like this process flew by. Tomorrow we tech the show, setting every technical cue and then running the transitions from scene to scene until they are smooth. Sunday we spend a 12 hour day in the theater nailing anything outstanding down and accomplishing two complete runs of the show before we will all go home very tired. Next Wednesday's first preview is right around the corner, as is next Friday's opening night.

I've really enjoyed working with this cast. It's a nice balance of folks I've never directed before (Maggie Mularz and Dahlia Legault), folks I've directed quite a bit (Chris Holcom and Katrina Stevenson), a few I've never worked with in this context (Giles Davies, Dayton Sinkia, Nicole Jeannine Smith) and then Jonathan Cho, who I just realized has been part of the room for the last three shows I've directed.

Not putting anyone's work or the task set before them into any kind of hierarchy, but I do not envy the four Powers right now (Maggie, Kat, Chris, Jon) as they work to not only physically and vocally distinguish the many characters they inhabit throughout the show but also now to add on working with all of the many little signifiers, props and costume pieces, that function to help the audience further distinguish who they are at any given moment. It's really cool to watch though as they slip and slide from persona to persona, stalling occasionally in that mysterious, ambiguous space between where we see a glimpse of the beyond. If I'm not making sense to you right now, go back and read my last blog post about the show. :)

My Macbeths and Macduffs may only have to worry about the one role, but they are by no means coasting. All four continue to find the nuance, the depth in these parts. Giles, Dahlia and I have been working hard to avoid the many cliches that can come with these roles and I really think audiences will find themselves surprised at the journey of this couple. It's our belief that you have to really care about these two, and that they needed to be on a more level playing field than is often portrayed on stage. The disintegration of that loving partnership is what is tragic. Once that bond is severed they both hurtle down a dark path to a Very Bad End.

In this treatment of the show we also have the added challenge of trying to more clearly establish the relationship between the Macduffs, one that does not exist in Shakespeare's original text (again see my last post for clarity on this) and stand them in contrast with the Macduffs. Taking the two of them to that level and not allowing them to exist merely as plot devices has been a rewarding journey to take with both Dayton and Nicole.

I hit the point last night where I knew that this show is ready for tech. There's not terribly much more I can offer until I start to see it with all of the other moving parts, and that is a GREAT thing to be able to say as we walk into tech weekend. We're ready.

Speaking of tech ... I walked into this process thinking I was going to not only direct but handle all of the audio and video. That was a dumb idea. :) My hands are full enough with directing the show, running the company, teaching full time at USF and trying to write that pesky dissertation ... I'm not even sure how many full-time jobs I'm up to at this point,. Enter Dave Steinweg and Lorenzo de la Cantara who've saved my bacon with the sound and the video, respectively.

As we've inched closer to tech I look around at the whole room and marvel that this entire group of artists has kicked in at a ridiculously high level. It's a true ensemble. People like to talk all the time about "collaboration" in the theater, and often those people are blowing hot air. Often what those folks mean is that they're in control of "delegation" -- manipulating an illusion of inclusion. Artists who say others can bring to the table whatever they desire, so long as it's what say/think/want. That's not at all the case here. Most of us are also wearing more than one hat now. Chris is making blood, Giles is choreographing fights and helping the cast with text, Matt Ray is (as always) keeping a secondary director's eye on the show for me in addition to his stage management duties, Kat is also building costumes and props. I'm thankful, and humbled.

I'd be insincere though if I didn't acknowledge that this can also be the most terrifying point in a process. The period where you feel like this pack of actors doing this interesting stuff seems pretty awesome, and you've seen a bunch of drawings and have had a bunch of conversations about all the other neat stuff that in theory will surround those actors and it all seems pretty awesome, too. Now it's time to take a deep breath, enjoy a night off and cast it up to the Fates that all of this is going to come together and actually be something amazing. I can't imagine that this lot would turn out anything else, but ... uncertainty is uncertain. Nerves aside, I have faith. The fact that I can get so wrapped up in this show as it is now watching them in street clothes under fluorescent lighting has to be a great sign. To know that this crazy idea I had in putting this show together with a cast of 8 really and truly works, and that the concept disappears within a few minutes leaving you with only the story and the storytelling feels pretty damn good.

I hope that audiences make this all worthwhile. See you there?

Jobsite seeks board members!

2013-10-17T16:37:00.000-04:00

Jobsite Theater, resident theater company at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts, is currently looking for individuals who love live theater and who believe in the arts as a powerful cultural, economic, and educational force in all of our lives. We are in need of board members who believe in our mission and who want to see us continue to grow and flourish.

Jobsite is dedicated to the creation and production of politically and socially relevant theater and to performing it to the broadest possible audience. Through all genres of live performance Jobsite hopes to not only provide an artistic home where artists of all disciplines may come together in a professional theatrical laboratory but also to inspire their community to be citizens and not just consumers.

We need board members to serve a term for the 2014 calendar year who feel that they can contribute to one or more of these areas: fundraising, audience development, marketing, short and/or long term strategic planning, further board development.

Please write to info@jobsitetheater.org if you would like to start a conversation about joining our Board of Directors.

Macbeth thoughts 10/12

2013-10-12T12:03:00.000-04:00

We're wrapping up the second week of rehearsals for Macbeth, and I find myself getting more and more excited with each passing day.

There's a lot here for me to be stoked about: I love Shakespeare, I love Halloween, I love this play and the world it's set in, I love this group of artists ...

As people see the great PR photos that Crawford Long shot, I get the usual questions I'm growing more and more accustomed to when we take on the Bard. When and where are we setting it? Is it still Shakespeare's words or did we adapt it to modern language? How are 8 people doing the whole play? Is it going to be super gory?

It's becoming habit for me to take to this blog to dump answers out in one place in order to help give folks a better idea of what we're up to.

The world of the play
We're setting it in what we're referring to as a modern fantasy world. One where LED flashlights and handguns can exist next to daggers and cauldrons. Doc Martens. Pea coats. Wands. Lanterns. Militaryesque garments that do not signify any particular nation or period in our own human history. I was loathe to set it truly modern, because I'm not trying to make a political statement about current events. Setting it in Vietnam or WWII would equally be making a statement I'm not interested in. I wasn't interested in setting it in a distant past either, because I feared some in the audience might not allow themselves to connect to it. I wanted it to feel a bit more immediate. Katrina Stevenson has been visually inspired by a lot of the cuts and fabrics used in Dr. Who and Torchwood. I'm a bit inspired by how the re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica managed to look both futuristic and present at the same time.

