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Jimmy Awards Honor High School Musical Theater Talent

Future stars shone on Broadway Monday night as the Jimmy Awards saluted some of the most promising young thespians from across the U.S. Jimmy Awards showcasing young thespians across the US. Photo by Angela of York. Zayda Martin and Jayden Vega, this year’s winners of Straz Center’s Broadway Star of the Future Awards, were among the contestants. Jayden Vega along with another contestant. Photo…

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New Opera Adds Context, Perspective to Rosa Parks’ Story

Late one cold Thursday afternoon, a seamstress boarded a Montgomery, Ala., city bus for the ride home from work. As the bus filled up with more passengers, African-American riders, including the seamstress, were ordered by the driver to move to the back to allow white riders to be seated. Nearly every aspect of life in Montgomery was, by law, segregated, so when the seamstress refused to…

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Broadway Intensive Puts Students on the Road to the Stage

They aren’t called intensives for nothing. A class of Patel Conservatory theater students is currently immersed in rehearsals for a production of Shakespearean spoof Something Rotten! The rehearsals follow a week of master classes and guest artists, theater professionals with real-world experience. The students are enrolled in Patel’s Broadway Intensive, a four-week program that culminates with…

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Film, TV Stars Often Tread the Boards As Well

“I’m not an actor! I’m a movie star!” So protests Alan Swann, a past-his-prime film idol who discovers the television program on which he’s about to appear is broadcast live. The scene is from My Favorite Year, the 1982 film based on Mel Brooks’ experience as a young writer on Your Show of Shows, a weekly variety show broadcast live on NBC between 1950-1954. In the film, a young writer is…

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Corn Chowder Recipe To Get You Shucked Up

With SHUCKED running in Morsani Hall now until June 8, what better way to enjoy the show all about corn than with a southwest-style corn chowder recipe? Curated by our own head chef Gunther Lopez, this recipe encapsulates all there is to love about mellow yellow maize. For the Soup: • 5 whole corn (fresh or frozen)• 1 small yellow onion, diced• 2 small celery stalks, diced• 1 gallon water• 5…

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How Swede It Is: Musical Celebrates Master Pop Producer (and Shakespeare, Too)

June 6 is National Day of Sweden, which commemorates two historical events that took place on this date: the 1523 election of Gustav Vasa as Sweden’s king, which established Sweden as an independent nation; and the adoption of Sweden’s constitution in 1809. Gustav Vasa legally created the hereditary monarchy and organized the Swedish unitary state. For Swedes, it’s a day of flag-waving, folk…

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Happily Shucked

Shucked, the hit musical with all the corn jokes and a sneaky little message about inclusion, has drawn raves from audiences. The musical’s upcoming run in Morsani Hall could be extra special because, well, Tampa’s in the show. Not all of us, like everybody in Tampa, is in the show. But our city, our home, is. And we don’t know why Tampa was chosen. Shucked mostly takes place in fictional Cob…

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Actor Becomes Jobsite’s Master of Puppets

Some are born to puppeteer. Some have puppeteering thrust upon them. Spencer Meyers falls into the latter category. Spencer Meyers, group sales manager at Straz Center. After Spencer successfully manipulated not one but two puppets – including the lead – in 2002’s Straz production of Avenue Q, Jobsite Theater’s Producing Artistic Director David Jenkins tapped him to create puppets for Alice,…

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Workshop Looks at Removing Fear From Performance

Stage fright is the scourge of many performers across all disciplines. Performers who suffer with it can at least know they’re in good company. Barbra Streisand flubbed some lyrics at a 1967 Central Park concert and didn’t perform live again for nearly 30 years. Laurence Olivier, the actor’s actor, became so rattled playing Othello that he requested other actors on stage not look him in the eye.…

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For Dance Performances, the Staging’s the Thing

When the works of renowned choreographers are staged, someone will be there to ensure they are staged to the choreographer’s specifications. That someone is a repetiteur, and Philip Neal is one. For our purposes, he’s two. Philip, chair of Patel Conservatory’s Dance Department and artistic director of Next Generation Ballet, is a repetiteur for the George Balanchine Trust. Balanchine’s Who…

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Magician Combines Tech and Illusion to Amaze Audiences

Jamie Allan’s performances marry illusion and technology to create astounding magic events, such as a Mercedes-Benz appearing out of thin air or making a helicopter disappear and reappear on the deck of a cruise ship. Jamie Allan His fascination with magic, though, was sparked by one of the oldest tricks in the book: the disappearing ball. His father explained how the illusion was created.…

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Headline as Haiku?

Sure. After all, that’s what theBlog is about. See? April 17 is International Haiku Poetry Day and we know what you’re thinking: A) Didn’t we just finish putting up the decorations from last Haiku Poetry Day? and B) Isn’t Haiku Poetry redundant? The answers are, of course A) Yes. Time is fleeting and B) Yes, since the definition of haiku is a 17-syllable poem beginning and ending with lines of…

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Join The Circle of Life

A GUIDE TO THE AMAZING OPENING SCENE OF DISNEY’S THE LION KING ON TOUR “Circle of Life,��� The Lion King’s jaw-dropping, much-talked about opening number, introduces a menagerie of animals who stride, leap, gallop and dance across The stage. A closer look reveals the creative magic at work behind this breathtaking bit of stagecraft. LET’S GIVE THEM A HAND: Julie Taymor, along with Michael Curry,…

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Celebrate the Scores That Enhance Our Favorite Films

First, a clarification: A movie’s score and a movie’s soundtrack are not the same thing. A soundtrack is a collection of songs old and/or new that tie in (or don’t) with the film’s storyline. Whether the soundtrack is good, bad or indifferent, it’s essentially merchandise, like a T-shirt or a tote bag. That’s an important distinction to keep in mind as we observe National Film Score Day on April…

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Teach Music Week a Reminder of Arts Education’s Benefits.

At Straz, we’re witness to class after class of performing arts students attending Patel Conservatory, learning dance, theater and, of course, music. An organization founded by husband and wife music teachers takes music learning into their community and sponsors events to encourage music education. Every child should have the opportunity to play music: That belief is the foundation of the…

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Instruments With Big Reputations Have Price Tags to Match

Guitar heroes actual and fictional covet Gibson’s 1959 Les Paul Standard, widely considered the finest solid-body ever made. Watch as Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) expounds on the instrument’s qualities to a clearly impressed Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner) in the 1984 mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap. Spinal Tap may be fictional but the ’59 Les Paul is real. The prices it sells for are real, too.…

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Play Brings Historic Civil Rights Protest to the Stage

Mark Lieb was familiar with the real-life setting of his play When the Righteous Triumph, the long-gone Woolworth on Franklin Street in downtown Tampa. “That’s the Woolworth I used to go to as a child,” Lieb said. “I remember that lunch counter from my childhood. “It never occurred to me that black people weren’t allowed to sit there,” he said. That policy was challenged in 1960 when black…