Your weekend arts forecast: Who, what, where and when
Musical theater star Ann Morrison returns to freeFall Theatre tonight (Feb. 10) for a “one night only” cabaret performance, My Furniture Set, in which she and accompanist John Shirley (on piano) perform tunes from what Morrison calls the “Great American Furniture Songbook.”
Ann Morrison. Photo provided.
Morrison, who was memorably in the original Broadway cast of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along (she’s on the cast album, too) and others, lives in Sarasota, where she is artistic director of the theater company SaraSolo Productions.
Her many appearances at freeFall have included Into the Woods, Sondheim on Sondheim, The Musical of Musicals the Musical, The Machine Stops and others.
This new show, according to the website at Feinstein’s 54 Below (New York) where Morrison first performed it, “was actually inspired by Sarasota’s Home Resource Furniture store, which is sometimes offered to artists as an alternative theater space. Ann wondered: Does anyone buy furniture after seeing a play here? Why do owners offer their space to artists? The cabaret that emerged includes songs ranging from ‘On A Clear Day You Can See Forever’ by Lerner and Loewe to Crosby, Stills and Nash’s song ‘Our House.’ Expect original numbers too, as well as songs from Ann’s life and career.”
Tickets for tonight’s performance (at 7 p.m.) are available here.
Morrison’s show pre-empts, just for tonight, freeFall’s February production I Love to Eat, the one-man dramedy starring Matthew McGee as legendary TV chef James Beard. I Love to Eat resumes Friday, and runs through Feb. 27. Here’s our story about it.
Another one-person show debuts tonight, at Studio Grand Central. It’s Mayday: Captain Lerro and the Skyway Bridge, with Michael Horn portraying the Tampa Bay harbor pilot who was in command of the freighter that toppled the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in 1980. Here’s our story about it.
The weekend’s other theater choices include School Girls: or, the African Mean Girls Play at American Stage; The Diary of Anne Frank at Stageworks in Tampa; and the ThinkTank Theatre for Young Audiences production of All the Great Brooks (abridged) at the Shimberg Playhouse, part of Tampa’s David A. Straz Center. And tickets remain for just two of the final four performances of Pass Over at thestudio@620.
Read more about The Diary of Anne Frank
Read more about All the Great Books (abridged)
Opera and orchestra
Opera Tampa is back in action this weekend in Ferguson Hall, in the Straz Center. Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann is performed Friday (Feb. 11, 8 p.m.) and Sunday (Feb. 13, 2 p.m.). For the first time, The Florida Orchestra is providing the powerful music for Opera Tampa. Find details and tickets here.
Here’s the program for The Florida Orchestra’s other weekend concerts: A chamber ensemble performing Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos No. 3 and No. 6 and his Concerto for Oboe and Violin, along with Arvo Part’s Fratres and Bartok’s Romanian Folk Dances.
They’re at the Tampa Theatre today (Feb. 10) at 8 p.m., and at the Palladium Theatre at 2 p.m. Saturday. Find all info and tickets here.
The chamber group will perform more Bach (and baroque music) Sunday afternoon at the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg, to coincide with the opening celebrations for the Bernini and the Roman Baroque exhibition.
This collection of rarely-seen Italian Baroque paintings debuts Saturday at the MFA. Read more here.
“Drug Abuse” by iBOMS.
iBOMS and ArtWalk
Artist Jabari Reed, whose “graffiti name” is iBOMS – Illegal Beauty on My Street – has a solo show opening Saturday at the Tully-Levine Gallery, inside the Arts Xchange campus (Warehouse Arts District).
The show, Human Discretion Advised, is a collection of Reed’s distinctive dark-pop art, a blend of graffiti-style street art, skillful illustration, Black society and culture and 1930s-era cartoon characters.
In his Artist Statement Reed says the title “was meant to be used as a warning label. I felt early on that I needed to warn the audience beforehand so they wouldn’t be caught off guard. Whether it be my need to decapitate and mutilate my characters’ bodies, or deconstruct my human beliefs in my writings, now when I hear HDA or HUMAN DISCRETION ADVISED said back to me, it reminds me to do the exact opposite. Because after all, it is a fair warning. It is a choice to see the truth yet it never gets easier.”
The iBOMS opening dovetails nicely with the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance’s February Second Saturday ArtWalk, from 5 to 9 p.m. Saturday. Here’s the lowdown on the studios and/or galleries will be open-housing it for your perusal.
Purple reign
Veteran British hard rock band Deep Purple plays the Mahaffey Saturday, with the Fabulous Thunderbirds opening. The 2022 edition of the group includes Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Ian Paice, Steve Morse and Don Airey. If you have the original two-record set (or CD) of Jesus Christ Superstar – the 1970 album-only version with the brown cover, so much better than the laughable movie soundtrack – you’re in possession of the best-selling Deep Purple side project of all time. That’s because the band’s longtime lead singer, Ian Gillan, sang the role of Jesus on that pioneering recording. There’s your trivial pursuit for the day. Mahaffey tickets are here.
A few more
The great Los Lobos play the Capitol Theatre tonight, with Edwin McCain opening.
Hillsborough County blues guitarist, singer and bandleader Damon Fowler will tear it up Friday at the Palladium Theatre.
Comedian Tom Papa, a regular on Joe Rogan’s controversial podcast, has a standup show Saturday at the Capitol Theatre.
Comedian and podcaster Jim Jeffries performs at Morsani Hall, in the Straz Center, Saturday.
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