It's a world where magic is as real as science. Where polytheist religions coexist with monotheism and each accepts the other as real.

The text
I think we've been messing with everyone's heads since we premiered Pericles: Prince of Tires which was based on Pericles, Prince of Tyre a few years back. That show was a 100% musical modernization of Shakespeare's plot, with essentially only one speech kept verbatim in Shakespeare's verse. This is not one of those productions. Pericles was truly the only time we've done Shakespeare and not used his words. Our productions of Titus Andronicus, The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing -- these were all his plays, albeit with some heavy cutting. Macbeth is the same. I unapologetically took a machete to it, I believe I've cut about an hour out of it to accomplish several things.

My initial idea was to have it play at an hour and a half with no intermission. In, out. Whiz, bang. I'm not sure that it will run at that time any more, but I am positive no matter what it will play in under 2 hours even if we need to take an intermission. What did I cut? A lot of the political intrigue that was far more meaningful in 1611 when it premiered than any of us care about (or have the context for) today. A lot of the boot-licking thrown in there for King James (a descendant of Malcolm II, left king at the end of the play). Some of the stuff I just find generally offensive (which was the norm for the day but there's no need to keep perpetuating it).

A major intervention I've done is to beef up the presence of Lady Macduff. Shakespeare does this weird thing where he sets up this great character in Macduff, then in the middle of Act IV introduces his wife for a hot sec before killing her off which sends Macduff into a further rage. His anger isn't just for his friends and his country, but he now has a personal score to settle. I also have this idea of showing the Macbeths and Macduffs from the start as contrasting couples. Both tragic in their own way. An easy way to show the collapse of the Macbeths as a couple is to stand them next to another partnership, which doesn't really exist in Shakespeare's original.

So, to fix all this I've created a silent beginning to the show where we see both couples together as the men prepare to go off to war. Then I've added Lady Macduff into the play earlier. She arrives at castle Macbeth to celebrate the end of the war with her guy Macduff. It was pretty easy to take lines away from Lennox, who accompanies Macduff in the original, and so now Lady Macduff is present and next to her counterpart in Lady Macbeth in scenes prior to and after Duncan's murder. THEN she goes back to Fife and reappears in Act IV. And now we have a reason to care about her, and about the relationship.

This whole 8-person cast deal
The Macbeths and Macduffs are central to the story here that we're trying to tell. And that leaves 4 other actors to do everything else: servants, witches, assassins, apparitions, other random Lords, Duncan, Malcolm, Banquo, and so on.

It's a popular convention with smaller theaters, or at least for companies with smaller spaces and budgets, to have one actor play a lot of smaller parts in a show. Toss on a mustache here or a hat there (voila!) and the audience is kind enough to accept that this person is now another character. I've employed the device many times, and I am sure I'll do it again.

Very early on, when considering this title, I looked at Schechner's Makbeth, an "update" of the original, where he focuses on central characters -- Macbeths, Macduff, Banquo, Duncan and Malcolm -- and then has "Dark Powers" who are essentially the witches among others. There were enough issues for me with that treatment to steer me away from using it, but there was something about his idea of having these forces always looming about. I've seen a production of Macbeth where the witches never left stage, and that image also kept coming back to me.

Within the text there are countless times where characters call out to Gods or spirits or some form of otherworldly power and so all of this together really struck me as an opportunity: not only to make it integral to my concept that I would use a small group of actors to play a multitude of roles, but also to put even more focus on contrasting the Macbeths and Macduffs, and also to make manifest the spiritual elements referred to on almost every page of the text. Enter what I refer to as the Powers (in contrast to Schechner's Dark Powers).

We're playing with a more neutral approach than "dark." They are more ambivalent. These four actors are perched at the cardinal points of the stage - shifting into and out of the playing area to assume roles, silently communicating with each other as the events of the play unfold, always watching and reacting even when not active in a scene. They operate as primordial elemental forces on the borders, as very real and present persons when in contact with the Macbeths and Macduffs, and as what Macbeth wants to see in the form of witches or apparitions.

We'll signify the changes from character to character with simple additions to costume, things actors can pull out of pockets like a pair of glasses for the Doctor or a scarf for a Murderer, and through the actors' use of voice and body. The effect is already chilling, fascinating to watch. To help lessen the confusion we've also merged several characters under one character name. For instance Maggie plays essentially every servant and messenger that comes in as one person. Chris and Kat have lines from many of the other Lords that appear in the play which they are playing solely as Lennox and Ross, respectively. Nothing about the story is really lost here.

There are also some pretty neat moments on stage where we have only the Powers talking to one another through character's mouthpieces, when none of the Macbeths or Macduffs are on stage, and it allows us to do this sort of Brechtian epic theater thing. And that, to a degree, goes back to the strength that comes from just embracing this choice. We all know we're in a theater watching a play. We all know that we end up needing actors to cover more than one role when we do Shakespeare (or any large cast play). Why not just embrace all of this from the start and make it part of the show instead of being apologetic about it begging the audience to suspend disbelief further?

I'm so super pumped. :) I hope you are, too. Tickets are already blazing (Sat. 11/2 is already sold out), I fully expect another sold out run. I'm not sure that we've ever started a season with two productions back to back poised for sold-out runs. Crazy. Thankful.

Oh, and is it going to be super gory? Not really. We're more about a selective use of blood for great effect rather than turning the theater into a giant grisly Slip and Slide.

Hedwig photo albums

2013-09-09T13:44:00.000-04:00

Check out these great albums on Flickr documenting our production of Hewdig and the Angry Inch!

The first contains early PR photos, pictures from rehearsals as well as some show shots taken during tech. The second album gives a sneak peek into what goes on backstage prior to the show.

We enjoyed an amazing opening week, selling 90% of all available inventory including two completely sold out performances. We're already sold out again for this Sat., Sept. 14. We urge people to purchase their tickets in advance by calling 813.229.7827 so that you are not disappointed at the door.

Hope to see you all soon!

Add us on Flickr!

