Straz Center is bringing you an evening of illusion and sleight-of-hand, one where a magician might just lay their cards on the table. Your table. Your table, one of 12 at The Magicians Table, will seat a dozen guests at a celebration of life. The honoree is Dieter Roterberg, famed carnival owner and magician. Jaeb... Continue Reading →
There’s an old saying about acting: Drama is easy, comedy is hard. If that’s true, it must be doubly hard if the comedy is a ballet. Comedy is hard for dancers as well as actors, concedes Gabriella Yudenich, principal faculty for Next Generation Ballet®. However, she adds, “It’s fun because we don’t have too many... Continue Reading →
An Exclusive from INSIDE Magazine Do you know the first-time rock ’n’ roll was on Broadway? Easy. Mott the Hoople played six shows in the Uris (now The Gershwin) Theatre May 7-11, 1974. Queen opened. The first time rock ’n’ roll was on Broadway? As a musical style considered wholly legit by theater audiences and professionals?... Continue Reading →
Take a walk down West Fortune Street in Tampa, in front of the Barrymore Hotel. You’ll encounter a figure cast in bronze, stationary, but with an expression so focused and a gait so purposeful you half expect him to blow right past you. "Lennon Walking Into the Future” the statue is called, and it portrays,... Continue Reading →
That buzz of anticipation you’ve been feeling recently will peak Saturday, April 18. We’re speaking, of course, about National Harmonica Day, a day set aside for us to celebrate, contemplate and participate with this small instrument and its big sound. Unlike most musical instruments, the harmonica is small. In fact, it’s compact enough to fit... Continue Reading →
Congratulations, millennials. Your past has become nostalgia. Case in point: High School Musical turns 20 this year. Those fictional East High students now are in their mid-30s with careers, mortgages and kids of their own, as are many of the Disney Channel movie’s real-life fans. Case in point: Natasha Herrera Brown, Straz’s media relations manager,... Continue Reading →
TASTE at Straz Center returns April 18, turning our campus into a gourmand’s theme park. Tampa Bay’s top chefs will be on hand to serve you bites of delight while mixologists conjure new cocktails and craft beers to quench your thirst. Several bands will be playing throughout the evening as well. https://youtu.be/2o2TAhwE30g TASTE is Tampa’s... Continue Reading →
According to researchers, John Gay’s 1728 work The Beggar’s Opera can lay claim to being the first jukebox musical. https://youtu.be/Lq7g_NRKHU0?si=zwCJdljRyI-9qC8w The opera contained musical and lyrical references to songs with which its audience would be familiar – songs from other operas, folk songs, popular numbers, all treated with greater or lesser degrees of derision. The... Continue Reading →
There is something inherently beautiful about human beings making music together. Differences and divisions dissolve in the warm glow of musical camaraderie. It follows then that gathering 15 grown-ups to play an instrument most people haven’t touched since elementary school is a noble effort. Further, getting that group to play the beloved traditional folk number,... Continue Reading →
Director Steven Spielberg’s Jaws was a smash hit and the movie that made him Hollywood royalty. Making the movie, though, was a royal pain. Filming on Martha’s Vineyard put cast and crew at the mercy of the weather. Filming on the ocean, as Spielberg insisted on doing, revealed all the reasons no one ever films... Continue Reading →
AN EXCLUSIVE FROM INSIDE MAGAZINE Darci Lynne has forever shattered ventriloquism’s glass ceiling. Beginning with an astounding turn on America’s Got Talent when she was 12, Darci has become a nationally-known entertainer and has introduced ventriloquism to a new generation. Performing with a puppet helped Darci overcome her shyness and express her love of performing.... Continue Reading →
What can you say about a performer who willingly takes on 23 roles in a one-person show? If you replied, “probably the same sort of performer who would run a marathon followed with a stand-up comedy set, every day for a month” that would be oddly specific. But you’d be correct. Eddie Izzard ’s acclaimed... Continue Reading →
Batsu means “punishment” in Japanese. That will come as no surprise to anyone who has witnessed BATSU! in which comedians compete to avoid punishment. How hard will they try to avoid punishment? Well, punishments dished out can include but are not limited to: Being shot with a paintball gun Electrical shocks Plunging a hand into... Continue Reading →
Queen of the Night (Disambiguation) Queen of the Night may refer to: “Queen of the Night,” Whitney Houston jam with Living Colour’s Vernon Reid on lead guitar; from The Bodyguard (Original Soundtrack Album) Queen of the Night, villain in Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute. Her aria in the second act has become known as the... Continue Reading →
An Exclusive from INSIDE magazine Listening to jazz vocalist Samara Joy sing, it’s a struggle to equate her voice and her age. Samara, who turned 26 in November, sings with the authority of someone twice her age – and with twice her experience. Her voice has a depth and richness of tone that ordinarily comes... Continue Reading →
The 2026 Grammy Awards served as a significant turning point to how global artists are represented on the biggest stage in music. While the night delivered its usual mix of big performances, polished speeches and celebrity moments what truly stood out was how clearly the spotlight shifted toward artists and communities that have historically been... Continue Reading →
An Exclusive from INSIDE magazine Opera Tampa turns 30 this year and it’s definitely making the most of it. Its expanded season features four works instead of the usual three. Plus, there was a preseason production of Tom Sivak’s very darkly humorous Love v. Death, a two-part chamber opera about, well, love and death. Part One of... Continue Reading →
Bob Dylan’s 2006 album, Modern Times, kicked off with a track called “Thunder on the Mountain” which contains these lines: I was thinkin’ ‘bout Alicia Keys, couldn't keep from cryingWhen she was born in Hell's Kitchen, I was living down the lineI'm wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could beI been looking for her... Continue Reading →
The name Blue Man Group tells you who you’ll see – three men with skin painted blue – but doesn’t tell you what you’ll see, which would require a much longer name. Art, music, comedy and non-verbal communication are among the tools the cerulean trio use in a performance that celebrates connections with people and... Continue Reading →
Were there a Grammy® for least likely musical pairings, an April 2025 performance by Renée Fleming would be a strong contender. Renée Fleming, American soprano and actress Fleming, a soprano who is one of the best-known names in opera, sang with Dead and Company one evening during the band’s residency at Las Vegas’ The Sphere.... Continue Reading →