Your weekend arts forecast: Souther, Callaway … and Reba

Every once in a while, the Central Park Performing Arts Center, at the Intersection of Alt-19 and East Bay Drive in Largo, has a concert you did not, could not, expect.

Take Sunday’s appearance by legendary Southern California singer/songwriter John David Souther. Born in Michigan and raised in Texas, JD (you can call him that) was major component of the acoustic music and country/rock hybrid scene of late ‘60s and early ‘70s Los Angeles.

He and Glen Frey – before Frey started the Eagles – had a duo called Longbranch Pennywhistle. As a solo artist, Souther was signed to David Geffen’s Asylum Records, alongside Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Tom Waits … and the Eagles.

As a songwriter, he co-wrote a bunch of big Eagles tunes, including “Best of My Love,” “Heartache Tonight,” “New Kid in Town” and “Victim of Love.” Linda Ronstadt cut Souther’s “Faithless Love” and “Prisoner in Diguise.”

He had a Top Ten solo hit, “You’re Only Lonely,” in 1979, and his duet with James Taylor, 1981’s “Her Town Too,” reached No. 11.

He’s worked as an actor (specifically, on the first season of Nashville) and in recent years his recordings have veered into jazz and American Songbook territory. “I knew who Gershwin and Berlin and Jerome Kern and all those people were long before I knew anything about rock ‘n’ roll,” he told an interviewer.

Sunday’s JD Souther concert starts at 7 p.m. Tickets are here.

Ann and Peggy

At the Palladium’s Side Door Café Friday is cabaret legend Ann Hampton Callaway, performing the music of Peggy Lee. “I’ve spent a part of my recent career honoring women who’ve inspired me – including people like Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Peggy Lee and Barbra Streisand,” Callaway told the Catalyst in 2019. “And these shows have been a great way of me being a storyteller and a singer.”

At that time, Callaway and her pianist Billy Strich were touring a concert of Linda Ronstadt songs. “I’m an artist who’s spent my life doing many kinds of music,” she told us. “And sometimes the jazz police distrust me because I’ve been on Broadway, or the cabaret people call me a jazz artist. They don’t know what to do with people who are diverse.”

Tickets for the Friday show are here.

Other concerts

Hail the queen of country music, Reba McEntire, back onstage Friday at Amalie Arena in Tampa. Tickets are here. Terri Clark opens. At press time, McEntire’s Thursday concert in Estero, Florida had been moved to December due to weather concerns. We’ll publish any news we receive about the Tampa performance.

Veteran comedian Steven Wright is onstage at the Palladium tonight. We spoke to the monosyllabic man; here’s that interview, which includes ticket details.

Gipsy Kings, masters of flamenco guitar-imbued electric world music, perform Friday at Clearwater’s Ruth Eckerd Hall (tickets); guitar shredder Joe Satriani is back at Ruth’s place Saturday (tickets).

Disney Princesses – The Concert has a date with the Mahaffey Theater Friday – yes, it’s songs (and backstage stories) from Sleeping Beauty to Aladdin, with various “princesses” in between. Be forewarned, this is not characters in costumes, but these performers on the stage: Drama Desk-nominee Christy Altomare (the original Anastasia, Mamma Mia!), Broadway.com Audience Award-nominee Isabelle McCalla (Princess Jasmine in Aladdin, The Prom), Disney Channel star Anneliese van der Pol (Belle in Beauty and the Beast and Chelsea Daniels on That’s So Raven/Raven’s Home), and BroadwayWorld Award-winner Syndee Winters (Nala in The Lion King, Hamilton) with music director Benjamin Rauhala and “Prince” Adam J. Levy (Moulin Rouge). Info and tickets are here.

Theater

Dracula, the most successful show in Jobsite Theater Company’s 24 years, is biting its last neck with Sunday’s 4 p.m. matinee. That means there are four shows left. Info and tickets are here.

New this weekend, at Studio Grand Central, is Caryl Churchill’s drama A Number, which we wrote about Wednesday. Check that out here.

George C. Wolfe’s cutting satire The Colored Museum, focusing on various aspects of the African-American experience, is starting its second weekend at American Stage. Info and tickets are here.

We’re also two weekends into the Tampa Repertory Theatre/Stageworks production of A Doll’s House, Part 2. Info and tickets are here.

Feeling bookish?

Fourteen authors, including suspense novelist Dennis Lehane and distinguished journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault, will be interviewed onstage by Tampa Bay Times books editor Colette Bancroft Saturday at the newspaper-sponsored Festival of Reading. It takes place in the Palladium Theater (new venue) and is, for the first time, a ticketed event. All details, tickets et cetera are here.

The classics

St. Petersburg Opera Company’s annual production for youngsters, Pinocchio, opens Friday at Opera Central. It’s an hourlong adaptation of Pinocchio, with real opera singers in character costumes and telling – via updated lyrics – the classic children’s story through song (and dialogue). Read all about the family-focused show here.

The two Florida Orchestra concerts this weekend – Saturday night at the Mahaffey Theater, Sunday afternoon at the Straz Center’s Ferguson Hall – feature Stefan Asbury conducting Brahms’ Violin Concerto (with featured violin soloist Stefan Jackiw), Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8 and Partita for Strings by Gideon Klein. All info and tickets are here.

Fine art

Opening Saturday at the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg, True Nature: Rodin and the Age of Impressionism includes more than 70 works by Rodin, Monet, Degas, Cézanne and Renoir. We’ll go up-close on this extraordinary exhibit shortly in the Catalyst.

The Creative Pinellas Arts Annual 2022 starts with The Party on Thursday, continue with artist tours and talks Friday and concludes with a day of performances and film screenings Saturday. Here’s our story from Wednesday.

Last but never least, it’s time again for the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance’s monthly Second Saturday ArtWalk. The walking, driving, trolley-riding self-guided tour of around 40 St. Pete studios and galleries happens from 5 to 9 p.m. Here’s the map for November.

Your weekend arts forecast appears every Thursday in the Catalyst. 

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