2013-09-02T11:52:00.001-04:00

If you want to see how we get from this:

To this:

Make sure to add us as a contact on Flickr! We add not only PR photos but candids and other good stuff as we move through a show from 1st read-through to strike.

Hedwig house music playlist

2013-08-31T18:53:00.002-04:00

**EDITED POST - Here is the original list, with the updated one below**

Always a bummer when we don't have an intermission to play even more music in. :)

But, here's our house music playlist for Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which opens this week and runs 90 minutes straight through with no intermission:

Tommy, Can You Hear Me? - The Who
Ziggy Stardust - David Bowie
Come Together - Ike & Tina Turner
Search and Destroy - Iggy & the Stooges
Rock and Roll N*gger - Patti Smith
Walk on the Wild Side - Lou Reed
I'll be Your Mirror - The Velvet Underground
The Six Teens - The Sweet
Under Pressure - Queen & David Bowie
Rebel Girl - Bikini Kill

**And the new list with my story**

I can get too scholarly sometimes. It's a failing of mine, and it's exacerbated by an iconoclastic artistic temperament that too easily can go "well, screw you if you don't get it." High on my own sense of rebellion. Fair go, so.

I added the Patti Smith song above because a) it's my favorite song of hers and b) contested as the n-word is in our culture today I can defend Smith's use of it at that time because she was making a point about her place in rock as well as rock's place in society, drawing it even more broadly by saying anyone countercultural (e.g. Jesus Christ in his time) gets marginalized, treated like a second-class citizen. Roddy Doyle makes the same exact comparison in The Commitments in how he positions the Irish and defends the band's co-opting of soul music, "The Irish are the blacks of Europe, Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland, and the North Siders are the blacks of Dublin."

In our context, Hedwig is also such a figure.

Blahblahblah, I get it. Some folks just won't get past the word. If I have to submit a paper to go in the program for people to read that contextualizes my music choice, it's probably not a good idea, particularly when dealing with such a sensitive, fraught issue as race.

I've had the house music playing all week and not one person said anything. I intentionally didn't draw attention to it, waiting for a guest or someone in the cast and crew to bring it up. It was only last night when we had a few visitors and the track came on that it became a hot topic of conversation. I was met with extreme resistance, despite my defense ("Tarantino used it in Natural Born Killers" "she's not talking about race"). I thought about it though, I listened, and it became clearer and clearer that they had a good point. It's not worth sending someone out the door before they've even had a chance to see the show over a sensitivity to the word (and let's be fair, Smith repeats it a lot). I can argue to them all the reasons I chose it, but without them experiencing/knowing the show the way I do, it won't matter.

One guest who saw the rehearsal last night, who was pretty vocal about the song being a poor choice prior, came up to me after and said it made sense now and to keep it. I'm glad she thought that, and that she took the time to say it to me, but I learned a greater lesson in that others may not be so open minded. I can't run that risk, particularly before the show even starts.

So, here's the new playlist, this is a fight I'm not interested in having despite what I might think. I have a greater responsibility to my show and my audience:

Tommy, Can You Hear Me? - The Who
The Six Teens - The Sweet
Ziggy Stardust - David Bowie
Come Together - Ike & Tina Turner
Search and Destroy - Iggy & the Stooges
High on Rebellion - Patti Smith
Walk on the Wild Side - Lou Reed
I'll be Your Mirror - The Velvet Underground
The Ballroom Blitz - The Sweet
Under Pressure - Queen & David Bowie
About a Girl - Nirvana
Rebel Girl - Bikini Kill

Hedwig: stage vs. screen

2013-08-26T16:57:00.002-04:00

It's become clear to several of us recently that there are a lot of folks out there who only know of Hedwig and the Angry Inch as a film. We're getting a lot of questions like "I see Spencer and Amy are Hedwig and Yitzhak, but who is Luther/the Mom/Tommy?"and so on.

Then we explain: no one. Or, if you'd rather look at this way, Hedwig. That answer is usually followed by a confused look.

The film Hedwig and the Angry Inch was adapted from what was originally a show for the stage. A small stage at that. It developed out of an act that started in nightclubs, one of the reasons it's a perfect fit for the Shimberg. It's personally one of the things that makes me interested to see it play on Broadway next year in a theater with over 1,000 seats. The stage show as written pretty much demands a small, humble space.

The audience members at any given performance "play" an audience at a show (META!). Hedwig, backed by The Angry Inch, performs a tiny venue while Tommy Gnosis plays an arena not far away. The creators of the show want theaters producing it to make it specific to where they are, in the original stage production those venues were the Hotel Riverview and Giants Stadium. We're using the Off Center Theater at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center and the Ice Palace (all names used in 1998, the year the show takes place).

Hedwig performs directly to the audience, there is no "fourth wall" separating them, telling us the story of how she got here between songs. The same story that fans of the film know full well. In the movie those monologues were mostly broken up into scenes using multiple characters, sometimes kept verbatim as voice-overs, and sometimes simply just shown to us in action rather than through words. At times during the stage show Hedwig inhabits other characters briefly as she revisits some of these memories (which many of us do to a degree when we tell stories). We're even playing a bit with the idea of voices from the past, memories coming to life, in a few subtle ways that we think add to the experience.

It's intimate -- nowhere can we do the complete crazy costume changes from number to number like you can do in a movie, or have a single-wide trailer transform into a stage, or put a scene in a crater near the Berlin wall. The show is part cabaret, part rock concert, part confessional. Film can blow us away with spectacle but in the theater our strong suit is the intimate and immediate bond, the dialogic engagement, that hopefully connects performer and audience. Generally speaking one is not "better" than the other (though certainly individual taste varies), they're just different.

Now, just like a book that's been made into a film or a film that gets re-engineered into something else I know that some might not be able to get past what their first experience was (and anyone who's watched the internet explode over Affleck's casting as Batman should be aware of by now). Just as we have those songs we never want to hear anyone else dare cover or those texts we don't ever want to see anyone else dare make two or three dimensional. Hell, there was a long time that I thought that no one else could ever, EVER play (nor should they even try!) to play Frank N. Furter after Tim Curry. Tom Hewitt eventually proved me wrong. :)

We can only ask those Hed-heads out there who have never been exposed to the stage show, or those who can't see anyone other than Mitchell play this part, to come in with an open mind and with the forewarning as to what the stage version of Hedwig is (and isn't). Amy's Yitzhak and Spencer's Hedwig are Spencer's and Amy's. We've not been holding ourselves to the characters as presented on screen in the film, or even the way that they were originally performed Off Broadway. And why would we when you can look either back up and just watch that? We've taken the text as just that - a text. A blueprint. Something to build from the ground up using a different perspective perhaps. Just as Mel Gibson, Kenneth Branagh and Ethan Hawke have all had their own Hamlets.

