Tampa Repertory Theatre’s next season announced

The 2024-25 season for Tampa Repertory Theatre, created in 2011 with the stated goal of bringing classic American drama to bay area stages, has been announced.

The plural “stages” is the correct word, for Tampa Rep – despite its track record of top-drawer productions – does not have a fixed home. As with previous seasons, therefore, the plays for 24-25 will be spread over several venues in Tampa.

For the first time ever, the company will perform at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts.

Planned for Dec. 5-22 at the Shimberg Playhouse, the black box space in the Straz Center, is It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, Joe Landry’s adaptation of the classic 1946 Frank Capra Christmas film. “Actors,” played by actors, appear as George Bailey, Uncle Billy, Mr. Potter and the rest “telling” the story in front of old-timey microphones as if it’s a live, circa 1940s, radio drama..

The next production, Jan. 30-Feb. 9 at TAR 120 Theatre, at the USF Theatre Centre on the University of South Florida Tampa campus, is a revival of Tampa Rep’s 2021 take on Every Brilliant Thing, a one-man show starting when the man in question is just 6 years old – he’s dealing with some heavy family issues, and as he grows, his reflections on these and other important questions change and evolve.

Starring in the 2025 version of the Duncan MacMillan/Jonny Donahoe play is actor Ned Averill-Snell, who also had the role in ’21.

Averill-Snell was a co-founder of Tampa Repertory Theatre, with the late C. David Frankel (who served as artistic director until his untimely death in 2020), Connie LaMarca-Frankel and Emilia Sargent, who is the company’s current producing artistic director.

“Every Brilliant Thing, says Averill-Snell, “is such a feel-good show. It goes to some dark places, it doesn’t shy away from tough experiences, painful experiences, of the kind that have touched nearly all of our lives in one way or another. Then it finds a way through, it finds a way out, a way up, and the theater winds up bubbling in good vibes.

“The thing I remember most about Tampa Rep’s previous productions is all the smiles I saw. I’m thrilled to be doing it again.”

Every Brilliant Thing director Sargent co-stars, with Managing Artistic Producer Jim Sorensen, April 10-20 in The Bridges of Madison County. The musical, with book by Marsha Norman, music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, is an adaptation of the 1992 novel by Robert James Waller.

The Bridges of Madison County will be performed the Straz Center’s 300-seat Jaeb Theatre.

Yasmina Reza extremely dark comedy God of Carnage will wrap the season up June 5-22 in the USF TAR 120 Theatre.

Season tickets are now available at the Tampa Rep website.