Jobsite Theater is an American professional theater company incorporated in 1999 and located in

Tampa Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough County ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, United States. They are the resident theater company of the

Straz Center for the Performing Arts The Straz Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts venue in Tampa, Florida, United States. It opened in 1987 as the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, and was renamed in 2009. The Straz Center is located downtown on a site along the e ...

(formerly

Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough Coun ...

). Co-founder David M. Jenkins serves as Producing Artistic Director.

History

Founded by David M. Jenkins, Michael Caban, Alan Fessenden, John Lott, and Jason Vaughan Evans using the 54-seat Silver Meteor Gallery in

Ybor City Ybor City ( ) is a historic neighborhood just northeast of downtown Tampa, downtown Tampa, Florida, United States. It was founded in the 1880s by Vicente Martinez-Ybor and other cigar manufacturers and populated by thousands of immigrants, mainly ...

as their first home, the company moved into the Off Center Theater (now the Shimberg Playhouse) as resident theater company in 2003.

Focus

Jobsite produces a broad range of theater, focusing on younger and non-traditional theater attendees but attracting audiences of all ages and backgrounds to downtown

. Jobsite has modeled their company, the material they produce, and their approach to theater production on companies like Chicago's

Steppenwolf Theatre Steppenwolf Theatre Company is a Chicago theatre company founded in 1974 by Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, and Gary Sinise in the Unitarian church on Half Day Road in Deerfield, Illinois and is now located in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood on H ...

and the

Berliner Ensemble The Berliner Ensemble () is a German theatre company established by actress Helene Weigel and her husband, playwright Bertolt Brecht, in January 1949 in East Berlin. In the time after Brecht's exile, the company first worked at Wolfgang Langhoff ...

. Jobsite is an

ensemble cast In a dramatic production, an ensemble cast is one that is composed of multiple principal actors and performers who are typically assigned roughly equal amounts of screen time.Random House: ensemble acting Linked 2013-07-17 Structure In contrast to ...

theater with actors, directors, designers, stage managers, artisans, craftspeople, and musicians in their membership. Jobsite is dedicated to producing socially and politically relevant theater for the broadest possible audience. We have established a collective of like-minded regional artists over 60 members strong, creating both a supportive collaborative environment and professional theatrical laboratory. Through all forms of theater – experimental, new plays, contemporary work, or the classics – and our expanding educational and community outreach, we hope to inspire our community to become not just consumers, but true citizens.

References

External links

Jobsite Theater online
{{coord, 27.9516, -82.4641, type:landmark_globe:earth_region:US-FL, display=title Theatres in Tampa, Florida 1998 establishments in Florida