Weekend spotlight: Seven plays on seven stages
The bay area’s always-humming pro theater scene is operating on high voltage this weekend, with no less than seven shows on stages in St. Petersburg and Tampa.
American Stage’s latest mainstage production, in its second weekend, is This Girl Laughs, This Girl Cries, This Girl Does Nothing, by Finegan Kruckemeyer, a “fairy tale” about three sisters who follow divergent paths to “find their way in the world.” Find info and tickets at this link.
The Beyond the Stage series, also from American Stage, is producing Anthony Gervais’ Don’t Feed the Animals twice daily, Thursdays through Sundays, on the hiking trails at Boyd Hill Nature Preserve. Read the Catalyst feature about this wacky woodland comedy here.
At the USF Theatre Center, the Tampa Repertory Theatre is launching a reprise of the one-man show Every Brilliant Thing, with the ever-brilliant Ned Averill Snell as (in the beginning) a 7-year-old boy trying to convince his chronically depressed mother why there are reasons to stay alive and rejoice in this world. Find details and tickets at this link.
At the Off-Central: Michael Gregory and Debbie Yones in “Two Across.” Photo: Ward Smith.
Two Across, opening at the Off-Central, is a comedy about two people (Debbie Yones and Michael Gregory) who both happen to be doing the New York Times crossword in the middle of the night aboard an otherwise-empty San Francisco commuter train. Find details and tickets at this link.
Yones is Friday’s guest on our Arts Alive! podcast.
Jobsite Theater’s annual full-tilt Shakespeare production, Macbeth, continues through Feb. 9 at the Jaeb Theatre, inside the David A. Straz Center for the Performing Arts. Find details and tickets at this link.
At Morsani Hall in the Straz Center, the national tour of Mamma Mia! continues, with shows through Sunday. Tickets and showtimes are here.
A touring production of The Addams Family has a one-nighter, tonight, at Ruth Eckerd Hall. Find tickets here.
The classics
The Florida Orchestra picks up its intimate Soundwaves concert series with Chelsea Gallo conducting a program called Enchanted Stories: Friday at the Church of the Ascension, Clearwater; Saturday at the Tampa Theatre; Sunday (2 p.m. matinee) at the Palladium Theater’s Hough Hall. Titles include Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite, Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and more. Find info and tickets at this link.
Opera Tampa says hello to 2025 with performances Friday (8 p.m.) and Sunday (2 p.m.) of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide, at Ferguson Hall in the Straz Center. The Florida Orchestra, conducted by Michael Francis, provides the music. Find info and tickets at this link.
Riverdance returns
In residence through Sunday at the Mahaffey Theater is the 30th anniversary tour of Riverdance, the original all-Irish dancing, singing and music-making extravaganza. For all showtimes, tickets and more, visit this link.
Concerts
Celebrating the 25th anniversary of her landmark album Drag Queens in Limousines, singer/songwriter Mary Gauthier is at the Safety Harbor Art and Music Center Friday. Info and tickets are here.
Pianist Jim Brickman is in concert Friday at the Capitol Theatre. Tickets are here.
Christian music performer Toby Mac headlines a multi-artist concert Friday at Amalie Arena. Tickets are here.
Rachel Z. Publicity photo.
Friday at the Palladium Theater Side Door: Jazz with pianist Rachel Z and her group – Omar Hakim (drums) and Jonathan Toscano (bass). Two-time Grammy winner Rachel Carmel Hakim (she and Omar are married) was called by the Guardian “an improviser whose spontaneous playing is by no means eclipsed by the work of presiding geniuses such as Herbie Hancock and McCoy Tyner.” Tickets are at this link.
Also on Friday: A Ruth Eckerd Hall screening of the 1987 film Dirty Dancing, with a live band and vocalists performing every song as it comes along on the soundtrack. Oh Baby. Find tickets here.
Kansas (original members: 2; the drummer and lead guitarist) will perform Sunday at the Seminole Hard Rock Event Center. Tickets are here.
Your Weekend Spotlight appears every Thursday in the Catalyst’s CREATE section.
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