Creative Loafing Tampa

Sorensen was all over Bay area stages last season, playing multiple lovers in Stageworks’ The Blue Room, a naïve young American threatened by omnisexual… Continue

Several talented local playwrights offered their work during this season, but the play that went beyond a mere facility with dialogue and character was… Continue

Sargent had a near-impossible mission in Tampa Repertory Theatre’s Streetcar Named Desire: to make the audience forget Vivien Leigh’s iconic performance in the film.… Continue

If you thought you knew everything about The Rocky Horror Show, Hartley’s staging for American Stage proved you wrong: the seemingly all-too-familiar pageant became… Continue

Although the competition’s getting stiffer, American Stage offered more winners last season than any other local theater. Consider a year that brought us Tracy… Continue

With remarkable rapidity, Davis has made freeFall Theatre into a jewel of a venue, a place where incisive straight plays and potently re-imagined musicals… Continue

There was every kind of character to costume in freeFall’s Cabaret this season: the Emcee and gender-bending dancers of the Weimar-era Kit Kat Klub,… Continue

Brilliantly directed by Todd Olson, Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County was the highlight of the season at American Stage and the Bay area generally.… Continue

Chavez’s stunning black-and-white set for A. R. Gurney’s Sylvia was the best ever in the new Stageworks space, not to mention the whole Bay… Continue

Tampa native and NYU student Settecasi wrote, directed, acted in and designed Future Tense, a more than interesting look at recent college graduates and… Continue

This season, TRT brought us two of its three inaugural plays: Cold Storage and A Streetcar Named Desire. Ronald Ribman’s Cold Storage, the story… Continue

Dominating freeFall’s terrific Cabaret was local actor Mann as the Weimar-era Kit Kat Klub’s Emcee. With his shaved head and zoned-out eyes, he looked… Continue

As the androgynous Frank N. Furter in American Stage’s Rocky Horror Show, Matt McGee made it finally clear: he’s the funniest, most sympathetic, most… Continue

The puppetry, acting and singing were spot on in MAD Theatre’s August production of the Broadway hit Avenue Q, and the intimate setting of… Continue

Independent curator Jade Dellinger masterminded two of the year’s best visual art exhibits: the interactive album-spinning installation John Cage 33-1/3 — Performed by Audience… Continue

Just in time for the RNC, Tampa-based artist collaborative Experimental Skelton revived an idea they’d set aside: inviting community members to co-create a giant… Continue

He’ll want to share credit with collaborators including Chris Parks, aka Pale Horse, and BASK, but there’s no debating that Tes One has had… Continue

Collectively, St. Pete’s galleries blow Tampa’s tiny scene away, but the ‘Burg doesn’t have Tempus Projects. Run by artist Tracy Midulla Reller, the space… Continue

Box on 5th, the newest art space to crop up in Ybor City, should help the historic district maintain its artistic cred. The white… Continue

In January, the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts honored Bud Lee, the prolific photographer and photojournalist who influenced a generation of artists in Ybor… Continue

The Florida Museum of Photographic Arts moved out of obscurity and into the Cube (aka, 400 N. Ashley Drive, next to the Beer Can),… Continue

Have a work of art, play, music you want to create and have a brand new way to present it? Hampton Arts Management offers… Continue

Meg Heimstead turned down Shawn Paonessa the first time he made her an offer. That was several years ago, when he asked her to… Continue

Spring Hill-based photographer Jeremy Scott snapped an image that captured the year’s artistic zeitgeist. Titled “Woman Carrying Fish,” the black-and-white photo featured a striking… Continue

A new website run by Creative Pinellas that blends journalism and marketing, Articulate offers tourists and art lovers in St. Pete, Clearwater, Dunedin, Tarpon… Continue

Artists Michael Parker and Carl Cowden III are creating one of the largest murals in Florida on a 12,000-square-foot warehouse along Adamo Drive between… Continue

