Columbus
St. Pete Catalyst
Arts Alive! podcast: Georgia Mallory Guy, Cameron Kubly
On today’s edition of the Arts Alive! podcast, we speak with Cameron Kubly, a longtime bay area musical theater performer, who’s playing Charlie Brown in the circa-1967 show based on Charles M. Schulz’ beloved Peanuts characters. Charlie Brown sings and philosophizes – as only Peanuts characters can...
Welcome to Florida: Morikami Museum & Japanese Gardens
Florida congressman Matt Gaetz wants to bomb endangered whales in the Gulf of Mexico;One of Florida's great hidden gem cultural and tourist attractions is Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach. As beautiful as the gardens are today, the history of Japanese immigration to Florida and the garden's founding are equally interesting. Curator of education at Morikami Wendy Lo joins us to discuss.
Arts Alive! podcast: Katherine Pill, Museum of Fine Arts
Our guest on today’s Arts Alive! podcast is Katherine Pill, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg. The conversation covers the MFA’s place in our “city of the arts” – constructed on Beach Drive in 1965, it was St. Pete’s very first art museum, and has continued to innovate, and keep pace with all those that have come after.
Arts Alive! podcast: Novelist Randy Wayne White
In September 2022, Hurricane Ian made landfall, as a Category 4, at Sanibel Island on Florida’s southwestern coast. Between the 120 miles-per-hour winds and the 12-foot storm surge, the tiny barrier island didn’t stand a chance. Homes and businesses were either destroyed or severely damaged, numerous people drowned, and a section of the causeway linking Sanibel to the mainland was literally blown away, making it difficult for first responders and law enforcement to assess and assist.
Welcome to Florida: Mar-a-Lago
Our subject this episode is the Mar-a-Lago estate on Palm Beach. We discuss its history from Marjorie Merriweather Post through the 45th president and what makes the mansion/private club special. Les Standiford, author of "Palm Beach, Mar-a-Lago, and the Rise of America's Xanadu," provides the expertise.
Arts Alive! podcast: Orilla
Collectively, Alejandro Arenas and Ona K are Orilla. A Spanish word meaning “shoreline,” it’s the ideal name for the musical duo whose influences originate across the globe, those places where vast oceans and firm borders blur and come together. He is the bassist for La Lucha, the...
Welcome to Florida: Betty Mae Tiger Jumper
The state's Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson wants to sell off public lands to farmers and ranchers; This week's subject is Betty Mae Tiger Jumper, first chairwoman of the Seminole Tribe in Florida. Our guest is Patsy West, co-author of Tiger Jumper's autobiography, "A Seminole Legend: The Life of Betty Mae Tiger Jumper."
Arts Alive! podcast: Peter Tush, the Dali Museum
As the Dali Museum’s Curator of Education, Peter Tush is the person who decides how the works of the Surrealist master, and of the other artists on exhibition alongside Dali, should be “interpreted” for the public. He trains the museum’s docents, writes the audio tours and the gallery labels, arranges school programming and gives talks – lots of talks – about each exhibit as it debuts. Tush works closely with the exhibit curators as every new show is in development.
Welcome to Florida: Tampa Bay
Craig Pittman is the award-winning author of Oh, Florida!: How America’s Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country, The Scent of Scandal, Cat Tale, Manatee Insanity and The State You’re In, and co-author of Paving Paradise. Born in Pensacola, he graduated from Troy State University in Alabama, where his muckraking work for the student paper prompted an agitated dean to label him “the most destructive force on campus.” Since then he has covered a variety of newspaper beats and quite a few natural disasters, including hurricanes, wildfires and the Florida Legislature.
Arts Alive! podcast: LAB’s ‘Fly Away Home’
Situated on E. Henderson Avenue, where Tampa means Ybor City, LAB Theatre Project is a black box venue where only original works – plays that have not been previously produced – are mounted. LAB founder and executive producer Owen Roberston returns to the Arts Alive! podcast today, in...
