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Weekend forecast: What’s up in entertainment and the arts
Twenty-four-year-old YouTube sensation Robin Daniel Skinner, better known as the singer/songwriter Cavetown (“Boys Will Be Bugs”), is Friday’s Rise Up St. Pete concert series headliner at the St. Pete Pier.
The 5 p.m. show, at Spa Beach, will also feature Ricky Montgomery and Addison Grace.
Cavetown’s latest Spotify numbers: 6.7 million monthly streams.
Saturday’s hip hop Pier concert, also starting at 5 p.m., features rapper G-Eazy, Phony PPL and Tampa’s Pusha Preme.
All Rise Up St Pete tickets are here.
TFO shows
The Florida Orchestra, meanwhile, is firing on all cylinders this weekend, spreading the ol’ holiday cheer like mint jelly. TFO Holiday Brass concerts take place at Clearwater’s Church of the Ascension (tonight at 7:30), at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Tampa Theatre, and at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Palladium Theater.
Michael Francis conducts the orchestra for the annual performances of Handel’s Messiah, with the estimable Master Chorale of Tampa Bay, Friday (8 p.m.) in Morsani Hall, at the Straz Center, and Saturday (8 p.m.) at the Mahaffey Theater.
Former Boston Pops guest conductor Bruce Hangen will handle things for the annual TFO Holiday Pops concerts: Friday at 8 p.m., Morsani Hall; Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m., Mahaffey Theater; Sunday at 2 and 7:30 p.m., Ruth Eckerd Hall.
Find tickets for The Florida Orchestra, all shows, here.
Melissa Misener and David Warner in “Scrooge MacBeth.” Photo: Stage Photography of Tampa.
On theater stages
Less than nine months after it played Ruth Eckerd Hall, the touring musical On Your Feet: The Emilio & Gloria Estevez Story sets down at the Mahaffey Theater tonight and Friday (7:30 p.m. showtime both days). Find tickets here.
In what must be the longest scheduled run in bay area history, the touring “pub” musical The Choir of Man has been in residence in the Jaeb Theatre – inside Tampa’s David A. Straz Center – since Oct. 3. This Sunday (Dec. 10) the cast will fill them pint glasses and sing them tunes for the last time. Tickets.
New this week is the Christmas comedy Scrooge MacBeth at the Off-Central in St. Petersburg. David MacGregor’s play is about a desperate community theater group forced – thanks to an untimely outbreak of food poisoning – to concoct, on the spot, a feel-good holiday production that combines Christmas and Shakespeare. Tickets.
Two other ongoing productions blend merriment, music and Christmastime comedy. They are Miracle on 34th Street – A Live musical Radio Play at St. Pete’s freeFall Theatre (tickets) and Stageworks’ (in Tampa) The Great Christmas Cookie Bake-Off! (tickets).
The drama acts of faith continues at American Stage. Here’s a story about the show.
For adult-sized laughs, the Dirty John’s sketch comedy ensemble is at thestudio@620 in St. Pete tonight, Friday and Saturday with Dirty John’s Jingle Balls. All shows at 8. Tickets.
Comedy
All four of these shows happen in Tampa.
Sam Morril performs at the Tampa Theatre tonight at 7. Tickets are here.
At Amalie Arena, it’s Nate Bargatze, the new kid on the block whose streaming specials (The Tennessee Kid, The Greatest Average American and Hello World) have been extremely well-received, is at Amalie Arena; Bargatze hosted the Saturday Night Live Halloween episode this year. There are performances at 3 and 7 p.m. Saturday (tickets are here).
Eddie (Undercover Brother) Griffin plays Ferguson Hall, inside the David A. Straz Center, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday (tickets); in the same building, at 8 p.m. Saturday but in neighboring Morsani Hall, is Nurse Blake, a.k.a. comic Blake Lynch (tickets).
More concerts
Tonight at freeFall Theatre, Tampa singer/actor Deejay Young (who toured America in the cast of Hamilton) is back for a hometown holiday show. Tickets for the 7 p.m. show can be found here. At press time, very few tickets remained.
Bay area jazz guitarist Nate Najar and company play the Palladium Theater tonight. It’s Najar’s 17th annual “Jazz Holiday” show; details are in this story.
More jazz: Guitarist Peter White is at the Capitol Theater tonight for his annual Christmas show, featuring saxophonists Mindi Abair (a St. Pete native) and Vincent Ingala. Tickets.
Roosevelt Collier and band play Jannus Live Friday. Publicity photo.
Steel guitar kingpin Roosevelt Collier is at Jannus Live Friday; he and his swampy band will be paying tribute to both Jimi Hendrix and the Allman Brothers Band. Tickets.
The Outlaws (with Tampa’s Henry Paul still out front) are at the Capitol Theatre Friday and Saturday for the annual “Yuletide Jam” concerts. Support this year is by the Artimus Pyle Band; he’s the last surviving member of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “classic” lineup. Tickets.
Bay area resident Joey “Peppermint Twist” Dee is part of Bowzer’s Holiday Rock ‘n’ Roll Party, a nostalgic musical mystery tour, Friday at Ruth Eckerd Hall. Peter Noone, of Herman’s Hermits fame, is also on the bill, along with a mini-reunion of Sha Na Na (with Henry Gross, Johnny Contardo and Jon “Bowzer” Bauman) and Jay Siegel’s Tokens. Find tickets here.
Friday brings country music’s Rhett Atkins to the Seminole Hard Rock Event Center. Find tickets here.
Blues guitarist Albert Castiglia plays Safety Harbor Art and Music Center Saturday. Tickets.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarist Andy Summers, late of the Police, plays the Capitol Theatre Sunday. It’s a solo show combining music, memories and photography. We spoke with Andy earlier this week (at this link).
Three Dog Night (original members: 1 singer, 1 guitar player) and Firefall play Ruth Eckerd Hall Sunday. Tickets.
The Weekend Forecast appears every Thursday in the Catalyst.
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