The stories behind Tampa Bay art.
Reviews, features, and conversations with the artists, curators, and producers who make this scene worth showing up for.
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Theatre
Before the Umbrella: The Backstage Chaos (and Reality TV Vibe) Making Waves at freeFall Theatre
Jay Berkow’s What a Glorious Feeling! at freeFall Theatre rips the polish off Singin’ in the Rain, exposing the raw friction, fragile egos, and sheer stubbornness behind Hollywood’s most famous musical.
When Washtubs Become Unions: Why “The Wash” Is Tampa Bay’s Most Urgent Show
In 1881, Atlanta’s Black laundresses built the post-Civil War South’s first successful interracial strike. This October, “The Wash” brings their story to St. Petersburg — and it feels like it was written yesterday.
The 43-Seat Miracle in St. Pete: Why You Need to Care About Off-Central’s Biggest Risk Yet
The Off-Central Players open their sixth season with Christopher Durang’s ‘Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike’ in a 43-seat St. Petersburg black box. Here’s why their biggest production yet is worth the risk.
Visual Art
Banking on Backstage: Why a St. Pete Credit Union Is the City's Newest Radical Art Gallery
When you walk into a local credit union, you generally expect a very specific, aggressively neutral sensory experience. You are there to deposit a check, perhaps politely decline a car loan offer, or…
Enter Through the Loading Bay
'The Art of Banksy' Takes the Main Stage in Tampa For an artist who built a career on anonymity and anti-establishment graffiti, there is a certain beautiful irony to the reality of a massive,…
Reconstructing the Rubble of Memory: Inside The Werk Gallery’s Newest Double-Feature
Memory is a notoriously terrible archivist. It rarely saves the raw, objective files of our lives; instead, it saves vibes, pixelated fragments of places that no longer exist, and inside jokes we’ve…
Literature
Bread, Books, and Belonging: How Serena Utz Builds Community in St. Pete
There is a specific kind of magic that happens in the "third places" of Tampa Bay. You know the ones—the bookstores where the air smells like old paper and the night markets where you’re trading…
Read Together. Step Outside. Pay Attention.
Spring doesn’t need another obligation. It needs an invitation. This season, Arts Passport Book Club is doing what it does best: pairing books that linger with experiences that deepen them. Not…
A Year of Stories Ends With a Battle Cry
If you’ve been craving a book that hits like a hymn, a punchline, and a family secret all at once, December’s Arts Passport Book Club is your last — and loudest — invitation of 2025. We’re closing…
Music
Inside the Minds of Lot Lizards
For a band with a name born out of a chaotic roadside encounter, Lot Lizards isn’t trying to be polished, perfect, or even particularly serious, and that’s exactly why they matter. The name itself…
Forty-Five Days, One Throughline: From the MLK Day Parade to the Collard Green Festival
Every January, the city marks Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a parade. This year, that moment stretches into something larger — and longer. Under the leadership of the Tampa Bay Collard Green…
Dance, Interrupted — In the Best Way
If you’ve ever walked through St. Pete and felt like something almost happened — a moment, a connection, a flicker of beauty that vanished as quickly as it appeared — MIXed: Across St. Pete is built…
Poetry
The Studio@620 Unveils 2026-2027 Season
A Bold Interrogation of the American Dream Following Record-Breaking Audience Growth Driven by a 43% surge in new theatergoers and historic box office runs, the Studio charges full steam ahead with…
Ann Morrison’s Great Adventure
Ann Morrison spends her nights doing something that sounds impossible on paper: playing a 15-going-on-16 New Jersey teenager whose body is aging four and a half times too fast. “I’m 70 and so I am a…
Can Tampa Bay Sustain a Ballet Company?
Coastal Ballet of Florida debuts as Tampa Bay’s first professional classical ballet company since the pandemic—reviving tradition with bold new energy.
More stories.
The Camouflaged Crisis of the Arts Board
Inside the Multi-City Experiment to Fix How We Create Let’s be honest about the modern nonprofit board. It is a structure we have collectively accepted as a necessary virtue, yet it often functions…
Podcast: Behind the Byline, A Deep Dive with Creative Loafing’s Ray Roa
Discover how Ray Roa and a two-person team keep Creative Loafing alive. A deep dive into the future of Tampa Bay journalism and the new $750k Journalism Project.
Long Live the Leaf
Every great festival eventually crowns someone. Mardi Gras has its king cake. Gasparilla has pirates. And in South St. Pete, the Tampa Bay Collard Green Festival has a six-foot-tall, vegetable-based…
In St. Pete, Generational Wealth Is Being Taught at a Folding Table
St. Petersburg doesn’t lack talent. It lacks pipelines. That’s the quiet problem the city’s first-ever 45 Days of Excellence is trying to name—and solve. What kicked-off with the Martin Luther King…
Speakeasy Soirée Reimagines the Studio Honors to Celebrate Community, Creativity, and the Future of New Work
The Studio@620 has announced the recipients of its 2025 Studio Honors awards, recognizing artists, leaders, and changemakers whose work embodies the organization’s longstanding commitment to access,…
When Visas Cancel the Show
Tango After Dark Performance at Van Wezel Cancelled Due to Visa Delays On Sunday, Sarasota was supposed to dance. Instead, the curtain won't go up. Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall has canceled Tango…
Podcast: What St. Pete’s New Arts Leader Sees in Her First 3 Months
Seventy days into her tenure as Executive Director of the St. Pete Arts Alliance, Helen French is doing what dancers do best: listening, adjusting, and finding the next right step. “I’m incredibly…
Tampa Bay Arts Passport Podcast – Episode with Hilary Frambes
Host: Avery Anderson Guest: Hilary Frambes Avery Anderson: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Tampa Bay Arts Passport podcast. We really need a shorter name because that’s a mouthful. Today…
South Pinellas’ new walking trail debuts in Gulfport this weekend
The connected trails pass through residential neighborhoods alongside parks, historic locations and other vista points. The entire route consists of sidewalks and crosswalks. by Seán Kinane and WMNF…
The Season of Flowers (and the People Who Deserve Them)
Introducing the Orange Blossom Awards — coming this December December has a reputation for being… a lot. Family gatherings, year-end deadlines, the existential dread of realizing you’ve once again…
Jennifer Archibald, perhaps the world’s foremost choreographer, now calls Tampa Bay home
‘She is the person of the moment right now.’ by Marty Clear / Creative Loafing Earlier this year, Jennifer Archibald was pictured on the cover of Dance Magazine , America’s most prestigious journal…
Creative Pinellas, county’s arts and culture organization, could lose critical funding
Commission Chair Brian Scott believes they should be doing more to promote arts tourism, but what about the pilot programs already in the works? By Claire Farrow The future of Creative Pinellas,…
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