‘Fangs’ a lot: Playwright Jenna Jane investigates vampires

After 13 years as a TV news investigative reporter, Jenna Jane put on the brakes and re-invented herself. Between 2019 and 2024 she’d been Jenna Bourne at 10 Tampa Bay, who did her hair and makeup every day, dressed nice for the camera and set out to change the world for the better, one story at a time.

At the same time, the news business was dramatically changing, from the top down. “I had to finally accept that my fantasy of what journalism should be was very far from what it is,” recalls Jane, who has a degree in the field from Northwestern University. “And it was going farther in the opposite direction.”

During her tenture at WTSP (10 Tampa Bay), Jane produced a documentary-style investigative YouTube series called “What’s Brewing.” Screengrab.

So began Plan B.

“When I decided to move on from the TV news industry, I was really looking at, ‘What am I passionate about? What do I want in this next chapter?’” she says. “And what I wanted was creativity and independence.”

She’d been acting in community theater shows since her little-kid days in Orlando, and continued through Jenna Bourne’s TV reporter gigs around the country. Getting paid acting jobs would be nice.

Jane installed a professional recording outfit in her home, and hung out a shingle as a voiceover artist. To date, she has narrated dozens of commercials, corporate videos and other projects that put her TV-trained dulcet tones to good use.

“It’s called voice acting for a reason,” Jane explains. “Even in corporate narration, you need to be telling a story. You need to know who you are, who you’re talking to, and why you’re saying each specific thing to them. And that’s acting.”

She also took up playwriting. A staged reading of her newest work, the vampire comedy Fangs, will take place Tuesday, Oct. 20 at the Beach Theatre.

“I don’t know that I’m allowed to say this as the writer, but it’s hilarious,” Jane laughs. “It’s a farce. But often, farces are written by men and suffer from the trope of, women have jokes made about them, they’re not the ones making the jokes. They’re the ones whose clothes are falling off.

“This is a feminist farce and you won’t miss that stuff. Turns out, women can be extremely funny while fully clothed.”

Fangs is about a guy, Steve, who’s engaged to Nora, who happens to be a vampire. But before you can say Darren and Samantha, the plot opens up to another plane. Steve has to meet the family, and they’re … odd, but not in a ‘60s sitcom kind of way.

“It’s a matriarchal society, so only female vampires can create more vampires. The male vampires still bite, they drink blood, but they can’t turn people. Only the females can.”

Nora’s “life choices” cause an uproar in the family – her desire to marry a mortal man is only part of the uneasy equation.

Jane is dedicated to turning the theatrical tables, giving women strength and the upper hand, at every opportunity.

Since the beginning of this new adventure, that’s been a guiding principle for everything she creates. Even as an actor.

“I had made a pledge to myself that I was no longer going to do any roles that involved perpetuating stereotypes or my clothes coming off,” she says. “And you’d be amazed how fewer parts I was doing – I couldn’t even audition. I’d look at the available roles and go, ‘Well, I can’t do those.’”

Her recent onstage roles have all been strong, smart women – Inez in Sartre’s No Exit at the Off-Central, Lucius in the all-female Julius Caesar at The Studio@620 and, most recently, the inventor of the first home pregnancy test in Predictor, from Powerstories Theatre.

She admits to writing constantly and compulsively. Several of her short plays have been produced around the country; one will be onstage soon in Seoul, South Korea.

Fangs is a full-length play; the director is Ivy Sunflower, who directed an earlier staged reading of Jane’s Bionic, another full-length effort.

Last February, American Stage produced a staged reading of Fangs at Green Light Cinema.

Oct. 20 at the Beach Theatre, Fangs bites a second time. “I did a major structural re-write after the February reading,” Jane explains, “and this is going to be my first time hearing that major re-write out loud. And I imagine there will be more re-writes after this.

“I have made countless changes because of feedback from audiences after staged readings. It’s really important to me.”

All signs indicate that Jenna Jane’s transformation to actor, voiceover artist and playwright is a success. Bourne again, as it were.

“Your whole life, you grow up being told you can’t make money as an artist,” she says. “I have found ways to do it, but it does require being very organized, very on top of your contracts, and submissions and auditions. I have business plans for all three sectors of my business.”

Fangs is presented at the Beach Theatre at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 20. Find tickets at this link.