For the Hed-heads out there who are crazy-loyal to the stage version, we've even got some surprises in store for you that will hopefully give you at least one big SQUEE! moment.

And for the many of you out there who don't fall into either camp, we look forward to giving you your first taste of this truly amazing show. This is a gorgeous, heartbreaking, hysterical, uplifting, universally HUMAN story that's told in a way and using a musical genre that you just don't see done often enough in the theater.

Can't wait to share this with you all in another week and a half!
-dj

David Jenkins' Gala Speech

2013-08-21T11:45:00.002-04:00

This is the original text of the speech delivered by David Jenkins at the Gala on Saturday night. It's not precise, David spoke extemporaneously at many points, but you get the idea:

Thank you. This event is the result of an incredible amount of work that cannot go unrecognized in my time up here, so right away on behalf of the Jobsite board and ensemble we are truly thankful for the work and contributions of these folks: Elizabeth Fendrick, Gianna Rendina-Gobioff and the Gobioff Foundation, Michelle Baker and everyone at The Refinery, April Smith, Sarah Stone, Illumination Advertising, Roz Potenza, the entire staff of the Straz Center, Natalie and Belle Fleur Studio, VPN Studios who’ve been taking pictures this evening, The Art Institute of Tampa. Also our restaurant partners in The Refinery, Ella’s Americana Folk Art Cafe, Mise en Place, SONO Café, The Rooster & The Till, and The Birchwood. Our amazing drink sponsors The Independent, JJ Taylor, and Augustan Wines, and of course The Black Honkeys who’ve been playing tonight -- and who will come right back after this presentation … I hope I didn’t forget anyone … (?)

I want remind everyone about the silent auction in the lobby that closes at 10:30 sharp, we have over $15,000 worth of items up for grabs and minimum bids only add up to $4,000, meaning there are some mean bargains to be had out there that help us raise funds tonight to the many gracious donors of those items.

To everyone here: Thank you. For supporting us. For showing up. For giving. Maybe this is your first Jobsite event, and looking around I can see that some of you have been here since the beginning. I’m just a blue-collar kid from the northside of Jacksonville, and could have never dreamed that I’d be a part of something like this. That we’d have such a good run, and such a bright future. We’ve not only managed to stick to our guns in producing the kind of work we believe in, but we’ve managed to do it while creating meaningful dialogue in our community about important issues – something you’ll see us do a lot more of as we move on (I’m not getting this PhD for nothing) – and also begin to offer work to our schools so that we can be an active part of creating a culture that sees the arts not as just something for the elite but an integral part of daily life. But I preach to the choir …

Thank you, for coming to our shows, for buying season tickets (which are, incidentally, on sale in the lobby …), for telling other people about us, and again for being here tonight and making donations that we’ll be able to put to immediate use for artist payroll during the 2013-14 season. I think we all want to live in a world where the word “starving” is never associated with “artist” – no matter what it is you craft: music, food, flowers, paintings, or plays. We deserve better as a society, and you are helping make that a reality.

Now to our guest of honor:

Judy Lisi is a believer. She believed that this building could be turned around financially when she came in as President. She believed that the humble dirt-floored concrete room next door could be a viable black box theater space. She believed that Tampa audiences deserved to have access and exposure to not just big Broadway musicals (which I of course understand pay the bills) but to important plays that don’t often tour, and that the area wasn’t consistently producing on their own. She believed in Jobsite enough to invite us to offer performances as part of their Play Series, where we alternately produced with them, and then 10 years ago believed in us enough to stop producing altogether in the Shimberg and allow us to take it over as resident theater company. At that moment we were no longer scrambling from space to space, uncertain where we might be performing 2 or 3 shows down the road. We were able to begin to draw season ticket holders, donors, sponsors -- all the things both great and small that would allow us to not only become stable but to grow.

Just this year, Judy made another leap of faith in asking us to move into this space, the Jaeb, in addition to our play season next door where we will co-produce Return to the Forbidden Planet next summer, one of the many reasons we celebrate here tonight.

Beyond her position as the head of the Straz, we have counted Judy and members of the Lisi family as some of the most ardent supporters of our work, a family full of musicians and artists in their own right, a family dear to many of us.

Judy, you are a Shining Star, and it’s with great pleasure and on behalf of our board and ensemble that we present you with our first Shining Star Award.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch thoughts: week 1

2013-08-12T13:14:00.002-04:00

I should be writing my dissertation.

This is a phrase that repeats over and over in my head pretty much all day every day. But I almost always end up needing to jumpstart that process. Today's distraction is Hedwig and the Angry Inch. To be be fair, whatever show it is I'm working on is usually what the distraction is.

This first week of rehearsal has been AMAZING. Readthrough, tablework, blocking, photos, music rehearsal, and starting to dig into those juicy, juicy monologues between songs.

I know Ive vented in this space before about how we as a critter like to pigeon-hole shows.

"Oh, it's a gay/black/Jewish/insert-marginalized-group-here show?" The phrase is usually accompanied by a polite but somewhat uncomfortable face.

That's almost always code for "I'm not coming then, because it's obviously not for me." As if our stories stop being relevant when they begin to cross categories of difference ...

Hedwig strikes me as one of those shows that has several strikes against it with people, and all I really wanted to do today is skeet-shoot at a few of these before diving back into my dissertation.

If you think, or if you hear anyone else say anything that goes like this, I urge you to reconsider:

1) "It's a gay show and I'm not gay so I should ignore it"
2) "It's a drag show and I'm not into that so ..."
3) "It's a loud rock show and so ..."

If you listen closely to the lyrics, and if you pay any attention at all to the stories that Hedwig tells over the course of the show you'll find that Hedwig is far too complicated of a character to just classify (and particularly to dismiss) as "just" a homosexual. He's also not technically transgendered. Or a drag queen. Hedwig is a great postmodern metaphor for all of us who've ever felt incomplete, cheated. He's what Victor Turner would call a liminal figure. What a writer for CL Atlanta astutely observed in 2008 as being a bricoleur. Someone who makes something new out of the refuse around them.