Welcome to Florida: Sacred Steel
Our episode begins with a $400 million mystery in the state budget; folklorist and musician Robert Stone joins us. He helped bring the steel guitar music popular in the House of God and Church of the Living God communities in South Florida and around the South to greater prominence.
Arts Alive! podcast: Conductor Mark Sforzini
Today’s guest on the Arts Alive! podcast is Mark Sforzini, the founder and general director of St. Petersburg Opera Company. The Auburn, Alabama native is also the music director of the all-volunteer Tampa Bay Symphony, and he’ll conduct Sunday afternoon’s Spring Concert in Ferguson Hall, part of Tampa’s Straz Center complex. The program is repeated next week at the Palladium Theater in St. Petersburg, and at the New Tampa Performing Arts Center.
Welcome to Florida: Author Lauren Groff
Our guest this episode is New York Times best-selling author, Time magazine 100 most influential people for 2024, Gainesville resident, and now bookstore owner Lauren Groff. The Lynx Books opened this month, with an emphasis on selling banned books and Florida authors.
Arts Alive! podcast: Karla Hartley and Heather Krueger
Stageworks Theatre’s dynamic creative duo, Karla Hartley (Producing Artistic Director) and Heather Krueger (Operations Manager) are today’s guests on the Arts Alive! podcast, to talk about the Tampa professional playhouse’s new show, Our Town (opening tonight). Thornton Wilder’s 1938 play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and...
Welcome to Florida: The rise and fall of Jai-Alai
We begin this week's episode remembering former Florida governor and U.S. Senator Bob Graham, who passed away recently. Our guest is Marty Fleischman who worked in the Jai-Alai industry across Florida for more than 40 years. He explains how the sport came to Florida, its rise to incredible popularity in Miami and Tampa, and the factors which have rendered it largely forgotten today.
Arts Alive! podcast: Film commissioner Lisa Dozois
Today’s Arts Alive! conversation with Pinellas County Film Commissioner Lisa Dozois covers a lot of ground. We talk about the history of movie-making in Florida, the benefits to city, county and region when filmmakers come to the area to work, and about the role of the film commissioner: Facilitator, cheerleader, location scout, lobbyist, advocate.
Welcome to Florida: Mounds and middens
Our guest for this episode is archaeologist and professor in the anthropology department at USF Nancy Marie White. White researches ancient Indigenous people and cultures in the Florida Panhandle and has authored a pair of books on the subject. We're specifically discussing Indigenous mounds and middens.
Arts Alive! podcast: The Off-Central’s Ward Smith
Show business is in Ward Smith’s blood. He’s an actor and a standup comedian, and he operates the Off-Central, St. Petersburg’s 42-seat black box theater. The Off-Central’s tiny space epitomizes the word intimate. As Smith relates in today’s Arts Alive! podcast, the give-and-take between audience and performer is immediate, and skin-deep. This playhouse is not where you’re likely to see Les Miserables staged – or anything else with a cast of thousands. There are no nosebleed seats.
Welcome to Florida: A. Philip Randolph
Our subject today is a giant of 20th century activism and equal rights: A. Philip Randolph. Randolph helped push through federal equal employment legislation, had a hand in integrating the American armed forces, and organized the 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom in Washington, D.C. Our guest is Alan Bliss, CEO of the Jacksonville Historical Society.
Arts Alive! podcast: Helen R. Murray, American Stage
The curtain comes up on American Stage’s production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast tonight at Demens Landing, and Producing Artistic Director Helen R. Murray is thrilled. The every-April “park musical,” in the middle of the theater’s season, is always a crowd magnet. And it’s the first “park...
St. Pete Catalyst
506+
Posts
1M+
Views
The Catalyst honors its name by aggregating & curating the sparks that propel the St Pete engine. It is a modern news platform, powered by community sourced content and augmented with directed coverage. Bring your news, your perspective, and your spark to the St Pete Catalyst and take your seat at the table.
It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency:
Our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. As a platform hosting over 100,000 pieces of content published daily, we cannot pre-vet content, but we strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation.