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Looking forward: The month of March in the arts
Let’s all say this at the same time: “How can it be March already?”
Moving on with our advance peek at what’s going on in entertainment and the arts in this third month of 2025: It’ll come in like a lion – and go out like a lion. There’s wall-to-wall good stuff here for all of us to enjoy.
Rock legend Sting, making his fourth bay area appearance since 2017, performs with reggae artist Shaggy at the annual Reggae Rise Up Festival, March 13 in Vinoy Park.
The English singer/songwriter and the Jamaica-born Shaggy are frequent collaborators, and released the duo album 44/876 in 2018. They subsequently toured the world together, and their joint project took the Grammy for Best Reggae Album.
Sting produced Shaggy’s 2022 album Come Fly wid Mi, featuring reggae interpretations of songs made popular by Frank Sinatra.
The two have a new single and video out, “Til A Mawnin.”
They’re headlining Thursday, March 13, and other acts on the marquee for the four-day event include Stephen Marley, Soja, Revolution, Slightly Stoopid, Iration and Lettuce.
Theater in March
A touring production of The Book of Mormon stops in for a one-nighter (March 6) at Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater.
The Pillowman, a dark and dystopian tale from playwright Martin (The Banshees of Inishirin) McDonagh, is at Jobsite Theater (Tampa) March 12 through April 6.
The Off-Central, St. Pete’s intimate black box theater, stages the dark comedy Moring After Grace, by Cary Crim, March 6-16.
Stageworks Theatre in Tampa is re-mounting bay area scribe Mark E. Leib’s When the Righteous Triumph, a drama about Tampa’s participation in the 1960s civil rights battle over lunch counter access, March 6-16.
Opening March 26, outdoors in Demens Landing Park, St. Pete, is American Stage’s take on the classic ‘60s musical Hair. It will run through April 27.
Tampa’s LAB Theatre Company, which only does plays that have not been previously produced, continues the season with Trust Me, a drama by Paula Fell, March 13-30.
The percussive song-and dance musical Stomp is at Ruth Eckerd March 25 and 26, with Mean Girls the Musical following suit for a one-nighter March 27.
Jobsite’s “The Pillowman” (opening March 12) features Troy Padraic Brooks, left, and Georgia Mallory Guy. Image: Stage Photography of Tampa.
The classics
There’s opera on both sides of the bay in March. St. Pete Opera has its first English language musical theater (ie non-opera production) in several years with Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music March 7, 9 and 11 at the Palladium Theater; for Opera Tampa, it’s Donizetti’s Don Pasquale (in Italian), March 7 and 8 in the Straz Center’s Ferguson Hall.
At the Palladium Theater March 20: Violins of Hope, with musicians (a double string quartet) from The Florida Orchestra performing on Holocaust-era violins, violas and cellos that survived concentration camps. The instruments were restored by Israeli violinmakers Amnon and Avshalom (Avshi) Weinstein; the latter will attend a pre-concert reception. The event is sponsored by the Florida Holocaust Museum.
Speaking of The Florida Orchestra, check out a screening of Harry Potter and the Deadly Hollows, Part 1, with live orchestral accompaniment, March 7 and 8 at the Straz Center’s Morsani Hall. Other concerts this month include Beethoven’s Violin Concerto (March 14, Morsani Hall; March 15, Mahaffey Theater; March 16, Ruth Eckerd Hall); Blockbuster Broadway (matinee), March 23, Morsani Hall; and on March 30: Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, co-billed with Guillaume Connesson’s A Kind of Trane Saxophone Concerto, at Ruth Eckerd Hall.
Concert calendar
March 5 and 6. Jazz from crossover kings Spyro Gyra and guitarist Lee Ritenour, Capitol Theatre.
March 7: Comedian Shane Gills at Amalie Arena.
March 7: State Ballet of Ukraine Sleeping Beauty, Mahaffey Theater.
March 8: Dropkick Murphys at the BayCare Sound.
March 8: Comedian Lewis Black at Ruth Eckerd Hall.
March 8: Byrds founder Roger McGuinn at the Capitol Theatre.
March 9: R&B legend Gladys Knight at the Seminole Hard Rock Event Center.
March 9: Righteous Brothers at Ruth Eckerd Hall.
March 10: Il Volo at Ruth Eckerd Hall.
March 12: ZZ Top at Seminole Hard Rock Event Center.
March 13: Rock/blues guitarist Gary Clark Jr. at Seminole Hard Rock Event Center.
March 14: Country music veteran Larry Gatlin at the Central Park Performing Arts Center.
March 15: Comedian Larry the Cable Guy at the Capitol Theatre.
March 16: Diana Ross at the BayCare Sound.
March 17: Folk music’s Kingston Trio at the Central Park Performing Arts Center.
March 20: Comedian/actor Jon Lovitz at the Capitol Theatre.
March 23 Comedian and radio host Rickey Smiley at the Seminole Hard Rock Event Center.
March 28: Comedian 28 Iliza Shlesinger at the Seminole Hard Rock Event Center.
March 28: Phish frontman Trey Anastasio at Ruth Eckerd Hall.
March 28: Southern rock singer/songwriter Randall Bramblett at the Palladium Side Door.
March 29: Little River Band at BayCare Sound.
Visual arts
Opening March 8 at the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg, Kimono: The Triumph of Japanese Dress includes more than 150 objects, including kimono dating from the late Edo period (1603–1867) through the Shōwa era (1926–1989). The month will also bring ancillary events including art-making workshops, author talks and a musical performance with Shiho Yamashita playing the koto, a traditional Japanese stringed instrument (that’s March 16 in the Marly Music Room).
Websites
Central Park Performing Arts Center
New Tampa Performing Arts Center
Seminole Hard Rock Event Center
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