I was asked the other day, “How has Best of the Bay changed over its 25 years?” Not having been at CL for that entire quarter century, I can’t say, but I do know there was a time (I remember a similar task at the paper where I worked in Philly) when these kinds of issues were completely reader-driven, and the staff’s only responsibility was to somehow write something that didn’t betray their utter despair when Pizza Hut came in first for the umpteenth time. It was out of such sloughs that papers like ours began pairing the readers’ polls with staff and critic’s picks, so as not to have to write ever again about the Olive Garden.
But guess what? We don’t have Olive Garden to kick around anymore (or at least it isn’t nearly as likely to overwhelm interest in, say, a Bella Brava or an Il Ritorno). One of the joys of checking through this year’s record-breaking number of submissions for the Readers’ Poll was to realize how aligned the paper’s interests are with our readership. Sure, we can argue about, oh, morning radio shows (boy, your fans are rabid, Bubba and Mike). But the fact is, little by little, Tampa Bay is leaving behind its image as a giant chain-restaurant petri dish and becoming a place where indie spirit and creative energy are yielding an engaged citizenry that is not willing to stand for the ordinary. We want the Best. And at CL, 25 years from that first BOTB issue in 1990, we’re still invested in helping you find it.
Note: Because we’re observing a major milestone, this issue highlights an array of other big birthdays being observed this year. See who’s aging well as we wish happy 10th, 25th, even 110th anniversaries to a slew of local institutions.
In the early 1990s, when Bonnie Agan was cast in American Stage’s The Diary of Anne Frank, all of St. Petersburg’s arts and cultural scene could be traversed in one quarter of a city block. “It’s been marvelous to watch the arts grow up in this town,” Agan says. “I give a lot of the credit to Bob Devin Jones. Studio@620 is a petri dish. Everything goes in there and kind of takes off.”
Before she was on the speed dials of the city’s hottest artistic directors, Agan worked in advertising. She spent the first half of her career working in radio production — first in her home state of Iowa and later at WFLA in Tampa, where she quickly became the station’s go-to female voice for on-air ads. At the time there weren’t a lot of women on the radio, and Agan, who studied broadcasting at Iowa State University, was just the right blend of funny, feisty and articulate.
Read a full interview with Bonnie at Ask The Locals!
As executive and artistic director of St. Petersburg Opera Company, Mark Sforzini has successfully banished the notion that opera is stuffy. He enjoys sending up the art form with events like the Opera Therapy series, in which he literally puts opera characters on the couch; gets up-close-and-personal with fans in Mornings and Evenings with the Maestro (“I explain things, tell a lot of jokes”); and famously showed off his hula hooping skills (he was a world champ at 10) in a production of Die Fledermaus.
Read a full interview with Mark at Ask The Locals!
Earlier this year, Tampa Bay’s resident filmfest guru, Margaret Murray, made the jump from executive director of the Tampa International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (TIGLFF) to donor development manager for the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in St. Petersburg. Murray, who grew up in St. Pete, made an indelible impression on local cinema buffs even before leading TIGLFF, having launched Movies That Move in 1999, a pop-up theater series that predated St. Petersburg Preservation’s beloved Movies in the Park by more than a decade. Armed with a low-powered FM transmitter, Murray showcased acclaimed independent movies at locations across Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties.
Read a full interview with Margaret at Ask The Locals!
Lawrence has parlayed his charismatic and empathic nature and an uncanny knack for making new connections into a new calling as a theater director, actor, playwright and guy-in-charge of the Tampa Bay Theatre Festival, now two years running. This year the festival brought in distinguished actor Harry Lennix from NBC’s The Blacklist.
Read a full interview with Rory at Ask The Locals!
For more than two decades, St. Pete resident Rebekah Pulley has helped shape Tampa Bay’s reputation as a haven for alternative country sounds, and spreading that gospel as one of the area’s hardest-touring independent musicians.
Read a full interview with Rebekah at Ask The Locals!