- December 23, 2024
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The late Queen Elizabeth called 1992 her “annus horribilis” after two of her sons separated from their wives and Windsor Castle caught fire.
In Sarasota, the closest thing we have to a castle is the Ca’ d’Zan at The Ringling, the former home of John and Mable Ringling. The chateau is closed to public after being damaged by Hurricane Helene.
We’re not ready to declare 2024 a horrible year for Sarasota’s arts and cultural community, but there were certainly some calamities.
The Hermitage Artist Retreat, an incubator on Manasota Key that brings world-class visual and performing artists to town, was hit first by Hurricane Helene and then again by Hurricane Milton.
The Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, the “Purple Palace” on Sarasota Bay, was forced to close for the rest of the year due to flooding from Milton on Oct. 9.
When one newcomer to Sarasota heard that the Van Wezel would be closed until 2025, he quipped, “The Van Wezel just canceled Christmas.”
Not quite, but many beloved holiday concerts were either canceled or relocated to other venues.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took cultural groups by surprise when he vetoed arts grants worth $32 million for the first time in the state’s history. Most of Sarasota’s large cultural institutions — the Sarasota Opera, Sarasota Ballet, Sarasota Orchestra, Asolo Repertory Theatre and Florida Studio Theatre — each lost at least $50,000. Collectively, about 30 local arts groups lost $1.6 million in state funding.
That may not seem like much, but the veto sent a chill through the arts community. The air got colder when three smaller groups — the outdoor art exhibition Embracing Our Differences, the International Chalk Festival and WSLR/Fogartyville — were each denied tourism tax funding by the Sarasota County Commission.
The Venice Theatre got the cold shoulder from the county commission when it decided how to allocate $200 million in federal funds to help communities recover from Hurricane Ian and prepare for future storms. The 75-year-old theater still needs $14 million to repair damage to its Jervey Theatre.
What do hurricanes and funding cuts have in common? Those developments blew long held assumptions out the window. Before 2024, it was believed that Sarasota was safe from a direct hit by a hurricane and that the arts would continue to receive government funding even in politically polarized times.
But our “Cultural Coast” is resilient, resourceful and collaborative. Arts groups moved quickly to find alternate dates and venues for performances, and donors such as Hugh and Eliza Culverhouse stepped up to fill funding gaps. The Culverhouses donated $107,643 to Embracing Our Differences after the group lost state and county funding.
The news wasn’t all bad. Five Tampa Bay museums, including The Ringling and the Sarasota Art Museum, joined forces for the Skyway exhibit of contemporary Florida art.
Nik Wallenda launched a new circus and Marie Selby Gardens opened Phase 1 of its master plan expansion, which included the world’s first net positive energy restaurant, The Green Orchid.
After a two-year search, Sarasota Orchestra found a new music director, Nashville Symphony music director Giancarlo Guerrero.
A month after Milton, Sarasota Rising founder Jeffery Kin produced the first Living Arts Festival, which buoyed spirits after the storms.
Arts groups were forced to turn on a dime in 2024. That’s why we’ve dubbed it the “Year of Fancy Footwork.” Little did we know when Sara Esty was tapping her heart out in Asolo Rep’s “Crazy For You,” she was setting an example for all of us.
Superstar aerialist Nik Wallenda opened his first Wonderland in 2023, but the circus wrapped in 2024, so we’re including it this year.
A member of the famed Flying Wallenda family that has been entertaining audiences since the 1700s, Nik Wallenda is billed as Sarasota’s Hometown Hero, and with good reason.
In addition to performing daring feats that have been broadcast globally on network TV, Wallenda walks the high wire at home.
In 2023, he started what already has become a holiday tradition with the help of Pedro Reis and Dolly Jacobs, co-founders of the Circus Arts Conservatory.
The CAC has its own Circus Sarasota, which performs in a tent in February and The Ringling’s jewelbox Historic Asolo Theater in the summer. Would there be enough demand to support both Wonderland and Circus Sarasota?
So far, so good. Last year, Wonderland drew 50,000 audience members, and Wallenda says he expects to hit 60,000 this year with a show that’s got all the holidays covered, not just the yuletide ones.
In 2017, when Marie Selby Botanical Gardens announced a $92 million project to build a new welcome center, parking garage and research facility on its waterfront property, the plan wasn’t exactly hailed by its neighbors. They worried that it would increase traffic and noise in the area.
