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Sweet Storm had a good run when it premiered off Broadway in 2009, and now the play is being staged at Gorilla Theatre, which is only appropriate since it was developed in part in the Tampa theater's reading series. Author Scott Hudson is an actor and playwright with ties to the bay area.
The play is set in Lithia Springs during Hurricane Donna in 1960. "I used to hear about Hurricane Donna when I was a kid,'' says Hudson, who grew up in Valrico and went to Brandon High School and Florida State University. "It caused a lot of destruction in Florida.''
Sweet Storm "feels like nothing so much as a staged Flannery O'Connor short story, with the play's deeply religious newlyweds trying to iron out marriage's inconveniences in a tree house,'' Variety reviewer Sam Thielman wrote of the debut production by LAByrinth Theater Company. "The script is remarkably controlled without feeling slick.''
The Gorilla staging, directed by James Rayfield, stars Heather Atkinson and Chris Jackson.
Sweet Storm opens at 7 tonight and runs through March 20 at the theater, 4419 N Hubert Ave., Tampa. 7 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday. $15-$25, with student tickets for $10 a half-hour before curtain. Pay what you can at 7 p.m. March 9 and 16. There will be a talk-back with playwright Hudson after the Saturday night performance. (813) 879-2914; gorillatheatre. com.
John Fleming, Times performing arts critic
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