Play set in Florida during 1960's Hurricane Donna premieres Off Broadway
Scott Hudson (left), an actor and playwright with ties to the Tampa Bay area, is bringing some Florida flavor to Off Broadway. Hudson’s Sweet Storm, which premieres Wednesday and runs through July 5 at the Kirk Theatre in a co-production by the LAByrinth and Alchemy theater companies, is set in Lithia Springs during Hurricane Donna in the summer of 1960. The one-act, two-person play, starring Jamie Dunn and Eric T. Miller, is about newlyweds who spend their honeymoon in a treehouse.
“I used to hear about Hurricane Donna when I was a kid,’’ said Hudson, 42, who grew up in Valrico and went to Brandon High School. “It caused a lot of destruction in Florida.’’
If you're interested in how a new play comes about, the development of Sweet Storm is chronicled in an excellent blog by director Padraic Lillis and other members of LAByrinth. Read it here.
Hudson, a Florida State University grad and member of the LAByrinth acting company, which includes such luminaries as Philip Seymour Hoffman and Daphne Rubin-Vega, moved from New York to Gainesville about two years ago. He said Tampa’s Gorilla Theatre may have an interest in staging Sweet Storm. The set and costumes for the New York production were done by Tampa Bay designer Lea Umberger.
UPDATE: Read the New York Times review.
LAByrinth Theater Company photo
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