But when Joel Morganroth, chair of the board of trustees, cut the ribbon on Phase 1 of the expansion in January, the welcome was considerably warmer. Speakers praised the innovative upgrade, which added 188,030 square feet of new facilities to Selby Gardens’ downtown campus.
Additions such as the Morganroth Family Living Energy Access Facility enabled the opening of the world’s first net-positive energy restaurant entirely utilizing solar power in May.
Operated by Michael’s On East, The Green Orchid sources its fresh produce from a rooftop garden and is powered by a nearly 50,000-square-foot array of solar panels.
The world took notice of Selby’s makeover. It was named one of Time magazine’s “World’s Greatest Places” for 2024, placed third in USA Today’s Readers Choice Awards for best botanical garden in the U.S. and was cited by The Wall Street Journal as one of five places for the best architecture of 2024.
Unlike some of Sarasota’s cultural jewels, Selby Gardens held up well during a busy storm season. Selby’s world-renowned collection of orchids, bromeliads and other plants survived intact.
But Hurricane Helene delayed the opening of the annual orchid show and Hurricane Milton forced the cancellation of the annual “Lights at Spooky Point” Halloween event at Spanish Point.
In the aftermath of the storms, Selby managed to put up 2 million twinkling lights for its holiday Lights in Bloom show at its downtown campus.
Selby got a boost in December when President and CEO Jennifer Rominiecki announced the capital campaign for the master plan’s second phase has reached 66% of its $60.9 million goal.
Audience members at the world premiere of Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe’s “Ruby” may not have realized Sarasota’s homegrown Black theater was making history with the production, but it was.
During its 25-year history, WBTT founder and artistic director Nate Jacobs has been delighting audiences with his musical revues and with plays and musicals by others. Some WBTT revues, like “Marvin Gaye: Prince of Soul” have been so popular that they have been revived more than once.
But “Ruby” was WBTT ‘s first fully realized musical production. It was finally staged in April 2024, after the pandemic and its aftermath caused “Ruby” to be postponed, not just once, but two times. “The third time was the charm,” Jacobs says.
The story of a prosperous Black woman in 1950s Florida who killed a white physician was first suggested by one of WBTT’s patrons. The muse, whose name has been lost to history, was impressed that the murder case was covered by famed Black author Zora Neale Hurston.
Jacobs says he wouldn’t have been able to create “Ruby,” which starred Catara Brae as Ruby McCollum and Ashley Elizabeth Crowe as Zora Neale Hurston, without the help of his brother. Michael Jacobs collaborated with Nate on the book for “Ruby” and wrote the lyrics.
Composer Nehemiah Luckett received credit for “additional music,” but Jacobs says Luckett’s experience with orchestral arrangements was invaluable in bringing “Ruby” to the stage.
Not everyone was pleased with the outcome of “Ruby,” whose heroine was involved in a sexual relationship with the doctor she killed and who was sent to the state insane asylum in Chattahoochee before being eventually released. McCollum died at the age of 82 in 1992.
Jacobs countered those who thought McCollum got off easy for the crime of murder by noting she was likely coerced into the affair with her doctor. In any event, the audience’s verdict on “Ruby” came down firmly in favor of WBTT.
Since he’s a native of Yorkshire, it wasn’t strange to hear Sarasota Ballet Director Iain talking about the dangers of “taking coals to Newcastle” when he discussed his company’s participation in the Royal Ballet’s 2024 celebration of British choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton.
Webb and his wife, Sarasota Ballet Assistant Director Margaret Barbieri, have been dedicated to preserving the dances of Ashton and the English style of ballet since they arrived at the Sarasota Ballet in 2007.
Earlier in their careers, Webb and Barbieri danced the principal roles in Ashton ballets at the Royal Ballet, where Ashton was choreographer under Ninette de Valois and later director of the company.
In the U.S., where the legacy of Russo-American choreographer George Balanchine continues to loom large, Ashton ballets are not performed as frequently in the rest of the country as they are in Sarasota.
In June, the Sarasota Ballet flew to London and performed in “Ashton Celebrated” at the invitation of Royal Ballet Director Kevin O’Hare, but the residency at the Royal Opera House was fraught with peril, to hear Webb tell it.
How would London critics and audiences respond to Sarasota Ballet’s renditions of Ashton’s ensemble-driven “Dante Sonata,” the showcase of choreographic satires “Facade,” the abstract “Sinfonietta,” the waltzing “Valses nobles et sentimentales” and Ashton’s self-parody “Varii Capricci”?
