Your weekend arts forecast: Lights over the Pier, Shakespeare in the Park

The re-scheduled one-year anniversary bash for the St. Pete Pier happens Saturday. The fabulous Shevonne and the Force, along with DJ Fresh, perform on the Spa Beach Pavilion at 5 p.m., there will be food trucks and vendors, and after dark the much-ballyhooed “drone light show” will streak across the sky over Tampa Bay in celebration. Admission is free; see you there.

Just four shows remain in the brief run of Romeo & Juliet in America (The One With the Happy Ending), American Stage’s Shakespearean adaptation on the outdoor Williams Park stage (tickets and info available here). Director L. Peter Callender took us through the show’s genesis in this story.

Opening Friday (there’s a preview performance tonight) is A.R. Gurney’s comedy Sylvia, at Stageworks Theatre in Tampa. Earlier this week we took our readers backstage at a rehearsal for this very funny shaggy dog story; read that one here.

And freeFall Theatre’s The Rose and the Beast is the Energizer Bunny of interactive, immersive theater (the audience enters a series of rooms, and “things” happen, with phone apps, in each one). Tickets and details are here.

In this story, we tell you about Friday’s jazz concert with Orilla, at thestudio@620, and the Saturday show from La Lucha (sort of the “parent company” of Orilla) at the Palladium. Friday night at the Palladium, fiery blues guitarist Jose Ramirez and his band take the stage (tickets here).

Friday at Ruth Eckerd Hall, “Dave Koz and Friends” is looking like quite the orgy of jazz sax players. Along with Koz himself, the lineup includes Mindi Abair (originally from St. Petersburg, Kirk Whalum and Vincent Ingala. Tickets for the “Summer of Horns” concert are here.

In Ybor City, the Tampa International Fringe Festival, with 13 separate independent theatrical productions of all types, begins tonight and runs through Aug. 8. Check here.

Romare Bearden, The Train (detail), 1975, Photogravure and aquatint, Published by Printmaking Workshop, Ed. of 125, Museum purchase with funds donated anonymously.

Opening Saturday at the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg, Explore the Vaults: Black Portraits presents a cross-section of photographic works by Black artists, employing a variety of innovative techniques. It will be on view through Feb. 27.

Please send press announcements and event information to bill@stpetecatalyst.com.