From Polaroid art shows to snippets of mail, Eve ’n’ Odd packs a lot of imagination and whimsy into its compact space. The gallery… Continue

Living room concerts are a growing phenom in cities across the U.S., the Tampa Bay area included. Performers benefit from reduced expenses, higher cash… Continue

While many DIY bands assemble their own records, few put together the components with as distinctive a personal twist as Tampa Bay's Awkward… Continue

An album 10 years in the making, Tin Year is an impeccably crafted LP by veteran local musicians and New Granada Records leaders… Continue

Candy Bars. Zillionaire. Rec Center. Sleepy Vikings. Red Room Cinema. Alexander & The Grapes. They would be among the best, most talked-about bands… Continue

Local musician Mark Etherington puts 110 percent into whatever he's doing, whether he's belting out haunting choruses and strumming guitar as frontman of… Continue

Two local foursomes with very different aesthetics shined on national festival stages this summer. Applebutter Express jammed funky ukulele newgrass tunes during a Thursday… Continue

While plenty of bands ran successful crowd-funding campaigns for their creative projects over the past year via sites like Kickstarter.com and Pledge.com — November… Continue

The boys of Jensen Serf Co. will have to wait a good long while before they can publicly indulge in the ol’ alcamahol,… Continue

“You are not a slave,” hissed Jun Bustamante with the fury of a thousand goddesses, mesmerizing the audience with her presence, her words,… Continue

Bradenton's break-out purveyors of rockin' Americana, Have Gun, Will Travel, were tapped for CBS' legal drama The Good Wife, their track "Blessing and… Continue

As the name implies, The Happiness Machine purveys bright, refreshingly lighthearted folk pop with breezy, bouncing percussive-fused beats and an effervescent energy as exuded… Continue

Weezer’s Pinkerton and Belle and Sebastian’s If You’re Feeling Sinister both dropped in 1996. It was also a good year for Tampa area music,… Continue

Local collective Gwan Massive encompasses a huge, rotating (but usually jam-packed) lineup featuring emcees like Breakdown and Jinx, hip-hop trio The Rukus (Emcees… Continue

Delivering sweat-soaked sets of Southern drone-stoner griminess and pounding spaghetti Western-tinged psych rock-tronics is Florida Night Heat. Bassist Andre Jones rages the low… Continue

First, a perfunctory disclaimer: It’s totally not cool to douse a band with beer, no matter how awesomely punk rock it may seem.… Continue

Flat Stanley lead singer Buck Sands has never met a microphone stand he couldn’t destroy. As soon as his band launches a set, the… Continue

Such a huge diversity of fantastic bands landed in town this year, it was hard, nay impossible, to narrow the smaller-scale concert category… Continue

Amid a brilliantly mesmeric display of video and lighting technology, British art rock heavyweights Radiohead ripped, oozed, slithered and slinked their way through a… Continue

I'm not sure exactly what San Francisco composer/multi-instrumentalist Adrian Younge and his "Venice Dawn" band played during their set at Antiwarpt 2012; aside… Continue

More than 6,000 people converged on downtown Tampa for the inaugural Gasparilla Music Festival, and the conditions couldn’t have been better; pristine weather, picturesque… Continue

On this particular Saturday night in January, an overabundance of shows were happening all over town, which may have accounted for the small crowd… Continue

It’s not underground, actually — it’s just down a short flight of stairs from the Palladium lobby — but the Side Door Cabaret is… Continue

With an average attendance that swells exponentially with each installment, this free first-Thursday-of-every-month concert series showcases why Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park is the… Continue

Hump day is a magical thing, but Ybor’s finest watering hole ups the ante each Wednesday evening by offering a hearty plate of smoked… Continue

Whether it's the dance-inducing mix of hip-hop, funk and soul at Ol' Dirty Sundays, the amalgam of super-hip indie rock, pop, electro and other… Continue

A unique concept that combined a cycling shop with a pub and live-music venue, the Neptune came of age during the late-’90s heyday of… Continue

