Rockin' Pericles rehearsal shots!

Here are some shots I took on Tuesday night of Stephen Ray (Perry) and Ami Sallee Corley (Talia) during a music rehearsal of Pericles.

We open a week from today! I hope you can make it out, this show is going to blow doors down.

New podcast for Pericles

Here's the newest Jobsite podcast - a sample of The Hornrims' (with Joe Popp singing and playing guitar) The King of Coney Island with bits of the video we're using, a TV news report that appears in the show plus the commercial - all in just 2 minutes. Check it out!



And to reiterate something I said on our Facebook page earlier today:

Last night was pretty much our 1st tech for Pericles. All I can say is WOW. This is really going to be an event. A TRUE rock musical. A clever, funny and poignant modern script based on a play by Shakespeare. More talent than that room can honestly hold.

I am so glad that Jobsite is ending our 10th season with a show that epitomizes what we're about and why we started producing theater in the 1st place.

GET. YOUR. TICKETS.

Season tickets make you sexy, save kittens

Who doesn't love them some Jobsite? And who doesn't like to save lots of money?

So this whole buying season tickets to Jobsite and saving a whole bunch of money at the same time should be a no-brainer. Like stealing kids in a barrel or shooting ducks in a candy store.

Today is the FINAL DAY to save 30% off your 2009-10 Jobsite season tickets. As of tomorrow, season tickets will only save you 20% off the cost of tickets. Keep in mind, whether you buy today or tomorrow that all season tickets come with a one-time $10 processing fee per order instead of a per-ticket service charge - which saves you even more money.

Buy today and you're basically saving about $60 per person per year on some damn fine theater.

Season tickets, for today only, are still just $102.90 per person for one ticket to each of the 6 shows in our 2009-10 season. On top of that you get free admission into all Job-side Projects, save 10% when you want to buy extra tickets to come back or bring friends and guarantees your seats all season to shows that often sell out in advance. You can also always switch your tickets around from one night to another down the road if things come up to help accommodate a busy life on the go.

Season tickets make you a better human being, gives your hair more body (or maybe gives your body more hair?), improves liver and kidney function and makes you more attractive to those you want to be more attractive for. If that's not working for you - Jobsite Theater ensemble members are also constantly saving kitties and puppies with money they make from shows and so buying season tickets helps ensure they're able to keep up with all the food and vet bills.

Think of the kitties and puppies.

Or just think of all the rad shows we bring you, and how bad it would suck if we had to pack up shop and just all get jobs in a coffee house.

Then imagine yourself making a real difference by picking up the phone and buying those glorious, sexy, baby animal saving season tickets. Just don't imagine it, do it for real. Imagine you only imagined it if that's what you need to do.

It'll be exhilarating. You might even need a shower afterwards.

It'll also set you up all year to a bunch of great shows and put money back in your pocket all while helping ensure that Jobsite can keep producing top-quality cutting-edge theater for years to come, and that's no joke.

Jobsite's Pericles - no verse or frilly collars, way more laughs and two fists of rock

I still think one of the most fielded questions I'm getting regarding the opening of Pericles is if it's in verse or not, or how much of Shakespeare's language exists in the show vs what might have been added by us if we're calling it an 'adaptation' - which we were, originally.

Truth is, we're probably better served in saying that Pericles is based on a story and characters created by William Shakespeare. Just the same as the musical Spring Awakening is based on the play by Franz Wedekind or how RENT is based on Leoncavallo's story and characters of La Boheme - or even as West Side Story is based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

So we've tried to remove words like 'adaptation' in favor of saying 'based on' - because that's wholly more accurate.

How much Shakespeare is there directly in the text? Very little. None at all in the book, to be honest. The only bit of verse in the show at all is in the lyrics to the song Viper, which is the riddle given to Perry by mob boss "Fat Tony" Tirelli. If Perry gets the answer wrong, he dies. If he gets it right? Let's just say Perry doesn't like his chances either way.

I am no viper, yet I feed
On mother's flesh which did me breed.
I sought a husband, in which labour
I found that kindness in a father:
He's father, son, and husband mild;
I mother, wife, and yet his child.
How they may be, and yet in two,
As you will live, resolve it you.

Here's a sneak-peek at one of the slides used in the video portion of the show - "Fat Tony" and Gina Tirelli (Chris Perez, Katie Castonguay) plus Perry (Stephen Ray).

So please, fret not. This is more Sopranos than sonnets. We're not coming out in big frilly collars or going to bore you to death with lengthy speeches in a pattern suited to put many to sleep. This is a completely modern presentation that requires absolutely no knowledge of (or interest in) the source material. Of course if Shakespeare's your thing, you'll likely grok on seeing what we did to it, and how it's different than/the same as the source material. We can't stress enough that this is a standalone experience.

