‘Dr. Ride’s American Beach House’ leads Jobsite’s 24th season

Liza Birkenmeier didn’t intend to write a play about Dr. Sally Ride, the American astronaut who in 1983 became the nation’s first female in space. While her posthumous outing in 2012 had long captivated the LGBTQ author, she’d originally set her sights on Sir Francis Bacon.

The English philosopher developed the scientific method, which has characterized natural science since the 17th century with its use of observation and experimentation. Birkenmeier wanted to critique it for the stage.

“I wanted to write a play that spanned hundreds of years and generations, which was incredibly impossible and fun to do,” she says. “In the middle of it was a scene that was clearly the most emotionally exciting, and it was between a few women on a roof in the 1980s.”

Drawn to the characters, Birkenmeier penned a new draft to tell their tale. It became more than an hour long and “the whole play,” she says, but didn’t include Dr. Ride just yet.

“I had chosen a date fairly arbitrarily in 1983 for that scene, and when I was working on further drafts, I was looking into what was going on at the time,” Birkenmeier explains. “The date I had picked was the night before Dr. Ride’s launch on the Challenger mission.”

Ride made history on June 18, 1983, just five years after joining NASA’s first class to accept women. The astronaut’s gender captivated Americans from the outset of her career, reaching new heights with the space shuttle’s takeoff.

“When I realized I had accidentally chosen the date, it made perfect sense to just go in with my whole curiosity and heart in connecting those stories,” Birkenmeier says. “It started without Sally Ride, but the story that it now tells is absolutely dependent upon her.”

The work ultimately became “Dr. Ride’s American Beach House,” which leads the 24th season of Jobsite Theater, the resident theater company at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts. After previews Sept. 29-30, it plays Oct. 1-10 in the Jaeb Theater.

“It’s 1983 – the evening before Dr. Sally Ride’s historic space flight. A group of women friends gather on a sweltering St. Louis rooftop, each caught in their own failure-to-launch,” its synopsis reads. “This enticing juxtaposition thrusts the women into the space of their uncharted desires where they bump against American norms of sex and power in this intimate snapshot of queer anti-heroines.”

Birkenmeier developed the play at Ars Nova, where she served as the 2019-20 Tow Playwright-in-Residence. The New York organization “exists to discover, develop and launch singular theater, music and comedy artists in the early stages of their professional careers.”

“I started with their writers’ group and had an immediate feeling of artistic belonging there,” Birkenmeier says. “Writing and working on ‘Dr. Ride’s’ was one of the most important processes I’ve ever had – we weren’t developing it until maybe 2017, but I was in a giant collaboration with them on the piece from 2014 through 2019.”

The partnership paid off. Following that year’s premiere of “Dr. Ride’s,” The New York Times called it “a revelation.” The production soon caught the eye of thespians across the nation, including at Jobsite.

Dedicated to producing relevant theater since its inception, the company has presented new and overlooked works on its stages for more than two decades. “Dr. Ride’s” is the perfect fit to continue Jobsite’s tradition.

“For me, this play has a lot to say about disappointment, repression, and living authentically – all universal experiences,” says Producing Artistic Director David M. Jenkins, one of company’s co-founders. “While we may be more accepting of certain identities than we were in 1983 … we can all relate to a ‘failure to launch’ in some aspect of our lives and feel society’s pressures to live cleanly in a tidy box.

“Nothing is ever really tidy,” he continues. “Even while Dr. Sally Ride was hailed a hero as the first American woman in space, her sexuality and much of her personal life were kept well-guarded secrets until she named her partner in her obituary … Liza has done a remarkable job in capturing not only a group of friends but a very particular moment in time.”

Roxane Fay leads Jobsite’s production, which is the first time “Dr. Ride’s” has been produced outside of its original staging. It will mark the celebrated actor and playwright’s directorial debut for the company, for which she also serves as an artistic associate and board member.

“I’m happy to see strong women viewed from their own perspectives rather than through a male filter,” Fay says. “Though these women all have personal power, they are in varied stages of realizing that power and their side-by-side journey shows us a complete experience – both bold and intimate.”

The director also notes that she’s proud to be joined by a company of female actors and designers who regularly work with Jobsite. The cast includes Tampa Bay fan favorites Emily Belvo as Matilda, Leah Loschiavo as Harriet, Andresia Moseley as Norma and Susan Haldeman as Meg, all written as LGBTQ women.

It was an ideal fit for Haldeman, who makes her Jobsite debut with the production.

“I love doing shows with all women,” the actor says. “There is just an inherent energy and unspoken understanding of one another that women share and is apparent onstage. As a director, Roxanne really understands this and handles it beautifully in the world of the play.

“As a gay woman, it’s exciting to get to perform in a show that has a lesbian theme,” Haldeman continues. “I rarely see plays that reflect any part of my actual journey. It’s important for gay women to be able to see themselves and their friends mirrored onstage.”

Fay agrees. The director is proud to offer “such a positive experience to our LGBTQ+ audience” and celebrates that Jobsite “has a history of shows that allow so many of us who are sometimes considered ‘other’ to see ourselves onstage.”

Birkenmeier says that pairing LGBTQ life in 1983 with Dr. Ride’s journey as a historic but closeted woman makes for important commentary. It was only 2012 when she was outed in her obituary.

“Sally Ride lets us imagine a world that is within most people’s lifetimes,” she says. “One in which a woman could be a star tennis player, a physicist, go to space and later be a critical part of the research team on the destroyed Challenger after it exploded in 1986 … but not be able to come out in one’s own lifetime.

“It was more possible for a young woman to go to space in 1983 than it was for an accomplished scientist to be out,” she stresses. “The drama of that feels so obvious, and not just tragic but also fascinating. Maybe we’re more confined by our social laws than we are our physical ones.”

While that isn’t something “Dr. Ride’s” overtly examines, it can’t help but be a part. Birkenmeier hopes that audiences, especially those who are LGBTQ, “have a sense of triumph in some way, seeing in the piece both an homage to pain but also the suggestion of freedom.”

It’s also a comedy, Birkenmeier promises. “I sound so very serious, but ‘Dr. Ride’s’ is a very funny play,” she laughs. “You can go and have a really good time.”

To do so safely, audiences will be required to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test certified by a provider or a vaccination card proving they are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. Physical and electronic copies are accepted along with photo ID. Masks are also required.

“The show only runs for two weeks. This was out of necessity,” Jenkins shares. “The short run coupled with current conditions may make it a challenge for everyone to make it out to this show. I hope you’ll make the effort.”

Jobsite Theater’s production of “Dr. Ride’s American Beach House” plays Oct. 1-10 in the Straz Center’s Jaeb Theater, located at 1010 N. Macinnes Pl. in Tampa. For more information and to purchase tickets, call 813-229-7827 or visit JobsiteTheater.org.

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