The historic downtown Clearwater theater is among the oldest operating in Florida right now (est. 1922), and possesses the tasteful grandeur of old Hollywood… Continue

Downtown Tampa's prestigious multi-stage performance center thundered full steam ahead through its 2011-12 concert season, booking an incredibly diverse range of top-notch talent that… Continue

After a $36 million renovation, the USF Sun Dome is nearly unrecognizable. What with the bright new lighting shining down on reconfigured seating, the… Continue

A rising number of notable albums are being recorded in relative obscurity and with high-quality results at this small but high-tech Seminole Heights… Continue

Musicians know that hours spent in the studio playing the same songs over and over can be both mind-numbing and expensive. Tampa’s Atomic Audio… Continue

It takes more than a good ear to be a great sound engineer. A full command of equipment and technology, a willingness to work… Continue

St. Pete Beat is the local digital film production company spearheaded by Ryan Zarra, and in a little over a year, he’s shot,… Continue

The former front man of Rancid Polecats does sound, watches the door and shows up on a moment’s notice to help out. He’ll even… Continue

The Tampa Bay local music community was shocked earlier this month at the news that Candy Bars drummer Ryan Fujiki-Hastings had died in a… Continue

Even though she drummed in one of the Tampa Bay area's most buzzed-about bands (Sleepy Vikings), had started establishing herself as a frontwoman… Continue

It’s really got that Cheers feeling (well, a little smokier and muskier, maybe) and lots of nice folks from all walks of life —… Continue

Local product Doug “Dougie Fresh” Hensel always knew there were nightlife possibilities in downtown St. Petersburg. Growing up on the “other side of the… Continue

Longtime Ybor dwellers might remember this sprawling complex as Frankie’s Patio, but Barbarella Tampa has ushered in a new age for the old club.… Continue

What a pleasant surprise! A super clean club that doesn’t have Kenny Chesney blaring from the jukebox — in Pasco County! The décor… Continue

You knew this event was a good idea as soon as you entered Stump’s Supper Club. The Mustache Bash had an unbelievable turnout, everyone… Continue

There aren’t too many places you can go in Tampa with a focus on upscale urban entertainment, but Mocha Browns sprinkles a cool dash… Continue

As an events writer, I’m constantly amazed by the number of quality, forward-thinking shows presented every month at the Studio@620. From modern dance to… Continue

It’s one thing to have eclectic entertainment, but New World presents music, comedy and theatrical cabarets and sometimes even puppets(!) with a community-minded approach… Continue

Two thirds of the three department chairs at the Straz Center’s Patel Conservatory (the third, in theater, is Ami Sallee), Ruffer and Stark have… Continue

The University of South Florida’s dance company in residence, led by Artistic Directors Shelley Bourgeois, Erin Cardinal and Cynthia Hennessy, is that stellar example… Continue

¡Bienvenidos to Octavio Martin! He was Primer Bailarin for five years with the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, a globally recognized dance company, but Martin… Continue

During the RNC, he led journalists on a tour of Tampa’s depressed neighborhoods, speaking of injustices and discrimination with a long list of facts… Continue

Steve Miller’s comedy career has been exponentially growing the last couple of years. His loud, opinionated and charming personality is made for the stage.… Continue

Ignition starred local metal-man artist/badass Frank Strunk III and featured familiar faces, sounds, and sights. It was styled to perfection and the footage was… Continue

His intricate illustration style recalls tattoo art, Fritz the Cat and other ’70s-nostalgic comic blitzes. It’s finely detailed and full of humor and grotesque… Continue

He’s co-owned and operated The Buzz coffeehouse, he promotes local film with monthly showcases of Tampa Bay moviemakers, he wrote a well-received book called… Continue

By far the coolest event associated with a film fest this year, GIFF’s rooftop showing of John Carpenter’s The Thing brought vintage drive-in flavor… Continue

Our honoree leaves us with a conundrum: We want to list his accomplishments, particularly in the past year-ish, which has seen what is most… Continue