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The top 10 local arts stories of 2024
When we look back, 2024 will be remembered as the Year of the Hurricanes and the Year of the Big Veto. Both events impacted residents of the bay areas in different, but still oddly similar, ways. While the effects of Hurricanes Helene and Milton were devastating to nearly everyone – indeed, we all lost something – they were immediate, and immediately obvious, while full recovery will take months, years or even longer.
Governor DeSantis, in denying every arts nonprofit in Florida the state subsidies they’d come to expect – a relatively small but essential part of their operating budgets – canceled innumerable programs that might help, inspire and/or illuminate the population.
According to a 2022 poll by the Florida Division of Arts & Culture, Florida’s arts and cultural industry generated $5.8 billion of economic activity, including $2.9 billion by nonprofit arts and culture organizations. This economic activity supports 91,270 full-time jobs and generates $3.8 billion in resident household income. Florida’s arts and cultural industry delivers $694.7 million in local, state, and federal government revenue.
The year’s top stories
Tallahassee vetoes the arts. It was the redline strike heard ‘round the world. On June 12, Florida governor Ron DeSantis removed all funding for the arts – the Cultural and Museum Grants and Cultural Facilities Grants – from the state budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year. He later said he’d vetoed the grants, $32 million worth, because he had a problem with fringe festivals, which combine cutting-edge theater, one-person shows and standup comedy. “So you’re having your tax dollars being given in grants to things like the Fringe Festival, which is like a sexual festival where they’re doing all this stuff,” he said. “How many of you think your tax dollars should go to fund that?”
There are four fringe festivals in Florida, including one in Tampa.
Nonprofit arts organizations are used to running on fumes anyway, but the total gutting of state subsidies, for the first time in history, came as a sucker punch to the Dali Museum, American Stage, The Florida Orchestra, the Dunedin Fine Arts Center, Creative Clay, Ruth Eckerd Hall, the Warehouse Arts District, Creative Pinellas, freeFall Theatre, The Studio @620, Great Explorations Children’s Museum, Imagine Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg Opera Company, Tampa Bay Symphony, Florida CraftArt, the Bill Edwards Foundation for the Arts and others on the west side of the bay.
“Yes, it’s going to affect us really badly as well – I don’t want to minimize that,” said American Stage’s Producing Artistic Director Helen R. Murray. “But I think about the landscape of St. Pete, and the Tampa Bay region, and really, all of Florida. The idea that cutting arts funding is not hurting tourism funding? It’s like you’re willfully ignoring all the data that’s out there about what arts organizations do for the local and state economy.”
In September, in an emergency move, St. Petersburg City Council reassigned $695,000 from the general fund for artists and arts organizations; the next month, the City’s annual arts grants funding was increased by $50,000 to $550,000 for Fiscal Year 2025.
The twin hurricanes. When Pinellas County took a hard hit from Hurricane Helene in late September, and a mighty clobbering from Hurricane Milton just two weeks later, the effects were disastrous. Arts groups and facilities reported destruction, flooding and loss of income as they were forced to temporarily close, clean up and rebuild from the kind of storms nobody ever really thought would come.
The Palladium Theater suffered significant water damage, as did the Gallery at Creative Pinellas. The St. Petersburg City Theatre lost part of its roof. Chris and Ryan Zubrick, owners of the Zubrick Magic Theatre, were forced to live in the downtown theater building after their Pasadena home was wrecked. The SHINE Mural Festival’s 10th anniversary paint-a-thon was postponed for a month. Since Tropicana Field lost its vinyl roof, the annual Enchant Christmas walk-through experience couldn’t happen. Concerts were canceled, theatrical performances were canceled, art events were canceled as we waited for the water to subside and for electricity to be restored county-wide.
SHINE director Jenee Priebe emerged from the “logistical nightmare” of re-scheduling visits from national and international artists will a clear resolve that the “show” must go on “I want to make sure the art community is seen and heard,” she said. “I feel like the art community has been such a pillar in St. Pete and has helped build the city into what it is, this feels like an important place to be sure we’re seen and heard as we rebuild. But of course with sensitivity to the fact that people are devastated, and this is unprecedented for our cities.”
