I wasn’t really thinking of it at the time.
Last Saturday we joined friends to take in the Jobsite Theater production of “Farenheit 451,” the Ray Bradbury paean to the written word, at the David A. Straz Jr. Center for the Performing Arts. We were impressed with the performance and reminded how truly prescient Bradbury was in anticipating television’s morph onto the societal shoals of reality TV.
We then were reminded how truly fortunate we are to have such a state-of-the-art performing arts center in our downtown. One so versatile and multi-dimensional. From traveling Broadway shows to a Broadway Genesis Project. From international concerts to ambitious drama, such as the aforementioned “Farenheit 451” now being staged at the intimate Shimberg Playhouse.
More to the point, however, was the realization that the center, renamed the Straz in 2009, is also celebrating its 25th anniversary. It opened in September 1987. Now it’s the largest performing arts center in the Southeast.
It was a reminder that there was a time when we were more than Strazless in Tampa. There was a time when Tampa was to the arts what Las Vegas was to family values. Utilitarian Curtis Hixon Hall was the downtown Tampa performing arts venue. It also hosted conventions, trade shows, graduations and boxing matches as well as acts such as Slim Whitman and Gloria Estefan–while she was still with the Miami Sound Machine. USF also played basketball games there.
While there was the occasional Elvis or Janis Joplin sighting in Tampa, live entertainment mostly meant wrestling, jai alai, spring-training baseball and flamenco dancing at the Columbia Restaurant. Tampa was a late cultural bloomer. Sarasota had its Van Wezel Hall, St. Pete its Mahaffey Theater and even Clearwater its Ruth Eckerd Hall. For too long Tampa had Curtis Hixon, an homage to functional 1960’s architecture.
In the ’80s, it became apparent that Tampa, which was ambitious beyond “Cigar City” and “Big Guava” status, needed more “Next Great City” trappings. Exhibit A for progressive cities worth their civic salt: a first-class performing arts center. It was seen as a must-have, economic-development tool. Tampa had to have one to be a serious player.
More bottom line than aesthetics driven, key civic leaders such as Mayor Bob Martinez, Hinks Shimberg, Frank Morsani and the late H. L. Culbreath were the pragmatic visionaries. Municipal bonds and nine city-owned, dirt-lot acres were the catalytic combination. The $57-million, 335,000-square-foot Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center resulted.
It lost money initially until Judy Lisi took over as TBPAC president in 1992. She was the former director of the prestigious Shubert Performing Arts Center in New Haven and was Juilliard School of Music-trained in opera. Lisi had the know-how and the know-who. She re-oriented TBPAC’s programming, which was heavy on the classics. They were paying top dollar for less-than-first-rate Broadway.
TBPAC was soon in the black, where it has remained. It would add the Patel Conservatory as a complement.
Today–as the Straz Center–it is unparalleled as the city’s arts catalyst. It’s meant more than Broadway tours and cabaret shows and local theater. It was Tampa’s first major cultural project–the one that sent an unmistakable signal that we were, indeed, serious about our ambitions. It showcased Tampa, and the ultimate ripple effects have arguably included three museums, an increasingly viable Riverwalk, an Aquarium, downtown residential and an avenue of the arts.
Happy anniversary, Straz Center. And thank you, Judy Lisi. And did I mention that “Farenheit 451” is still combustible, still relevant and still playing at Shimberg Playhouse?