Hedwig exists betwixt and between, as Stephen Trask's lyrics in "Tear Me Down" point out:

YITZHAK
"Ladies and Gentleman,
Hedwig is like that wall,
standing before you in the divide
between East and West,
Slavery and Freedom,
Man and Woman..."

and later

HEDWIG
"There ain't much of a difference
Between a bridge and a wall
Without me right in the middle, babe
You would be nothing at all ..."

Bosky notes that "On the simplest level, that which separates is often also that which joins; one example is the semicolon." And isn't that precisely what good theater does? The separation between stage and audience, that space between, is not only what connects the audience to the performer, but it's what helps the audience to connect with one another and allows us as individuals to connect to an Other. Someone not like them. As Martin Buber details, we can only engage one another (what he calls dialogic engagement) in the space between. I can't ever really be in your head, and you can't be in mine, so that connection happens in the middle -- in the space between.

In live performance we not only have that opportunity to make that connection with the performer, with a general Other, and with those who share that experience with us in that room, but through that we may also reflect some shard of light generated from this experience back on ourselves and experience a personal illumination.

The more I sit with this show, the more I work these artists and really listen to these words and these lyrics, the more painfully obvious it becomes that this is an incredibly profound human story. That's all I'm focused on, and it's all I'm asking Spencer, our Hedwig, to focus on. The broad/camp/drag humor is a weapon in Hedwig's arsenal. It's a wall over a mask (or a mask over a wall?). That part will come without much help. Finding and releasing the heart of this story is what's of central importance. And damn if it can't just move you. It does me. It also makes me laugh, think, and yeah ... even feel a bit uncomfortable.

Finally, to point 3 above -- yes, it's rock music. It's real rock music, and we're playing it like real rock music. If you consider the music in RENT or Spring Awakening too hard, ok, you might not like this. I'd never call those other two musicals true rock anyway (as much of a fan as I am of the latter aside). But the music is also only part of the experience, and this show just wouldn't be the same, it wouldn't land the same, it wouldn't work the same if it sounded any other way.

Well, I guess I'm warmed up and get back to writing that dissertation. I hope, if you've had any reservation in coming to this show based on anything similar to what I outline above, that you reconsider. It's worthy of your time.

Thanks for listenin'.

From David Jenkins on the upcoming Jobsite Gala

2013-08-06T13:47:00.001-04:00

Jobsite Gala: I need your help!

From David Jenkins on the final week of The Lonesome West

2013-08-01T13:03:00.000-04:00

We're linking to David's (rarely used) blog for his latest post, "Don't miss what's still in front of you."

A new litmus test for abuse?

2013-07-25T12:41:00.003-04:00

There was once a time in Jobsite history where we built things to be "Till-proof" or "McCarthy-proof," references to actors at the time who seemed to be rougher than usual on our sets.

I had to write our TD and designer in residence Brian Smallheer last night to check with him about a chair I destroyed last weekend, the second such chair to eat it in such a fashion in my hands.

Over the past two weeks doing The Lonesome West I've killed a table, I tried my damnedest to destroy a door with my noggin' and a chunk of a Virgin Mary (the door won), I kicked a very large dent into a shiny new orange stove the first time I saw it (I won't even count all the scuff marks I've left on it), I've taken big chunks out of shelves and put gashes into walls with both ends of a shotgun, and at this point I think and I've turned a minimum of 4 dozen statues of various saints into mosaic tile and 52 bags of Taytos to sawdust (these last two stats will surely double by the end of the run because at least this stuff is in the script).

Why do I feel like "Jenkins-proof" is about to be the new standard around here?

Yikes. :)

Get 2013-14 season tickets for a chance to win tickets to our Gala!

2013-07-25T11:23:00.004-04:00

On Sat., 8/10 we will draw a random name from our season ticket holder list to be given a pair of free tickets to our 2013 Gala held on Sat. 8/17 at 7p in the Jaeb Theatre.

Already have your 2013-14 season tix? Then you're already entered! Don't have 'em yet? What are you waiting for! Get your order in by Fri. 8/9 to be entered! Call 813.229.7827 or follow the instructions on this form.

Our 2013-14 is one of our best yet, featuring Hedwig and the Angry Inch, a new adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth, a comic take on The Hound of the Baskervilles, Crimes of the Heart, Zach Braff's All New People and Inventing Van Gogh. Season ticket holders will also be able to purchase tickets to the Jobsite-Straz co-production of Return to the Forbidden Planet in the Jaeb Theatre at a discount. Season ticket holders enjoy a lot of benefits in addition to saving a substantial amount of money. Learn more here.

Our Gala features food and drinks from some of the best in the area: The Refinery, Ella's The Independent, Augustan Wines, J. J. Taylor and Sons Distributors, The Birchwood, SONO Cafe, Mise en Place and more. Music from The Black Honkeys. Enjoy special photo souvenirs courtesy VPN Studios and a silent auction of premium items all evening.

If you would like to contribute to the Gala but cannot make the event, you may purchase tickets and donate them back to the company for us to offer to a Jobsite Ensemble Member, who may not otherwise be able to afford tickets.

This prize has no cash value and is not redeemable for any other item. Not applicable to prior sales or valid in conjunction with any other offer or contest prize. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.

Meet Intern Gabby

2013-06-13T11:58:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone! My name's Gabby and I am the Jobsite Theater intern this summer.

Back in February I was in the midst of midterms up at Villanova University where I’m currently working on my Bachelor’s Degree in Performance Studies when irrationally I started stressing about what I would do over the summer. Well, perhaps not so irrationally considering last summer after freshman year … during which I failed to get a job and spent most of my time on Facebook or annoying my mom. Nothing noteworthy about that.

I knew I wanted to come home to Tampa to spend some time with family and friends, so I immediately thought of the Straz Center as somewhere where I would like to work. I knew about Jobsite because I saw Race in 2012, so I decided to send David Jenkins, the Producing Artistic Director, a very general and out-of-the-blue e-mail explaining my love of theater and everything that I wanted to do all the while mentioning that I did not have a lot of experience — or concrete plans for the long-run for that matter. This is still true now, actually; all I know is that I am lucky to have found something that I am truly passionate about.