Would the Florida company’s efforts be dismissed because Ashton’s works are familiar to ballet lovers on the other side of the pond?
Fortunately Webb’s fears were for naught. The ticket sales were brisk, the reviews were glowing across the board with one exception and Webb left London with a heavier suitcase than when he arrived.
He came home with the British National Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement, named in honor of Dame de Valois. You can’t pick up that kind of souvenir at an airport gift shop; it’s the work of a lifetime.
It took almost two years, but Sarasota Orchestra found a music director who may have the power to inspire as much devotion as his predecessor, beloved maestro Bramwell Tovey, who died unexpectedly in 2022.
The Grammy Award-winning conductor Giancarlo Guerrero, who begins his job full time during the 2025-26 season, is only the seventh music director during Sarasota Orchestra’s 75-year history.
He is currently completing his 16th season as the music director of the Nashville Symphony. However, he made a triumphant debut in his first appearance as music director designate at the Sarasota Opera House in November, conducting the first Masterworks concert of the season, “Going Places.”
In her review for the Observer, Gayle Williams wrote, ”His movement was purposeful though at times entertaining on its own. Skipping, bouncing, even stomping on the podium translated into a forceful and clearly disciplined performance that won the hearts of the audience.”
Born in Nicaragua in 1969 to a family that fled civil war and immigrated to Costa Rica, Guerrero received his training as a member of Costa Rica Youth Symphony and the Costa Rican National Symphony Orchestra. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Baylor University and a master’s from Northwestern University.
Guerrero clearly has the passion that Sarasota Orchestra’s audiences expect from their conductors, but he also has the commitment to youth training and community outreach that will serve the institution well as it builds its new Music Center.
Earlier this month, Sarasota Orchestra made its final appointment to the development team for a 32-acre site on Fruitville Road, near I-75. It named OJB Landscape Architecture to the team.
OJB joins Boston’s William Rawn Associates, which is the design architect; executive architect HKS of Orlando; Stage Consultants of New Jersey, the acoustics and theater planner; and George F. Young of St. Petersburg, civil engineer.
It was Tuesday, Nov. 19, and Sarasota Rising founder Jeffery Kin was still walking on air two days after the close of the first Living Arts Festival, a project he had been working on for three years. Kin, the longtime artistic director of The Sarasota Players, couldn’t have been blamed if he decided to burst into song, a trait that’s not unusual among theater folk.
What Broadway tune would he have chosen? We’ll vote for “It’s a Hit” from Stephen Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along.”
Kin’s fledging festival drew attention, audiences and appreciation just weeks after Hurricane Milton knocked out major venues in town, including one that Kin had booked for his eight-day fest.
To riff further on “Merrily,” the Blob was also giving the first Living Arts Festival a thumbs-up. What, you ask, is the Blob?
In Sondheim’s play, it’s a group of tastemakers who collectively decide what’s in and what’s out. Before internet influencers, we depended on the Blob to measure an event’s hip quotient.
As he sat in the shadow of a statue of Sarasota founding father John Gillespie in Links Park doing a postmortem with a reporter, passersby stopped to congratulate Kin.
Sarasota Rising’s closing event, “A Celebration of Youth,” was a rousing success, thanks to help from Joseph Caulkins, artistic director of Key Chorale, and Circus Arts Conservatory co-founder Pedro Reis.
The Sunday night show took place in the CAC’s Sailor Circus Arena and featured the next generation of Sarasota’s performers — singers, dancers, musicians and circus artists.
The students came from organizations such as the Circus Arts Conservatory, Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe, Cuban Ballet School, the Sarasota Ballet Studio Company, the Venice and Riverview High School choirs and others.
“We’re broke, but it was worth it,” Kin said after the Living Arts Festival. He had budgeted carefully, but expenses shot up at the last minute when FEMA took over the Municipal Auditorium in the wake of Hurricane Milton. As a result, Sarasota Rising had to rent more tents than planned for its “Rise and Shine Saturday” on the Municipal Green next door.
No matter. The ever-ebullient Kin was ready to once again beat the drum for Sarasota’s answer to South Carolina’s Spoleto and raise more money.
He had defied the skeptics and demonstrated the power of collaboration in a community that buckled but didn’t break from unprecedented weather. Finally, Kin could exhale.
