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Weekend spotlight: Irish tuneage and a Shane Gillis sellout
St. Paddy’s Day won’t come ’round till March 17, but there’s already a bit of the Irish in the air this weekend.
Boston’s rough-and-tumble Celtic punk band (and good ol’ boyos they are) the Dropkick Murphys blow into Clearwater for a 7 p.m. Saturday show at the BayCare Sound amphitheater. The Menzingers and Teenage Bottlerocket open; find tickets at this link.
Sunday at the Murray Theatre, inside Ruth Eckerd Hall, it’s Dervish, a traditional Irish folk band from County Sligo. Dervish includes fiddle, accordion, flutes and whistles, bohdran, bones, bouzouki, guitar and lots of vocals.
The group’s 2019 album The Great Irish Songbook included collaborations with David Gray, Vince Gill, Steve Earle, Andrea Corr, Jamey Johnson, the Steeldrivers and others.
A full 180 from the 9,000-seat BayCare Sound, the Murray is a black box theater (that means intimate – there’s seating for just 250). Find tickets for Sunday’s 7 p.m. show at this link.
Concert calendar
Tickets to see comedian Shane Gillis’ tour-opener Friday in Tampa are sold out. Publicity photo.
Tonight at the Capitol Theatre in Clearwater: The evergreen jazz/pop band Spyro Gyra, plus a set from jazz guitarist Lee Ritenour. Find tickets at this link.
Comedian Shane Gillis, fresh off his March 1 Saturday Night Live hosting stint, opens his spring tour Friday at Amalie Arena in Tampa. Gillis, who was famously fired from the SNL cast in 2019, is a monster presence on Netflix, between the series Tires and his comedy specials. Tickets for Friday’s concert are sold out.
Ruth Eckerd Hall brings back caustic comic Lewis Black Saturday, on what he swears will be his last round of concerts (it has the clever title Goodbye Yeller Brick Road Tour). Tickets are here.
Roger McGuinn, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer who founded the Byrds, has been touring as a solo for decades. He’s at the Capitol Theatre Saturday. Tickets are at this link.
The Seminole Hard Rock Event Center (east Tampa) has Gladys Knight onstage Sunday. Tickets can be found here.
Bill Medley, the smooth-baritone of the original Righteous Brothers, is 84 but still singing and taking the RB’s on the road; since 2016, his stage partner has been tenor Bucky Heard. The “new” Righteous Brothers perform Sunday at Ruth Eckerd Hall; there’s a link for tickets in our Medley interview from earlier this week (find it here).
Sunday’s Ani DiFranco show at St. Petersburg’s Jannus Live is sold out.
St. Pete Opera’s “A Little Night Music” at the Palladium. Photo: jIm Swallow.
Opera and orchestra
It happens about as often as a solar eclipse, but this weekend, both St. Pete Opera and Opera Tampa have productions onstage. SPO is at the Palladium Theater (St. Pete) with Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music Friday night, Sunday afternoon and again Tuesday evening (March 11). And the grand opera Don Pasquale, by Donizetti, is Opera Tampa’s latest, presented Friday (8 p.m.) and Sunday (2 p.m.) in Ferguson Hall, at Tampa’s Straz Center for the Performing Arts. Both shows are performed with live orchestras. Tickets: St. Pete Opera. Tickets: Opera Tampa.
The Florida Orchestra is playing behind a screening of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1 Friday (7:30 p.m.) and Saturday (2 p.m.) in Morsini Hall, at the Straz Center. Find tickets at this link.
JC Anthony, left, Sara Nower and Larry Corwin appear in the comedy “Morning After Grace,” opening tonight at the Off-Central in St. Petersburg. Image: Stage Photography of Tampa.
On theater stages
A touring production of the irreverent musical The Book of Mormon stops at Clearwater’s Ruth Eckerd Hall tonight. Find tickets here.
Opening tonight at the Off-Central, St. Pete’s 42-seat theatrical black box, is the rather dark comedy Morning After Grace, by Carey Crim. It’s the story of what follows a hook-up (at a funeral, no less) between two strangers who aren’t … well, they aren’t as young as they used to be. It runs through March 16. Find tickets and info here.
Mark E. Leib’s When the Righteous Triumph, a history-based play set during the Civil Rights struggles in early 1960s Tampa, is onstage this weekend and next in the Jaeb Theatre, part of Tampa’s Straz Center. It’s an encore production from Stageworks Theatre. Read more in our story from earlier this week.
Onstage at freeFall Theatre, St. Pete, through March 16 is the Stephen Sondheim/John Weidman musical Road Show. Find the schedule (and tickets) here.
St. Pete Comic Con
How ’bout that Evil Ted?
Cosplay is king – or queen, as the case may be – at the 4th annual St. Pete Comic Con, Saturday and Sunday at the Coliseum. Voice actors from anime, animation and video games will be present, there’ll be a big fan marketplace, plus contests, competitions, workshops and appearances from the likes of Evil Ted (“Hollywood prop-maker and renowned YouTuber”) and family cosplayers from North Port and Miami, Florida (there’s a panel discussion called “How to Cosplay as a Family”). Get all the details, and even more than that, at the Florida Comic Cons website.
And a few others
Manatee County-based Paragon Festivals (they put on many of those massive white-tent art festivals in area parks) is introducing its very first Largo Seafood & Music Festival this weekend at Largo Central Park. It is exactly what the name implies: Food offered for sale from area restaurants, plus an arts and crafts marketplace and live performances by the Black Honkeys, 22N, Greg Billings & the Stay Up Lates, Stormbringer and other Tampa Bay favorites. Hours are 4-10 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free. Get all the pertinent details at this link.
Friday at the Mahaffey Theatre: A performance of The Sleeping Beauty by the State Ballet Theatre of Ukraine. Tickets for the 7 p.m. event are here.
Saturday brings opening day for Kimono: The Triumph of Japanese Dress at the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg, with more than 150 objects, including kimono dating from the late Edo period (1603–1867) through the Shōwa era (1926–1989).
Click on this link for more of this weekend’s visual art events.
Saturday at 7 p.m. at The Studio @620: Sunscreen Film Festival founder Tony Armer announces the films (200 of them) that will screen during the 20th annual event in April. (RSVP for Saturday’s free event here). Armer, the former St. Pete/Clearwater film commissioner, is Friday’s guest on our Arts Alive! podcast.
Berry good stuff
The Florida Strawberry Festival, in Plant City, is winding up its run for 2025 Sunday. Here are the remaining concerts (find tickets at this link).
Oak Ridge Boys. Today at 3:30 p.m.
Whiskey Myers. Today at 7:30 p.m.
Beach Boys. Friday at 3:30 p.m.
Jon Pardi. Friday at 7:30 p.m.
Sawyer Brown. Saturday at 3:30 p.m.
Nelly. Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
John Fogerty. Sunday at 7:30 p.m.
Your Weekend Spotlight appears every Thursday in the Catalyst’s CREATE section.
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