St. Peterburg theater opens Shepard's 'True West'

   It can be hard to satisfy your theater cravings this time of year, but here's a promising show for you, if you don't mind driving across the Skyway.
   The Tampa Bay Actor’s Theatre is staging "True West," probably the best-known play by the great Sam Shepard, at the Studio@620 June 5-8.
   "True West" is a substantial and powerful drama that premiered in 1980. It has had a couple of  legendary productions. Gary Sinise and John Malkovich played the two leads in a Steppenwolf Theatre production, directed by Sinise, that was filmed and shown on PBS. In 2000, John C. Reilly and Philip Seymour Hoffman had the leads in the Broadway production, and switched roles frequently during the run. Audiences didn't know which actor would be in which role until they got to the theater.

   The list of formidable actors who have performed "True West" is impressive: Besides Sinise, Malkovich, Reilly and Hoffman the big-name actors who have starred in "True West" include Peter Boyle, Tommy Lee Jones,  Peter Coyote, Bruce Willis, Jim Belushi, Gary Cole and both Quaid brothers.
   Studio@620 is a very cool intimate space that's home to a lot of great small and ad hoc theater companies, including the Tampa Bay Actor’s Theatre. This production is directed by Keven Renken, who's very reliable and who heads the theater department at the Pinellas County Center for the Arts.
    Tickets are $20 or $15 for students and seniors. Curtain is at 7 p.m Thursday-Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.
   The Studio@620 is at 620 First Ave. S., in downtown St. Petersburg. Call  727-895-6620 or go to studio620.org.

  

Radio theater returns to Bradenton airwaves

   Radio theater is largely a relic of decades past, but it has seen a tiny bit of a resurgence in recent years.
   Some intriguing plays are coming to local airwaves in the coming days. It's an interesting (and free) way to experience theater and it's worth a listen.
  At 8 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 17, WUSF (89.7 FM) is airing "Holy Matter," a new one-hour play by Tampa playwright Denis Calandra. It's a mystery based around John F. Kennedy's visit to Tampa 50 years ago, days before his death, and a fictional Tampa mob family.

Calandra

   Calandra is the authorized translator of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's plays. He wrote the acclaimed play "Cuban Bread" about Tampa's cigar workers and co-wrote an adaptation of Carl Hiassen's "Lucky You" that got great reviews in London and Edinburgh.
   At 7 p.m. Monday, Nov, 18, WMNF (88.5 FM) and St. Petersburg's Studio@620 kick off the fifth season of their "Radio Theatre Project" with an installment of “The Continuing Adventures of Noel Berlin, Cabaret Detective” by Paul Wilborn and Matt Cowley and “The Last Radio Drama” by Ludy Marvin Wilkie, directed by area theater stalwart Jim Wicker.
   "The Last Radio Drama" is about actors in a 1950s radio soap opera who face the cancellation of their show as radio loses audience to television.
   "Noel Berlin" is in its second season and features old-fashioned cliff-hanger episodes set in St Petersburg with cabaret music and stunning sound effects. 
   You can see the WMNF plays as they're performed by going to the Studio@620, at 620 First Ave. S. in St. Petersburg. It's a pay-what-you-can arrangement.
   Go to www.radtiotheatreproject.org for more information about the WMNF series.