As the end of his life approached, architect Victor Lundy was far from forgotten. An exhibition at the Sarasota Art Museum that was jointly organized with Architecture Sarasota honoring Lundy’s circular design for Galloway’s Furniture Showroom was praised by the Wall Street Journal.
Word was that the WSJ article was read to Lundy before he died on Nov. 4 in Texas at the age of 101. The SAM show, “Modern Masterpiece Uncovered: Galloway’s Furniture Showroom by Victor Lundy,” closed Oct. 27.
Lundy was a leading member of the Sarasota School of Architecture, a group whose existence the self-proclaimed “wild man” was known to deny.
The school, which includes such architectural luminaries as Ralph Twitchell, Paul Rudolph, Carl Abbott and Ralph and William Zimmerman, was part of a movement to build innovative homes, schools and churches in the post-World War II era.
In addition to Galloway’s Furniture Showroom, which sits on the SAM grounds and is currently used for storage, Lundy designed such Sarasota landmarks as the Blue Pagoda Building, now the home of The Bay, and St. Paul Lutheran Church.
Lundy was the subject of exhibition at Architecture Sarasota’s McCullough Pavilion and was formally honored during its Modernism Weekend in 2023 and again this year after his death.
In a statement issued following Lundy’s death, Architecture Sarasota President Morris (Marty) Hylton III said, “Lundy’s buildings often rely on simple, symmetrical plans based on pure geometries that bely the complex sections and spaces made possible by the laminated wood structural systems.”
Born Feb. 1, 1923 to Russian immigrants in New York City, Lundy was studying architecture at New York University when he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942. After World War II, Lundy earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture at Harvard.
He arrived in Sarasota in 1951, opened an architecture firm in 1954 and worked here until 1960, when he moved back to New York City after marrying Anstis Burwell.
The couple relocated to Houston in the 1970s. They had two sons, Nicholas and Mark. Anstis Burwell Lundy, who died in 2009, introduced her husband to Colorado, where they built a home in Aspen.
Even though Lundy left Sarasota more than 60 years ago, his work continues to be admired and preserved. Several of Lundy’s buildings are on the registry called “Moderns That Matter: Sarasota 100” recently compiled with input from the community by Architecture Sarasota.
It had been apparent for years that Pedro Reis and Dolly Jacobs, co-founders of the Circus Arts Conservatory, were grooming Jennifer Mitchell to be the next leader of the 25-year-old nonprofit. But no one was exactly sure when the handover was going to occur.
On Nov. 19, the CAC announced that Mitchell, a 16-year veteran of the umbrella organization for Circus Sarasota and the Sailor Circus Academy, would assume the role of president and CEO immediately.
Mitchell was previously CAC executive vice president and chief operating officer, a position she held for more than a decade. She joined the circus arts organization in 2008, when it was known as Circus Sarasota, as marketing and public relations coordinator.
In a statement, the CAC credited Mitchell with the 2011 acquisition of the Sailor Circus, which led to the creation of the conservatory in 2013.
During Mitchell's tenure as COO, the CAC participated in a Circus program at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2017 and completed a $5 million campaign to renovate and add air-conditioning to the Sailor Circus Arena. Mitchell also served as the lead strategist in developing circus magnet programs at Sarasota High School and Booker Middle School.
It is impossible to underestimate the role that Jacobs and Reis played in reviving the circus arts in Sarasota, once the summer home of Ringing Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
“When Dolly and Pedro started Circus Sarasota, our community was one with a rich circus heritage but no working circus,” notes Key Chorale Artistic Director Joseph Caulkins, who collaborates with Reis each year on the Cirque des Voix (Circus of Voices).
The CAC presents Circus Sarasota under the big top each year during season and in the summer at The Ringling's jewelbox Historic Asolo Theater. In 2024, Circus Sarasota had a summer residency for the first time in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, where it was well received.
In the last fiscal year, the CAC presented 250 performances to 117,000 audience members, educated 9,000 students across 45 schools and five counties in Florida and trained more than 120 year-round student athletes through the Sailor Circus Academy.
The group also trained 1,000 summer campers and mentored 110 in-school circus students through magnet programs.
Although Reis and Jacobs are relinquishing their top management titles, they will continue to provide guidance and support to the CAC. Reis will hold the title of founder while Jacobs will serve as vice president.
Reis will continue to work as a producer for Circus Sarasota and to pursue his dream of bringing a circus arts festival to Sarasota.