And, for what it's worth - Pericles isn't quite Hamlet, so I doubt any Willy-philes will get too worked up. To quote The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), Pericles "falls into the category of Shakespeare's plays which scholars refer to as 'The Apocrypha,' or in some scholarly circles 'The Obscure Plays,' or 'The Lesser Plays,' or simply, 'The Bad Plays.' And yet, not all of the apocrypha are without merit. In fact, one of them, 'Troilus and Cressida,' is hardly crap at all."

We have two weeks to opening, and we hope to see you opening weekend. We have a special surprise at the end of the show - a literal grand finale to not just the show and this 2008-09 season but to 10 years of Jobsite. We'd love to be able to share it with you.

Don't forget - we still have promo codes for those of you who might be strapped. Here are the deals again:

• Preview is Wed., Aug. 5 at 8pm. Tickets to that are just $10 for anyone. if you're student, senior or military you can get a ticket for $5 with cash and valid ID as of 30 minutes to curtain at the Ticket Office window.
• We've also opened up a $5 ticket for preview for anyone who might need it. $5, anytime, just use promo code BROKE when you order.
• Can't make preview? We've also done a 2-for-1 deal for opening night, Thu., Aug. 6. Get your tickets for what amounts to just $12.25 each by using promo code 2FER.
• And keep in mind student/senior/military rush is available to any regular performance at a cost of $10. Cash only with proper ID as of 30 minutes to curtain at the window.

Sat., Aug. 8 is already SOLD OUT. 8/7 and 9 are at about 75% of capacity. As always, we advise tickets be purchased in advance since shows often sell out. Particularly Saturday nights - we cannot at all recommend you just walk up prior to a Saturday night show to but a ticket unless you call first to ensure there is still availability. Saturdays are our most popular shows, and our theater is small!

Pericles TV spot!

Check it out - coming to Bright House cable in August, and coming to the TBPAC stage as of Aug. 5 - PERICLES!

Family. Re-imagined.

(R-L: Ami Gray, Chris Perez, Ami Sallee Corley, Spencer Meyers, Katie Castonguay, Stephen Ray and Jason Vaughan Evans)

We've got 3.5 weeks until we open Pericles, the grand finale of our 10th anniversary season.

We can't impress enough how much we want you there, not only to celebrate the world premiere of this punk mob musical with music by Joe Popp's new outfit the Hornrims and a book by our own Neil Gobioff & Shawn Paonessa but to cap off this historic milestone with us in style.

No messin' around. Grab a ticket. Saturday, August 8th is already sold out due to our season ticket holder load-in. We hope you can make it out.

Broke? There are still $5 preview tickets available by using promo code BROKE when you buy online, over the phone or at the window.

Pay half now, half later for 09-10 season

In a continuing effort to make it easy for people to be become season ticket holders, we've worked a deal out with TBPAC to do a payment plan for the 2009-10 Jobsite season.

Get your order in for the 30% off early bird special (Just $102.90 per person for 6 shows!) by Wed., July 15 and you can pay 50% of your order total now and have the other 50% drop automatically on Aug. 15.

Of course you can still pay for the whole package now if that's your preference, and you have until July 27 to take advantage of these 30% off savings. The 30% off deal originally expired on June 29, but due to your feedback, we held it over.

As of July 28 season tickets will be the standard 20% off. We cannot hold this 30%% off rate over again.

To recap: the 30% off rate is good through July 27. If you order by July 15, you may pay 50% of your total order now and pay the balance automatically on Aug. 15. As of July 28 season tickets will be the standard rate of 20% off.

Here's an order form. Mail, fax or call it in today to take advantage of these great offers!

“...little by little, Jobsite Theater has been turning into the most consistent, most dependable company in the Bay area.” – Creative Loafing

Your purchase of season tickets from Jobsite guarantees your seats all year to shows that often sell out in advance, gets you into all side projects and readings for FREE, ensures our future for years to come, makes our shows better and contributes directly to local artists and therefore our own local economy.

You can easily move your tickets around in advance if something comes up on any given night, plus we send special offers from time to time from TBPAC or one of our other partners exclusive to our season ticket holders, and season ticket holders can always buy extra tickets to bring their friends for 10% off.

Season tickets are awesome. Jobsite season tickets are super awesome. People who buy Jobsite season tickets are Superfly TNT. You know you want to be Superfly TNT.

Money, money, money, money ...

Since June 25, I've been singly-employed. Perhaps that's best expressed as underemployed. Semi-employed?