In June, Bob Devin Jones retired from running The Studio@620. “Whatever contribution I’ve made, with an army of support and approbation, it’s been a good tenure,” he said. Photo by Bill DeYoung.
Bob Devin Jones retires. The Studio@620, the performance space, art gallery and multi-purpose arts incubator at 620 1st Avenue S., celebrated its 20th anniversary in June. And that’s when co-founder and longtime venue director Bob Devin Jones stepped down.
“I’m just happy that this Black, dazzling urbanite from Southern California came to Florida, one of the first states to secede from the Union,” Jones told us. “And I helped start an artists’ organization built on the principle that the answer is always yes.”
An actor, playwright and advocate for every form of artistic expression, Jones is erudite, witty and kind, and – after his first 20 years in St. Pete – can count his friends and admirers in the thousands. He retired, he said, so he and his longtime partner James Howell can travel and explore. Erica Sutherlin became the facility’s chief operator upon Jones’ retirement.
“To me,” Jones said, “there’s been regrets. (Singing) I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention … Because I’ve been well-met at this town. I don’t feel menaced at all. I have the phone numbers of several of the last mayors. I have the Key to the City.”
Dan Fogler (left) in the world premiere of “The Boy Who Loved Batman” at the Straz Center. Fogler has a co-starring role in the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown.” Publicity photo.
The Bat Boy saga. The Boy Who Loved Batman, destined for London’s West End and (if the stars align) Broadway, got its first test run at the Jaeb Theatre, part of the Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa. Based on the memoirs of “comic book nerd” Michael Uslan, the executive producer of every Batman film since Tim Burton started directing them in the ‘80s, the play starred – for the first two weeks of a five-week run – Tony winner Dan Fogler, who you’ll see in the new Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, plating Dylan’s fiery manager Albert Grossman.
“I love comic books, that’s how I basically learned how to read,” Fogler told us. “So I’m kindred spirits with Michael in that sense. And it’s fun to tell the story. Like Jack Nicholson is my favorite actor, and I get to tell the tale of how Michael opened up the newspaper and saw an ad for The Shining, and said “Holy shit – that’s my Joker!’ I get to tell that onstage, and if you’re a fanboy like I am it’s just super-cool.”
Declared Uslan, 73: “My story is about passion, commitment and perseverance. And how, if you get up off the damn couch and be proactive, you can take your passions in life, once you learn what they are, and take your dreams and make them come true. Whatever they are.”
Historic Beach Theatre renovations are underway. Photo: Hannah Hockman/Facebook.
Beach Theatre makeover begins. When it opened in 1940, St. Pete Beach’s historic Beach Theatre was the first air-conditioned movie house in the county. By 2012, however, the single-screen concrete building was a little long in the tooth – after years of changing management, with changing dreams, it finally closed.
And there it sat until 2021, when an investor bought it and began looking into renovation, refurbishment and revitalization. His plans didn’t materialize, and in February 2024 he sold the still-shuttered facility to Ronald and Sissy Hockman for $1 million. Serious upgrades are required to turn the 4,800-square-foot venue into something workable again.
The Hockmans’ 25-year-old daughter Hannah, who’s heavily involved in the proceedings, regularly checks in with construction reports on social media. Considerable work has been completed on the interior.
“My dad has always wanted a theater, my mom has always wanted a theater, and they just happened to have a kid who really likes theaters,” she told the Catalyst after the deed was signed over. “The Beach Theatre has always been our dream. We just never thought it would actually happen.”
In July, Hockman was asked if her dream might run out of steam before the project is completed. “A lot of people have said that,” she replied. “There’s not much for me to say, other than I know I’m going to get it done. It’s totally self-funded. We’re not asking anything from the public – other than once we’re open, hopefully a lot of people are going to be excited about it.
“We’re locals, and we’ve seen this property closed up for way too long. We’re determined to get it open.”
And the other five big stories
American Stage’s latest ends on a controversial note
Creative Pinellas names Margaret Murray its new CEO
Comedian Bert Kreischer sells out seven consecutive concerts
‘Rocky Horror’ castmates reflect on record-breaking run
The Factory’s new owner: ‘There’s so much we can do’
