Cabaret
Mainstage Musical
Book by Joe Masteroff
Based on the Play by John van Druten and Stories by Christopher Isherwood
Music by John Kander. Lyrics by Fred Ebb
September 10th – October 2nd, 2021
Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Sundays at 2 p.m.
In a Berlin nightclub, as the 1920’s draw to a close, a garish Master of Ceremonies welcomes the audience and assures them they will forget all their troubles at the Cabaret.
With the Emcee’s bawdy songs as wry commentary, Cabaret explores the dark, heady, and tumultuous life of Berlin’s natives and expatriates as Germany slowly yields to the emerging Third Reich.
Cliff, a young American writer newly arrived in Berlin, is immediately taken with English singer Sally Bowles. Meanwhile, Fräulein Schneider, proprietor of Cliff and Sally’s boarding house, tentatively begins a romance with Herr Schultz, a mild-mannered fruit seller who happens to be Jewish.
Presented with the support of the Arts Council of Hillsborough County and the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners
Cabaret is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Tams-Witmark LLC. www.concordtheatricals.com
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike
Mainstage Comedy
by Christopher Durang
October 15th – 30th, 2021
Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Sundays at 2 p.m.
Winner of the 2013 Tony Award for Best Play. Middle-aged siblings Vanya and Sonia share a home, where they bicker and complain about the circumstances of their lives.
Suddenly, their movie-star sister, Masha, swoops in with her new boy toy, Spike. Old resentments flare up, eventually leading to threats and chaos.
Contributing to the excitement are a sassy maid who can predict the future, and a lovely young aspiring actress who can’t. Come discover why Durang is lauded as the master of mining the absurdities of human folly!
Presented with the support of the Arts Council of Hillsborough County and the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners.
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York.
The Normal Heart
Black Box Drama
by Larry Kramer
November 5th – 13th, 2021
Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Sundays at 2 p.m.
A searing drama about public and private indifference to the AIDS plague and one man’s lonely fight to awaken the world to the crisis, The Normal Heart was based on Kramer’s real-life experience.
Produced to acclaim in New York, London and Los Angeles, the play centers on Ned Weeks, a gay activist enraged at the indifference of public officials and the gay community. While trying to save the world from itself, Ned confronts the personal toll of AIDS when his lover dies of the disease.
Presented with the support of the Arts Council of Hillsborough County and the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners.
The Normal Heart is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com
A Christmas Carol
Mainstage Holiday Classic
by Charles Dickens
December 3rd – 18th, 2021
Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Sundays at 2 p.m. Special 2 p.m. Saturday matinees on December 11th and 18th.
An annual tradition at Carrollwood Players brings Dickens’ classic to life for the holiday season with the director selecting or creating their stage adaptation of Dickens’ original story.
Presented with the support of the Arts Council of Hillsborough County and the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners.
Wedding Secrets
Mainstage Farce
by Joe Starzyk
January 7th – 22nd, 2022
Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Sundays at 2 p.m.
A young couple have a whirlwind courtship and marry. However, their families have never met the respective spouses, so the couple allows the families to believe they have only become engaged.
Once the families gather, everyone’s secrets come to life. Susan’s parents are secretly divorcing and keeping it from their children. Her aunt is an unstable serial dater and her sister is a typical angst ridden teenager. Bill’s parents aren’t intimate and his father is greatly in debt.
And there is the mysterious uncle Joey who lives in the basement and is a strange derivation of the Greek Chorus. In all, there are Oedipal issues, hookers, an Irish revolutionary, priests, a lounge singer, the Phantom of the Opera, heartbreak, romance, impotence, happy endings and lots of ties.
Presented with the support of the Arts Council of Hillsborough County and the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners.
Luce
Black Box Drama
by JC Lee
February 4th – 12th, 2022
Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Sundays at 2 p.m.
JC Lee’s probing play about a suspicious teenager addresses issues of privilege, race, and trust.
When a teacher makes an alarming discovery about Luce, an all-star high school student, Luce’s parents are forced to reckon with their idealized image of their son, adopted years ago from a war-torn African country.
Told primarily from the perspective of the adults, Luce also raises questions about the roles that parents and teachers play in the lives of these teenage students.
Presented with the support of the Arts Council of Hillsborough County and the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners.
Luce is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com
Greater Tuna
Black Box Comedy
by Jaston Williams, Joe Sears, and Ed Howard
February 25th – March 5th, 2022
Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Sundays at 2 p.m.
The long-running Off Broadway hit features two actors creating the entire population of Tuna in a tour de farce of quick change artistry, changing costumes and characterizations faster than a jackrabbit runs from a coyote. Two actors, twenty characters, and a barrel of laughs, y’all.
Greater Tuna was originally produced in 1981 in Austin, Texas by its authors, Jaston Williams, Joe Sears, and Ed Howard. The play’s stars, Williams and Sears, played all twenty characters, and Howard directed. One year after its premiere, Greater Tuna opened Off Broadway, ran for over a year, and went on to tour major theaters all over America and spots overseas for the next thirty-some years, becoming one of the most produced plays in American theatre history.
Presented with the support of the Arts Council of Hillsborough County and the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners.
Greater Tuna is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com
Once Upon a Mattress
Mainstage Musical
Music by Mary Rodgers
Lyrics by Marshall Barer
Book by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller, and Marshall Barer
March 11th – April 2nd, 2022
Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Sundays at 2 p.m.
