Orange Blossom Award: Matthew McGee and the Power of Yes

by Avery Anderson Every arts community has its stars — the people onstage, the names in the program, the ones audiences come to see. But Tampa Bay’s arts ecosystem runs on something deeper: the quiet, unglamorous, fiercely devoted labor of people who rarely get recognized. That’s why The Arts

by Avery Anderson Today’s Orange Blossom Award goes not to an individual, but to an unlikely coalition — four Tampa Bay theaters that came together this fall to help a much smaller organization make a very public case for its future. Dunedin Public Theater is barely two years old — volunteer-run,

by Avery Anderson Today’s Orange Blossom Award goes to someone whose work rarely draws attention, yet hundreds of St. Pete readers feel its ripple effects every single month — whether they realize it or not. Before most book clubs at Tombolo Books ever meet, before the emails go out or

by Avery Anderson Today’s Orange Blossom Award goes to someone whose work is so woven into Tampa’s arts landscape that many people don’t realize they’ve been shaped by it — not directly, but through the countless stories she’s helped bring into the world. Long before a

by Avery Anderson Every day in December, The Arts Passport is recognizing someone whose quiet, persistent work holds this region’s arts scene together — the kind of people who rarely get applause but absolutely deserve it. We call them the Orange Blossom Awards: small spotlights for the folks who keep

by Avery Anderson In nearly every corner of Tampa Bay theatre, from splashy musicals to the smallest black box, there’s one person quietly shaping how audiences see the work — long after the curtain falls. He’s not onstage. He’s not giving notes. He’s usually somewhere in the

by Avery Anderson A quick reminder of what the Orange Blossom Awards are — in a city full of shiny galas and people congratulating themselves for “raising awareness,” these awards are for the other people. The ones doing the unglamorous, quietly revolutionary work that actually shifts the ground under our arts

By Avery Anderson Some artists bloom slowly. Others spend years quietly filling the room with talent until suddenly—one night, one show, one impossible marathon of a performance—the city realizes, oh… she’s a force of nature. This year, that moment belonged to Julia Rifino. If you’ve been

by Avery Anderson Some leaders shine on stages. Others shine in boardrooms. Terri Lipsey Scott shines in the moments when someone calls and says, “We need you.” Today’s Orange Blossom Award goes to the Executive Director of the Woodson African American Museum of Florida — a woman whose leadership in

by Avery Anderson When people talk about “giving artists a voice,” they usually mean the visible parts: the microphone, the camera, the finished clip that pops up in your feed. What they rarely talk about is the person who made sure the microphone worked, the audio didn’t glitch, the

by Avery Anderson There’s a version of the arts ecosystem that runs on competition, scarcity, and quiet side-eye. And then there’s the version that actually works. This Orange Blossom Award goes to Matthew Morris—because he chose the second one. You might know Matthew as the leader of

by Avery Anderson Some people leave behind a body of work. Others leave behind a way of working. Stephen Bell was the latter. This year, Tampa Bay lost one of its quiet architects—an artist who didn’t chase the spotlight but somehow illuminated every room he entered. Stephen passed

by Avery Anderson There’s a particular moment in the life of a theatre company that determines everything that comes next. The founder steps away. The safety net disappears. The question becomes painfully simple: Do we play it safe—or do we decide who we are, right now? This year

by Avery Anderson Every few years, a city rediscovers a conversation it swore it was already having. In 2025, Tampa Bay is once again talking—loudly—about equity, access, and who actually benefits when a region “thrives.” What’s different this time is the growing recognition that visibility alone isn’

by Avery Anderson There are artists who build careers. And then there are artists who build ecosystems. Katherine Yacko has spent this year doing the second — often quietly, often in rooms where credit isn’t the point, and often while pregnant. She shows up first as a theatregoer. Not occasionally.

by Avery Anderson Arts administrators are often praised for keeping the lights on. Darcy Schuller does something more consequential: she builds the conditions that allow ambition to last. Since joining the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Pete in 2021, Schuller—now Deputy Director and COO—has helped guide the institution

by Avery Anderson There’s a difference between hanging work on a wall and building a space where people feel safe enough to see themselves in it. Freddie Hughes understands that difference—and at The Studio@620, he’s quietly turning it into an ecosystem. Known artistically as FreddieFred, Hughes

by Avery Anderson This one isn’t for a single person. It’s for the spreadsheet warriors. The midnight submitters. The folks who stared at a score they’d never been punished for before and thought, Wait — what? This year, Florida’s arts funding didn’t just shift. It lurched.

by Avery Anderson For building new cultural infrastructure—one page at a time Most new arts projects don’t fail because the idea is bad. They fail because the follow-through is brutal. Printing costs. Distribution headaches. Burnout. The slow realization that “launching” is the easy part—and showing up again

by Avery Anderson Tampa’s music scene doesn’t suffer from a lack of talent. It suffers from fragmentation. Great artists. Scattered rooms. Isolated nights that feel electric inside the venue — and then disappear by morning. What’s rare isn’t the show. It’s the connective tissue that turns

by Avery Anderson For turning public art into a love letter that will outlast us Some public art is designed to be photographed. The Sunshine City Mosaic was designed to be lived with. Stretching 175 feet through downtown St. Petersburg, the tile installation doesn’t shout for attention. It rewards

by Avery Anderson For proving collaboration can still be brave In a year when arts organizations were told — implicitly and explicitly — to stay in their lanes, The Good Peaches did the opposite. The production brought together American Stage, The Florida Orchestra, and projectALCHEMY for a genuinely shared act of creation:

by Avery Anderson Hillsborough County didn’t just lead Florida in book removals this year. It led the country. More than 11,000 physical books were pulled from shelves. Over 500 unique titles were removed at once. And 55 books were permanently taken out of circulation—not after review, but