In high school, all I did was track and field and so theater was not something that I got started with early. I got a job at the Villanova Theatre costume shop as a freshman (this was completely coincidental … it could’ve just as well been a job swiping meal cards at the dining hall) and thanks to that I was exposed to some excellent graduate theater. Soon after I joined the student theater group and ever since then I’ve been seriously interested in learning all I possibly can about theater — from production to dramaturgy to acting. Fortunately for me I work for a theatre graduate program so this is all very possible.

So that’s the gist of the past two years of my life. Back to Jobsite! David responded very generously to my e-mail, saying that I was welcome to help out at Jobsite for the summer. This is really all that I wanted, you know, just to watch how everything worked, help out when I could and simply get to spend some time in an environment that I loved and that I could see myself making my career in the future.

That’s exactly what it’s been like up to this point. I feel supremely lucky to get to be a part of the Jobsite crew this summer. My work so far has had two facets; the first involves administrative work on the computer where I’ve been helping David out with a couple of things including the weekly newsletter … which has been awesome. My mom asked me, ‘so what are you doing for Jobsite?’ and I just told her that she’d have to go on the website and subscribe to Jobsite to find out :)

The second part of my work this summer involves being an assistant stage manager for The Lonesome West, Jobsite’s final production of the season. I AM SO EXCITED TO BE DOING THIS! You see, up at school I could never do something like this because stage management positions are always reserved for the graduate students. So, this is the first time that I have been at rehearsals for a professional production. It’s awesome because you learn A TON about directing just by watching the process. I hope to direct a show for the undergrad student theatre this fall and watching Paul and Ned in rehearsals has taught me so much already and the show does not open for another month!

As far as my ASM duties go, I have been helping Matt, the stage manager, do a couple of things. We taped out the stage (ed. note: this is when an outline of the set is measured out and marked on the floor with colored tape so that the actors can begin working in rehearsals before the set is built.) together one day (also something I had never done before). There’s been a couple of times when Matt could not be at rehearsal and I was there to fill in for him; this involved calling out the breaks, timing scenes, and then sending out the rehearsal report to the production team at the end of the night.

When the play opens in July, I will be present at every performance night running a couple of things backstage. Without giving away too much, I know I’ll have to deal with an oven at some point as well as help the two brothers change their costumes very quickly. Yay for the beautiful chaos of live theater!

The work that I have done thus far at this internship has, most of all, been very valuable to me. David offered that I do this for college credit, but honestly, that involves a lot of extra work on the university side and I’m completely content just taking part in it all. The cast and crew of The Lonesome West is a seriously great group … I’m so happy to be working with them! David, Paul, Matt and Ned have all expressly told me to ask them any questions I might have. It’s always a plus to have people aware that you are trying to learn, instead of just attempting to soak it all in.

That’s it for now; it’s nice to meet everyone! (Cyber-meet, anyway)

-Gabby

(ed. note: Gabby is GREAT! We've been so blessed with superb interns lately. We still miss Sara Rotunda, our last intern who just moved back to Tallahassee. If you'd like to know more about internship opportunities, check out our website and get in touch!)

Partial casting announcement for 2013-14

2013-06-10T12:13:00.002-04:00

We've still got over half the 2013-14 season left to cast, but we're excited to share the casting for the first three shows of the season!

Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Directed by David M. Jenkins
Hedwig: Spencer Meyers
Yitzakh: Amy Gray
Guitar, backups: Jonathan Cho
Bass, backups: Jana Doan
Drums: Woody Bond

Macbeth
Adapted and Directed by David M. Jenkins
Macbeth: Giles Davies
Lady Macbeth: Dahlia Legault
Macduff: Matt Lunsford
Lady Macduff: Nicole Jeannine Smith
The Powers: Katrina Stevenson, Chris Holcom, Jonathan Cho, Maggie Mularz

The Hound of the Baskervilles
Directed by Katrina Stevenson
Holmes, et al: Giles Davies
Watson, et al: David M. Jenkins
Sir Henry, et al: Shawn Paonessa

Don't miss out on our best deal on tickets, which expires July 15

2013-06-10T11:34:00.002-04:00

I try to use this blog space to speak plainly. One of our greatest challenges is impressing on people not only what it is we do, but why it is we do what we do.

The whole idea of season tickets, of being forced to commit to any kind of package, is a concept that's getting more and more alien to people. We get it. People don't want to buy season tickets to the sports franchises here in town, we like the idea of service plans without long-term contracts, no one even wants to be forced into a gym membership. We want what we want when we want it -- who knows what tomorrow will hold!

The truth is, arts organizations haven't exactly done ourselves any sort of favors by and large.

We offer season tickets at a solid discount, sure, but then we can do stupid stuff like release all these last-second deals that are even better offers than what we do for our absolute best customers -- those who support us in advance through the purchase of a season ticket. So what if we offer a 30% off discount a year in advance if we're just going to offer buy one get one offers the week of the show?

We're pretty good at training bad behavior as an industry. And in our specific case it's not like the people buying tickets in advance via the season ticket are getting better seats -- which is often the case in many situations. Because the Shimberg is a flexible black box with open seating it doesn't matter if you buy a year in advance or 5 minutes before curtain, the doors still open a half-hour in advance of the show and so you get the seat you get depending on what time you arrive.

In general the whole last-second price-slashing sets a dangerous precedent. Yes, at a certain point a show just needs an audience, and marketers and bean-counters will be quick to remind you that revenue is revenue and a butt in a seat is a butt in a seat -- but at what sort of long-term costs do those sales come?

We made a commitment at the start of this season. We had to raise ticket prices this year after a six-year price freeze. We assured our season ticket holders we'd take care of them, and made a big deal about keeping that promise and being honest with the rest of the public that we were taking all those last-minute discounts off the table. The best deal on tickets (apart from the preview price and rush seating for students, seniors and military) would be the season ticket price. If we have to offer a discount it won't be as good of a deal as season ticket holders get.

With only one show remaining in the 12-13 season, we've managed to keep that promise. Might we have liked a few more audience members for a few shows? Absolutely. But, you know what? We're also having our best year in terms of both box office receipts AND in the number of people actually coming through our doors. I can also look my season ticket holders in the eye and assure them they're getting the best deal on tickets. We're asking for their money up front, pretty far in advance, we're asking them to trust us with the season as a whole and in return we're giving them the best deal. And we're sticking to this plan for 13-14.