Many moons ago in a far-off place, Queen Aggravain decreed no couples could marry until her son, Prince Dauntless, found a bride.
Princesses came from far and wide to win the hand of the prince, but none could pass the impossible tests given to them by the Queen.
That is, until the “shy” swamp princess, Winnifred the Woebegone, showed up. Would she be able to pass the Sensitivity Test, marry her prince and help Lady Larkin and Sir Harry to the altar?
Carried on a wave of wonderful songs, by turns hilarious and raucous, romantic and melodic, this rollicking spin on the classic tale The Princess and the Pea provides some side-splitting shenanigans. For after all, a princess is a delicate thing.
Presented with the support of the Arts Council of Hillsborough County and the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners
Once Upon a Mattress is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals. www.concordtheatricals.com
Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind
Black Box Experimental
by Greg Allen
April 8th – 16th, 2022
Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Sundays at 2 p.m.
Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind is an ensemble experiment in presenting “45 Plays in 90 Minutes.” Each two-minute play is performed in random order with an interactive audience. An onstage timer keeps everyone honest.
This collection of comic, tragic, political, personal, and abstract plays will keep the actors on their feet and the audience on the edge of their seats!
Adult language and themes.
Presented with the support of the Arts Council of Hillsborough County and the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners.
Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind is presented by arrangement with Playscripts, Inc.
Clybourne Park
Mainstage Comedy
by Bruce Norris
April 22nd – May 7th, 2022
Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Sundays at 2 p.m.
Clybourne Park explodes in two outrageous acts set fifty years apart.
Act One takes place in 1959, as white community leaders anxiously try to stop the sale of a home to a black family.
Act Two is set in the same house in the present day, as the now predominantly African-American neighborhood battles to hold its ground in the face of gentrification.
Winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and the 2012 Tony Award for Best Play.
Adult language and themes.
Presented with the support of the Arts Council of Hillsborough County and the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners.
Clybourne Park is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, New York.
Lickspittles, Buttonholers, and Damned Pernicious Go-Betweens
Black Box Staged Reading Comedy
by Johnna Adams
May 20th – 22nd, 2022
Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. Sunday at 2 p.m.
During the Napoleonic wars, three extraneous Danish court officials—a professional loudmouth (the buttonholer), a brown-noser for hire (the lickspittle), and a successful dastard (the go-between)—are tossed out of court just as Denmark’s merchant fleet becomes of strategic importance.
The three men journey to France and meet Napoleon’s top lickspittle, buttonholer, and go-between—who are females.
Unnecessarily complex plots abound, flying machines are destroyed, and the head of Marie Antoinette is discovered during the madcap struggle to save Copenhagen from British howitzers.
With an extraordinary use of rhyming alexandrine verse, plus cameos by sestina, haiku, free verse, limericks, and sonnets, this wild farce is a delightful romp no matter your poetic preferences.
Presented with the support of the Arts Council of Hillsborough County and the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners.
Lickspittles, Buttonholers and Damned Pernicious Go-Betweens is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, New York.
The Wedding Singer
Mainstage Musical
Music by Matthew Sklar. Book by Chad Beguelin and Tim Herlihy. Lyrics by Chad Beguelin. Based on the New Line Cinema film written by Tim Herlihy.
June 10th – July 2nd, 2022
Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Sundays at 2 p.m.
The Wedding Singer takes us back to a time when hair was big, greed was good, collars were up and a wedding singer might just be the coolest guy in the room.
Based on the hit Adam Sandler movie, The Wedding Singer’s sparkling new score does for the ’80s what Hairspray did for the ’60s. Just say yes to the most romantic musical in twenty years.
It’s 1985, and rock star wannabe, Robbie Hart, is New Jersey’s favorite wedding singer. He’s the life of the party until his own fiancée leaves him at the altar. Shot through the heart, Robbie makes every wedding as disastrous as his own.
Enter Julia, a winsome waitress who wins his affection. As luck would have it, Julia is about to be married to a Wall Street shark, and, unless Robbie can pull off the performance of a decade, the girl of his dreams will be gone forever.
Presented with the support of the Arts Council of Hillsborough County and the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners
The Wedding Singer is presented by special arrangement with Music Theatre International. www.mtishows.com
The 2022 One Act Festival
Mainstage Special Event
by Various Playwrights
July 15th – 23rd, 2022
Join us for two weekends featuring original short plays never before seen in Florida!
Audiences will experience an eclectic mix of short plays never-before produced in Florida, featuring comedy, drama, and everything in between!
In addition to thrilling sell-out crowds, this exciting event provides playwrights with an opportunity to see their work produced and provides emerging directors with experience under the guidance of seasoned mentors.
The Odd Couple – Female Version
Mainstage Comedy
by Neil Simon
August 5th – 20th, 2022
Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Sundays at 2 p.m.
Unger and Madison are at it again! Florence Unger and Olive Madison, that is, in Neil Simon’s hilarious contemporary comic classic: the female version of The Odd Couple.
Instead of the poker party that begins the original version, Ms. Madison has invited the girls over for an evening of Trivial Pursuit.
The Pidgeon sisters have been replaced by the two Constanzuela brothers. But the hilarity remains the same.
Presented with the support of the Arts Council of Hillsborough County and the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners.
The Odd Couple, Female Version is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com
