Arts Alive! podcast: Paul Wilborn

Paul Wilborn has been the executive director of St. Petersburg’s Palladium Theater since 2007. He is also a novelist, a musician, an actor and an emcee. Most people, if they haven’t met him, they’ve seen him on a stage somewhere.

In his first Arts Alive! interview in nearly a year, Wilborn covers a lot of ground, including the framework for his upcoming second novel, set in Tampa and based, at least loosely, on historical facts and characters.

The Palladium, however, takes up most of our conversation. Wilborn discusses the early days, when St. Petersburg College took over operations of the one-time Christian Science church, to the ongoing capital campaign to pay for long-desired renovations and improvements to the facility.

Following this weekend’s St. Petersburg Opera Company holiday performances, the Palladium will shut down, not to return until the new year (Jan. 4, to be precise). And so we talk in detail about the theater’s typically diverse lineup for the first month of 2024.

Click on the arrow to listen to the interview.