Just because the Straz stages are on intermission during the COVID-19 pandemic, doesn’t mean our Opera Tampa singers are home resting on their laurels – well, not all of the time. About a month ago we caught up with Annie Scott, Alec Brown and Dana Clark, who also are roommates here in Tampa. Scott is... Continue Reading →
By guest blogger Suzanne Livesay, Straz Center Vice President of Education and Community Engagement Mask wearing has been a topic of conversation in the United States for almost three months and counting. A required piece of attire as we reintroduce our on-site summer camps at Patel Conservatory will be the mask. No matter how one... Continue Reading →
Guest blogger Zachary Hines (left) is a local performing artist and a member of the marketing team at The Straz. An avid theatergoer since he was a child, his greatest passion in work, and in life, is to share the joy of experiencing live performance. This week he shares his thoughts on gay pride and... Continue Reading →
All the press of late about recording stars on Broadway has been about Bruce Springsteen and David Byrne -- and for good reason. Those two shows energized audiences and possibly brought to the Great White Way an audience who might never have thought to touch foot in a Broadway theater. But Springsteen and Byrne were... Continue Reading →
One Patel Conservatory theater instructor’s journey to the big time in the big top and how realizing his dream helps students reach theirs. Just a few years back, Patel Conservatory theater faculty member Matthew Belopavlovich stood stranded atop a 25-foot tower while a handful of clowns, dressed as knights, circled beneath, trying to figure out... Continue Reading →
Editor’s Note: Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, its Straz run rescheduled due to the COVID-19 crisis from May 5-10, 2020 to July 13-18, 2021, was to be featured in the Straz Center’s publications this month. The article features Tampa DJ Ann Kelly of WDUV-105 FM, who accompanied The Straz team last year to preview the... Continue Reading →
By guest blogger Alex Stewart, Straz Center media relations manager We’re back with more feel-good movie recommendations from the Straz Center staff. Since you can’t get out of the house to see a show, we’re bringing the shows to you and your couch. We curated another list of our staff’s favorite performing arts flicks, this... Continue Reading →
The music chair at the Patel Conservatory, Dr. Lauren Murray, shows you fun, simple instructions for how to make your own instruments using household objects. Today we’re offering up an activity of note where you can conduct an experiment of symphonic proportions. We invited Lauren Murray, chamber musician extraordinaire and the music chair of the... Continue Reading →
The Straz Center’s senior writer gives you fun, simple instructions on how to write a script you can produce, direct, perform and film at home. Hello, everybody! Marlowe Moore here, the Straz Center senior writer, with a step-by-step guide for writing a script with kids from middle school to high school. You can easily adapt... Continue Reading →
Last Monday, March 9, the Straz Center said goodbye to Opera Tampa’s founding artistic director and one of the most colorful characters to grace our halls and stages. Here, we recount some of our favorite things about Maestro Anton Coppola. On March 21, 1917, Anton Coppola arrived to Italian-American parents in a country that was... Continue Reading →
Fiddler on the Roof is arguably one of the most important musicals ever staged. Let’s talk a little about this show, and then we have some Fiddler fun facts we’d love to share. The show opens here on Nov. 5. “You want us to put up how much money for a show about a Jewish... Continue Reading →
This Q&A from the cast of Hysteria sheds a little light on the renowned British troupe and will hopefully get you even more excited to see this exclusive United States debut at The Straz. How would you describe Spymonkey to a stranger? Aitor Basauri (joint artistic director, performer): Spymonkey is a unique and original form... Continue Reading →
Take the Department of Defense, Veterans Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts, The James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital and the Straz Center, add an epic effort in community engagement, and you get VetArtSpan. The year-long collaboration culminates this Friday in a free performance event in the TECO Theater featuring veterans, civilians and community leaders.... Continue Reading →
This interview, a bonus in our series on non-performing jobs in the performing arts, features one of your friendly neighborhood performing arts center IT guys, Sam Luis. Maybe you think it’s all tights, pancake makeup and “take it one more time from the top” over here, but the Straz Center relies on massive amounts of... Continue Reading →
The Americans with Disabilities Act turns 29 on Friday. We’re celebrating with a free concert in Maestro's Restaurant featuring incredibly talented local artists of mixed abilities. Let’s meet a few. On July 26, 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the world’s first comprehensive civil rights law acknowledging the right of access and inclusion for people... Continue Reading →
This interview, the second in a two-part series on non-performing jobs in the performing arts, features two of our extraordinary bartenders: Diane Jones and Suzanne Rubin. If you’ve been coming to The Straz for a few seasons, chances are you’ve found yourself face-to-face with the Straz Center’s dynamic duo of drink slingers hustling and jiving... Continue Reading →
Like peanut butter to jelly, like Siegfried to Roy, what would the performing arts be without sequins? If the performing arts were a country, the flag undoubtedly would be made of gaff tape and sequins. What material would befit the banner of our happy little nation-state more? When we think about a few American performing... Continue Reading →
And other helpful tips concerning theater etiquette We’re always finding things our guests leave behind (like shoes … how do you leave only one shoe under your seat, people? Is it when you get home that you look down and say ‘oh, I’m only wearing one shoe! Well, I don’t feel like driving back.’?). A... Continue Reading →
Sip, our new outdoor bar made from a 1966 Airstream Safari, mixes retro with metro. Wally Byam did not mean to start Airstream. What he meant to do was devise a way to go camping with his wife so she wouldn’t have to sleep on the ground in a tent. She also suggested it would... Continue Reading →
Jobsite Theater’s current offering in their record-breaking season is a work by one of the Royal Society of Literature’s designees for their “40 Under 40” initiative—and one of the most exciting young playwrights out of the box in a long time. Before she even graduated from University of Edinburgh, Lucy Kirkwood had caught the attention... Continue Reading →
