Credit: State Archives of FL/Shiver
Playwright (and erstwhile CL theater critic) Mark E. Leib made a big splash last year with “When the Righteous Triumph,” his award-winning play about the student sit-ins that integrated Tampa lunch counters in the 1960s.
Now, with “The House in Hyde Park,” he’s delving into another significant chapter in the city’s history: the experience of Jewish businesses in Ybor in the 1920s.
Their customers represented a cross-section of Ybor’s polyglot populace, but they were also operating amidst widespread gambling and prostitution. Would moving to the city’s most exclusive neighborhood sacrifice tradition for assimilation?
Full disclosure: This writer was in “Triumph,” and he’ll also be in the reading of “Hyde Park” (pays to have been the playwright’s editor, I guess). There will be an audience talkback after the reading.
This article appears in July 09 – 15, 2026.
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