There are a ton of reasons to become a season ticket holder in addition to savings. We'll take care of you, too. As a Jobsite season ticket holder you can reach out directly to us at any time to add seats, move to another night in the event something comes up on the night you are supposed to come, to help you out with special considerations at the theater, or any other need you might have. Just write to questions@jobsitetheater.org.

We've got some really great shows coming up this season. If you're excited by what we have to offer the best deal is going to be through season tickets. We won't be doing fire sales or BOGO offers or anything to shows like Hedwig, Macbeth, Baskervilles or Crimes. Just ain't happening anymore. When we do that. we're all making the artist carry the burden for both the company and the audience, and that's just not fair. As a result to our commitment to this philosophy, we've also been able to increase artist pay this season by about 35%. That alone has made this all worth it.

Please, let this be the year you take the most meaningful step possible in ensuring that Jobsite is here for years to come and that our artists be paid a living wage. Become a season ticket holder by July 15 and get our best rate of 30% off. You also pay a one-time handling fee instead of per-ticket surcharges. All told you're saving about $70 per person over the course of the year, which is like seeing a few shows for FREE. For two people, your final cost per ticket out the door inclusive of everything is about $20. You'll also get a discount on tickets to our first co-production in the Jaeb, Return to the Forbidden Planet.

Hope you decide to join us for a great season of shows at our best possible price. You'll be making a difference.

The Jobsite-McDonagh spiderweb

2013-06-04T11:35:00.001-04:00

As we've mentioned, we've had a 10-year relationship with Martin McDonagh's plays, which serve as nice bookends to our residency at the Straz Center. This current group of folks working on The Lonesome West are part of a pretty interesting complex web ...

The Lonesome West director Paul Potenza also directed The Beauty Queen of Leenane (the play we had in production when we were named resident theater company at the Straz) which featured David Jenkins (TLW's Coleman Connor) and Ned Averill-Snell (TLW assistant director) as the Dooley brothers (though they never shared a scene). Brian Shea (TLW's Father Walsh) served under Potenza as assistant director for Beauty Queen.

Potenza also starred in The Pillowman along with Matt Lunsford (TLW's Valene Connor), who also appeared as the titular Lieutenant of Inishmore (which featured Ned as Matt's dad). Pillowman and Inishmore were both directed by Jenkins.

And if that isn't all strange enough ... Lunsford's girlfriend apparently watched McDonagh's Seven Psychopaths twice in a row one day while he was at work ...

Increasing the footprint of our residency at the Straz

2013-05-31T14:48:00.000-04:00

10 years ago, Straz Center (then the TBPAC) president Judy Lisi offered us the position of resident theater company in the Shimberg Playhouse (still a fresh name for what was just the Off Center Theater).

That was during the run of Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane, which we co-produced with the Straz as part of their Play Series. We'd co-produced one or two plays a year from 2001-2003, starting with Dracula, to help them fill out a play season they believed should be offered to their patrons and also to help us begin to build a reputation since we were still relative newcomers. After Beauty Queen, Judy felt like we were standing on our own two legs well enough to take over, which allowed them to turn those resources toward other programs in need of development. She told me they'd been producing plays because they felt like they had an obligation to since plays are often difficult to tour, and she felt there was a hole in their programming.

We were honored by the position, and elated for the benefits the residency provided us -- namely the ability to book our whole seasons onto the calendar a good year or so in advance, allowing us to offer a real season in advance, and therefore season tickets. In addition to that we were able to start talking to artists further out about contracts for shows, helping us secure the best talent at the right times of the year.

10 years and another McDonagh play (also directed by Paul Potenza) in The Lonesome West, and we find ourselves moving back into co-producing with the Straz -- this time next door in the Jaeb. We've used the Jaeb for one-night to single weekend events like The Guys, but we've never produced a full run there. This is a big step for us, one we're really excited about.

The plan for now is to produce a summer musical together (this year it's Return to the Forbidden Planet - in planning well before Mark Leib's recent Stages of Growth article, btw) which will be something fun for the whole community, and something that's reflective of both the Straz and Jobsite. In addition to this summer musical we hope to offer one additional production in the Jaeb a year which could be a musical, could be a play, or maybe even something else entirely. This brings us up to 8 productions per year at the Straz -- 6 in the Shimberg, 2 in the Jaeb.

We have no intention of "leaving" the Shimberg. This is not about simply "moving next door." It's about making better use of the spaces available to us at the Straz, about increasing our collaboration as two organizations that have a lot to offer one another, and about increasing the variety of the works we produce. There have been plenty of shows we've passed over all these years because they simply wouldn't fit or otherwise work in the Shimberg. This works the other way, too, some shows would simply work better in the Shimberg than the Jaeb. Now we have both to play with.

It's also about growth. With these extra shows and extra revenue, Jobsite grows as an organization and we are able to grow the potential weeks of employment AND rate of pay we offer artists. The Jaeb has more seats, more seats is more tickets, more tickets is more money ...

In addition to the Jaeb news, we are also working on a plan to grow the number of performances we make available to the Straz for weekday school matinees. Performances this year of both Fahrenheit 451 and Much Ado About Nothing went very, very well and we look forward to the upcoming season's school matinees of both Macbeth and The Hound of the Baskervilles. By 2014-15 we hope to be up to at least three productions a year that we can offer in this manner. One might be a show completely targeted to youth audiences or families. Don't worry, we can do a youth/family show and it still be a "Jobsite" show. Hold the jokes, folks ... :)

The Straz is a great facility, with a great staff and visionary leadership. I've been so incredibly invigorated about the future -- immediate and distant -- while in recent meetings with Judy and the new chief programming & marketing officer Georgiana Young. We feel like we have a lot to contribute to this collaboration on the other side of things. This is a partnership built for success and for the long haul.

To all of you who've helped get us here -- our deepest thanks. This is also a time where more than ever we're going to need our community to rally around us as we try to make these new steps. Please, if you've been on the fence let this be the year that you get those season tickets (the early bird offer expires 7/15) or make that donation. Your support ALWAYS makes a difference.

