Weekend spotlight: Who’s on which stage, and where

Friday is opening night for country music singer/songwriter Lainey Wilson’s late-2025 Whirlwind tour, with Ernest and Drake Milligan. Tickets for the 7 p.m. show are here.

Tonight at the Tampa Theatre: British comedian Kevin Bridges. Tickets.

Jazz saxophonist Jeremy Carter and his band are at the Palladium Theater Side Door Cabaret Friday with a program called My Favorite Things; Saturday, Carter and an entirely different group of players (and an entirely different song selection) will be at the Museum of the American Arts & Crafts Movement. Here’s a Catalyst interview with Carter, from earlier this week, in which he explains just what, and who, is what. There are ticket links in the story.

Jazz pianist Markus Gottschlich – the very same Markus Gottschlich who directs the Warehouse Arts District Association – performs Friday at the Imagine Museum. Tickets for the 5 p.m. “Evening of Jazz, Classical & World Fusion” performance are at this link.

St. Pete singer and guitarist Roger Bartlett, who played for many years as second banana in Jimmy Buffett’s original Coral Reefer Band, is part of Saturday’s all-Buffett bonanza at the Palladium Theater. This group also includes Pedal steel player Doyle Grisham and vocalists Nadirah Shakoor and Tina Gullickson, who sang with the Coral Reefers for three decades. Tickets are here.

Saturday’s concert at Ruth Eckerd Hall is An Evening with Emerson, Lake & Palmer. We spoke with drummer Carl Palmer in 2024, when this extraordinary show first came through our area (read that interview here). Palmer and two other musicians play live to a high-resolution, multi-angle screening of an actual ELP concert film from 1992 – so the now-long-dead Keith Emerson and Greg Lake live (and play) again! Tickets are at this link.

Progeny alert: Bob Dylan’s son, Jakob, is onstage Saturday with the Wallflowers at the Capitol Theatre. Tickets.

Blinded by science, indeed: ’80s pop synthesizer/dance artist Thomas Dolby plays the Capitol Theatre Sunday. Dolby, by the way, Dolby leads the Peabody Institute’s Music for New Media program. Tickets.

The annual WQYK Guitar Pull rolls into the Mahaffey Theater Sunday. For this go-round, the acoustic country music performers are Chase Matthew, Josh Ross, Lauren Alaina, Shane Profitt, Kameron Marlowe, George Birge and Tucker Wetmore. Tickets.

The British singer/songwriter Sting, the artist formerly known as Gordon Sumner, has a date Monday (Nov. 10) in Tampa. His band, playing the Seminole Hard Rock Event Center, is called Sting 3.0, and as with his pioneering post-punk band the Police, it’s a power pop trio – Sting on bass and vocals, along with guitarist Dominic Miller and drummer Chris Maas. According to the concert industry trade publication Pollstar, the tour has mostly sold out across in North America, Europe, Asia and South America, and will continue into 2026 with additional global dates. At press time, less than 100 tickets remained. Find them here.

Also on Monday, Canadian rocker Bryan Adams pulls into Benchmark Arena, with an opening set from Pat Benatar and her co-billed husband, the guitarist Neil Giraldo. Tickets for that show are at this link.

The classics

Leonard Bernstein’s Kaddish Symphony, with text by Holocaust survivor Samuel Pisar, is performed by The Florida Orchestra, and the Master Chorale of Tampa Bay, Friday at the Straz Center’s Morsani Hall, and Sturday at the Mahaffey Theater (both concerts at 8 p.m.). Pisar’s widow, Judith, and daughter, Leah, provide special narration. The concert, which also includes Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, is co-presented by the Florida Holocaust Museum. Kaddish Symphony also features the Lumina Youth Choir. Find tickets at this link.

The Tampa Bay Symphony, with Mark Sforzini conducting, is in concert Friday (8 p.m.) at the New Tampa Performing Arts Center, and again Sunday (2:30 p.m.) at the Palladium Theater. The show (Fife & Drum) is a salute to veterans, with a program including Armed Forces Salute, Victory at Sea, Montage for Flute and Orchestra, Hands Across the Sea March  and Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8 in G Major, Op. 88. New Tampa tickets; Palladium tickets.

Fans of the farm life simulation video game Stardew Valley will likely be tractoring to Tampa’s Straz Center for the Performing Arts Saturday. In Morsani Hall, a 35-piece orchestra will be performing music from the game live, as scenes and segments from the rural role-playing game are projected in high definition. (The game has sold some 41 million copies.)

Saturday’s concert, Stardew Valley Symphony of Seasons, begins at 8 p.m., and this link will deliver you to more information, and tickets.

Clearwater’s Peace Memorial Church has Florida-based Trio Rodin David Pedraza, viola; Sheng-Yuan Kuan, piano; Ciprian Stancioi, clarinet) in concert at 3 p.m. The program includes include Mozart’s Kegelstatt trio, selections from Max Bruch’s Opus 83 and Schumann’s Märchenerzählungen, Op. 132. A free-will offering, to help defray expenses, will be accepted at the door.

Powerstories’ “Cadillac Crew” opens tonight at The Studio@620 in St. Pete. Publicity photo.

Theater – St. Petersburg

Powerstories Theatre, which produces plays about strong women, written by women, is behind Cadillac Crew, opening tonight and running through Nov. 16 at The Studio@620. Tori Sampson’s drama is the story of four Black women who literally go on the road, promoting and working for, equality and civil rights in early 1960s America. Director Erica Sutherlin, who happens to be the creative executive director of The Studio@620, discussed the play and its significance on our most recent Arts Alive! podcast (click here to listen). Showtimes and tickets are at this link.

The American Stage production of the lively folk-rock musical Hundred Days, by Abigail and Shaun Bengson, and Sarah Ganchet, continues through Nov. 16. Click here for showtimes and tickets.

The marathon man of November’s professional theater shows in the bay area is the Ira Levin thriller Deathtrap, which is ongoing at freeFall Theatre all the way through Dec. 7. Showtimes and tickets here.

Theater – Tampa

ThinkTank’s take on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” debuts tonight in Tampa. Publicity photo.

ThinkTank Theatre, producing theater for young audiences, utilizing adult and teen actors, is producing a newly-imagined version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream this weekend (opening with a preview performance tonight) at JCC on the Cohn Campus. The in-the-round production is set in contemporary times, at a beach resort. Find out more, get showtimes and tickets at this link.

It’s time to say goodbye to Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, Jobsite Theater’ Halloween-season production of the musical mystery by Stephen King, with songs by John Mellencamp. Sunday is curtain-down for the Darkland gang; visit this link for showtimes and tickets.

Continuing at Stageworks Theatre is that bloody good time known as Evil Dead the Musical (it’s onstage through Nov. 16). Showtimes, tickets, and lots of details are at this link.

Your Weekend Spotlight appears every Thursday in the Catalyst’s CREATE section. 

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