Jobsite has always been a lot of work to keep moving in the right direction while juggling two jobs, but it's always been manageable. Good thing I'm sorta into working late nights and weekends, because that's how I've had to roll.

Now that Jobsite is my only job (according to Facebook anyway), I've been spending my time working on grants as well as trying to find other random odd-jobs and contract-based work I can do to keep up with my mortgage and bills.

Jobsite has been earnestly researching and applying for grants going on two years now. The first was through the state, and we never even got so much as a "thanks for trying" email in return.

That was odd. Even to our grant writer.

The second made it all the way to final adjudication. We knew it was down to 5 in our category and we even knew who the panelists were. We were thrilled. Then there were sweeping budget changes and monies already set aside for the arts was recalled to go to other places someone else thought was more critical.

This week alone I've applied for three grants. One was already dried up by the time I got the app in, but I couldn't have guessed that since the website was out of date. After filling everything out I called to ask about a form that was missing, and that's how I got the news. Apparently they didn't even know the website was out of date.

The second also had an out of date form online. I'd similarly been working on this grant all week when I had to call in and ask about the form. Similar story - the budget is unclear and the deadline will at least be a month after what they expected it to be and when they know more they'll send something out.

Wow.

My introduction to grantwriting has been exceedingly frustrating, to put it mildly.

I interned at the Hippodrome up in Gainesville during those glorious Clinton years when the arts were funded way better AND there was an enormous budget surplus. I know what kind of money they were getting and how many grants were going out the door there on an ongoing basis. Now I sit around and scratch my head as to where all that went, and if we'll ever see it again.

We've barely squeezed by now for 10 years with the money we have. Barely. We do a great job with what we do in the face of a lack of money, don't get me wrong, but we're like McGyver - fixing stuff with duct tape, WD-40 and a paper clip. I constantly tell my board we have to stretch if we want to grow. That we have to create and show the need in order to get the funding. I've been told over and over that if it looks like you're getting by ok with no money, despite how little people are being compensated, that you won't get anything. I thought that backwards - surely not having anything but showing responsibility and merit has to be better than way overspending what you have and being up to your eyes in debt?

So we've been stretching, reaching, when it comes to finances. We've added a small salary, we've increased our payout to artists, we've budgeted a lot more aggressively to show all this need. It's been almost two years now and we've still yet to see a dime come back. This really just adds to my frustration.

I hate worrying about money. I hate not having it. I hate not being able to pay my artists what they are worth. But it seems to be where we often start and where we always finish.

After a crazy-good start to this season between our first few shows, the past few have not done what they should have done at the box office, despite the sensational coverage and outstanding reviews. Despite pleading. Despite best efforts and good old fashioned hump busting.

I know, I know, the first thing anyone will say is that it's the economy. I'm not so sure, but maybe that's just me being cynical.

Whatever is going on we as a company have to find a way around it. The budgets are set and in motion for the remainder of this season - which is luckily just the one show, Pericles. I've already budgeted quite a bit more conservatively for next season. I've had to, I'm not happy about it. I don't really have so much faith that the money is going to be there from corporate or government support, despite how hard we try, to make up where the ticket office falls flat.

Which just leads me back to how we've made it this far - regular folks like yourself. The people that buy tickets to our shows, who send us an occassional check or PayPal us a little something here and there. You can honestly take credit for keeping a theater company on their feet and kicking it for 10 solid years. It shows the power of what regular people can do. We get enough of those regular people and it possibly even trivializes what we're not getting from corporate America or the government.

If we never say it enough - cut this out and put it in your pocket: we owe everything to you. Without you, and without these artists who come back to us again and again, there is no Jobsite.

Just imagine what we could do if we could get those other funding sources to step up though. It keeps me up at night. We're going to keep working them and we hope, if you ever had the chance to go to bat for us, that you'd do the same.

There's another post brewing in me about Pericles, about how it's the finale of this 10th anniversary season and how we want this to be a rockin' tribute to this great run we've had so far. We hope everyone, despite how long maybe it's been since you've seen a show or how broke you might be, will come out and join us. If you're in a real bind we're offering $5 tickets to our preview at 8pm on Wed., Aug. 5. Use promo code BROKE.

Are you ready for this?

Never heard of The Hornrims? (What? You missed their rousing covers of For What It's Worth and Fortunate Son in Embedded??) Still watching Power Rangers when Popp left Tampa in 2000? Here's the video of The Hornrims first single, Holland.

Two fists full of pure rock. The writers from The March of the Kitefliers. A story pirated from Shakespeare (who pirated it anyway). It's not too good to be true, it's just the grand finale to Jobsite's 10th season - Pericles!