Hope you can make it out to New World this Sun. from 2-7 p for our first-ever rummage sale. Loads of awesome costumes, props and furniture. Cold delicious import and craft beers, crispy gourmet pizzas. Should be a great time. Come hang out for a few.

-dj

Much Ado About Nothing previews tonight!

2013-03-13T14:56:00.000-04:00

Read more about what's going on at Jobsite (and subscribe to our new mailing list) by following this link: http://eepurl.com/wIhfb

:D

Hope to see you soon at the theater!
-dj

Subscribe to our new email service!

2013-02-06T15:42:00.000-05:00

We've made the transition from Yahoo Groups to Mail Chimp, so our emails are now a lot prettier than those old plain text messages. Sign up below!

Stitchers needed for Much Ado About Nothing!

2013-01-31T10:52:00.002-05:00

We are in need of a few folks to help build costumes for Much Ado About Nothing. We can use folks with average to advanced skills who have access to a machine on their own. We can also work with folks who may not be able to commit to a lot of time, Katrina Stevenson is more than happy to job items out singly or in batches, depending on time available. One garment or five, we can work with the time you have to spare.

We're looking for folks who can help out as of Feb. 11, to be completed with all assigned projects no later than March 9. Stitchers will be provided all materials, notions, fabric, patterns. Stitchers will get credit in the program and on the website, tickets to the show, a thank-you basket from Jobsite and, depending on time invested, a small stipend for their time.

Please send all correspondence to kstevenson AT jobsitetheater DOT org. Feel free also to pass this on to anyone you think might be interested!

Thanks!

-dj

Glossary for Hay Fever

2013-01-10T14:58:00.002-05:00

As with any period piece (and with any piece set in another country), there can be a lot of terms and references that may not land with everyone. Some folks don't mind all that, but those obscure references might frustrate others and so we're offering a glossary for our production of Hay Fever that opens up on Friday.

Maybe you find this useful to look at before you come, or you might like to reference it after. Either way, we hope it's useful!

Glossary of Terms
(from Classic Magazine)

Setting: Cookham is a small village North of Windsor and South of Oxford on the river Thames. It is probably about 45 minutes drive from London.
Potty - Slightly crazy
Poseuse - means one (in this case a female) who poses; a phony
Au fond - literally: at the bottom; or in the end, or, in the deepest sense.
Caste - A division of society based on differences of wealth, inherited rank or privilege, profession, or occupation
oil of cloves - An oil made from the dry bud of a tropical tree; dentists traditionally used this essential oil for its healing and soothing properties, to ease pain, of their patients – hence Sorel’s suggestions. It is also used in perfumes and soaps.
dresser - In theater cliché, the dresser is the star’s main connection to reality. The dresser is expected to know everything about his or her charge. In addition, the dresser takes care of costuming the star. For an actor at that time, an actor/manager is running the business, and the entire character comes from the costume, so the person in charge of the star’s "look" was very important. Probably the closest contemporary analogy is that of a movie star’s personal assistant. Movies with dressers: "All about Eve," "The Dresser."
delphiniums - kind of flower
asters - Asters are often used as "filler" flowers in bouquets. They are small flowers the size of coins distributed over airy sprays, visually connecting one flower to another within an arrangement. These dainty, daisy-like flowers with yellow centers, come in a rainbow of pastels.
callow - lacking adult sophistication; immature
ingénue - the stage role of a naïve young girl or woman: also the actress playing that role
dandle - to move up and down in one’s arms or on one’s knee in affectionate play; pamper or pet
punkah - a fan used especially in India that consists of a canvas-covered frame suspended from the ceiling and that is operated by a cord
punt - a long narrow flat-bottomed boat with square ends usually propelled with a pole.
milieu - environment or setting
landed gentry - a member of the aristocracy having an estate in land
cur - a mongrel or inferior dog – a surly or cowardly fellow
arrant - being notoriously without moderation, usually used in the context of a quote from Hamlet, "we are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us."
ripping - excellent or delightful
Marlow - Marlow is the next village North of Cookham along the Thames.
calceolarias - Tropical American plants with flowers shaped like little slippers and that are mostly yellow colored
"You’re so gallant and chivalrous—much more like an American than an Englishman." - This is an interesting and early to mid-century cliché about Americans. That is that a slight provincialism is a cover for a more genuine way of behaving and the Puritanical background leaves way for very nice manners indeed. This idea also comes up in the works of Henry James. It’s interesting that an English person’s idea of an American today has changed to be loud and boorish (an idea that began when all the GIs were stationed in England).
Borgia of Rosine - Myra’s perfume:
Dieppe - City in France and a resort destination for English lower class travelers on summer holiday. A bit tacky.
Mah Jong - A game of Chinese origin usually played by four persons with 144 tiles that are drawn and discarded until one player secures a winning hand.
frowsy - having a slovenly or uncared-for appearance
Maidenhead - Maidenhead is in the county of Berkshire and about 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of London. Maidenhead is only 2 miles South of Cookham.
Crippen - Early 20th century murderer who murdered his wife and then flayed her, hiding her body in the cellar. He was eventually caught.
reformatories - a penal institution to which young or first offenders are committed
susceptible open, subject, or unable to resist some stimulus, influence, or agency
cap - Judith means a sign of respectability. Caps are used as a sign of a respectable married woman, esp. in the wedding scene in The Taming of the Shrew. Judith sites an archaic custom.
spurious - false; outwardly similar or corresponding to something without having its genuine qualities
cad - a person without gentlemanly instincts; meaning in this case that Sandy didn’t have any more than physical desires for Sorel and feels (when caught by Judith) a bit guilty
barometer - an instrument for determining the pressure of the atmosphere and hence for assisting in judgment as to predicting the weather and determining the height of an ascent
haddock - food fish; a relative of cod that occurs on both sides of the Atlantic
ten bob - bob is British slang for a shilling, which is a now obsolete British monetary unit equal to 12 pence or 1/20 of a pound. So even in 1920s money, Sandy and Jackie are not being very generous.
the Haymarket - A London theatre near Piccadilly Circus. The Haymarket is still a working theater, part of the West End theater row.
waifs and strays matinee - like a student matinee, but a performance for children in an orphanage
perambulators - British word for baby carriage
Scarlet Hispano - A hispano is a French car with a long body made from about 1907-1936.