The New Tampa Performing Arts Center’s Annual Arts Festival returns for a third act September 12-14.
The weekend of free performances by Bay Area acts and artists has theater, dance, music, improv, and sketch comedy on the center’s main stage and in a rehearsal studio temporarily transformed into a venue space. Throughout the festival, there will be piano performances in the lobby and backstage tours that give a behind-the-scenes look at everything involved in putting on a show at the center. Saturday the 13th is family day, with children’s events like the popular instrument petting zoo by The Florida Orchestra and Gasparilla Music Festival, a free screening of Disney’s 1991 classic “Beauty and the Beast,” crafts activities, and food trucks.
The New Tampa festival launched in September 2023 to introduce the then-months-old performing arts center to the community and kick off and publicize the upcoming performance season. The year and the lineup may change, but the aim – bring more people through the door and spread word about the new performance season – stays the same.
“In many cases, the festival is their introduction,” New Tampa Performing Arts Center General Manager Keith Arsenault says. “It’s their chance to come in and see the facility and experience what performances here are like. We’ll also distribute the season brochure for the 2025-26 season, which the festival heralds.”
New additions to the festival this year include chamber music ensemble Winold Music Festival, traditional African drum and dance troupe Cultural Arts Theater, sketch comedy group Divine Madness, and a collaboration between newcomers Hat Trick Theatre and Tales of Mild Interest, a radio theater group.
The St. Petersburg Opera also travels to New Tampa for its festival debut.
“I’m really looking forward to that,” Arsenault says. “We’re actually closing the whole festival on Sunday night with the St. Petersburg Opera and various selections from their repertoire that are either coming up in a performance or that they’ve done recently. We also will have a collaboration between the St. Petersburg Opera and the Tampa City Ballet. We're trying to make that closing of the festival a bit more special, a bit more spectacular."
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New Tampa Performing Arts CenterThe New Tampa Players perform during the New Tampa Performing Arts Center's 2024 Annual Arts Festival
There are also returning acts like the New Tampa Players, Rudram Dance Company, Cypress Creek Jazz Band, Anna Dance Academy, Tampa City Ballet, Wattaka Choir, Countdown Improv, Outcast Theatre, Jansen Dance Company, and Entertainment Revue.
Student musicians with the USF Musical Theatre Program, Hillsborough College Music Department, and Wharton High will also perform.
Arsenault says the behind-the-scenes tours of the center he leads are also popular. He says last year he got distracted and forgot about one tour, only to be tracked down and told a dozen people were waiting for him.
“It’s great to show people what it really takes to create an event in a space like this,” he says. “The theater is a factory and the product is art. It takes more than just somebody walking up on stage and saying a line of dialogue to put on a first-class production.”
For more information and the schedule, go to Annual Arts Festival
“THE UNRAVELING – A Future Without USAID and Its Global Implications” at WADA
St. Pete's Warehouse Arts District Association presents "THE UNRAVELING – A Future Without USAID and Its Global Implications,” an exhibition reflecting on the Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), at its ArtsXchange campus from September 13 to October 4.
“Curated by former USAID Foreign Service Officer Jude Leitten, ‘THE UNRAVELING’ reflects on the sweeping domestic and international consequences of a world without USAID,” a WADA description says. “The exhibition features powerful mixed-media works by Ali Syverson, a former USAID Communications Advisor, whose artwork draws directly from her experiences in development missions and crisis zones around the globe.
“In addition to Syverson’s work, Leitten curates a multimedia installation of photography, video, and personal accounts submitted by USAID alumni worldwide. This broader presentation highlights the stories, programs, and relationships abruptly impacted by the agency’s dissolution.”
The opening night runs from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on September 13th, during the monthly Second Saturday ArtWalk. An artist talk with Ali Syverson is 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on September 17th. A panel discussion with several former USAID leaders is 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on September 24th.
For more information, go to THE UNRAVELING
“ALL IN: George Anderton, Works from North A St” at Tempus Projects
“ALL IN: George Anderton, Works from North A St,” a solo exhibit spanning the decades-long career of Tampa artist Anderton, is at Tempus Projects in Ybor City’s Kress Contemporary through September 18, with an artist reception from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on September 5.
“Organized by José Gelats and Kathy Gibson, the exhibition highlights both recent
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ArtHouse3“ALL IN: George Anderton, Works from North A St" is at Tempus Projects in Ybor City's Kress Contemporary and rarely seen works — many being exhibited for the first time in Tampa Bay,” a description on Tempus Projects’ website says. “The presentation offers a unique glimpse into Anderton’s evolving visual language, marked by an intuitive yet deliberate approach that bridges formal rigor and emotional resonance.”
Anderton trained in London and Budapest and has had a studio practice in Tampa for more than 30 years. To give a view into Anderton’s creative environment, the exhibit includes objects from his home studio, including antique chairs, lamp shades, a deer head, breeze blocks, and a weathered wood table from Budapest.
For more information, go to ALL IN
“Untitled Space” at Coalition of Hispanic Artists
"Untitled Space,” the first solo exhibition of Mexican-American collage artist Brenda Segoviano, is at the Coalition of Hispanic Artists at the Kress Contemporary in Ybor City from September 7 to October 2.
“Drawing from her first-generation immigrant experience, Segoviano layers fragments of color and texture to reflect the complexities of navigating life between two cultures,” an exhibit description says. “Her collages become visual narratives of dual identity — deliberate expressions that capture personal moments, family, community, and the stories that shape her journey.”
The opening reception is 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on September 7.
For more information, go to Coalition of Hispanic Artists
“963 Hz: The Interstitial Moment between Image and Sound” at FMoPA
“963 Hz: The Interstitial Moment between Image and Sound,” by Tarpon Springs interdisciplinary artist Chris Leventis, is at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts in the Kress Contemporary in Ybor City from September 9 to October 26. The opening reception is 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. on September 11.
The exhibit features analog and digital photographs Leventis captured while exploring the Central Florida swamps over the last four years.
For more information, go to 963 HZ
“Open Doors to History” at Hotel Haya
“Open Doors to History,” an exhibition featuring the work of Cuban-born, Tampa-based artist Mario Javier Pérez Salabarría and curated by Hillsborough Community
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HCC Art Galleries“Open Doors to History,” an exhibition featuring the work of Cuban-born, Tampa-based artist Mario Javier Pérez Salabarría, is at Hotel Haya in Ybor CiyCollege Art Galleries, opens in the Valencia Foyer at Hotel Haya in Ybor City on September 4th, with an opening reception from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
“Pérez’s striking series of urban landscapes pays tribute to the immigrants who built the ‘Cigar Capital of the World’ and to the architecture that holds the city’s memory,” an exhibit description says. “Created with mixed media on unique surfaces, including salvaged doors from homes impacted by the 2024 hurricane, his work invites viewers to step through a symbolic gateway of resilience, history, and cultural restoration.”
For more information or to register for the free reception, go to Open Doors to History
“La Grande Illusion” at USF CAM
“La Grande Illusion,” an exhibition spanning two decades of work by internationally acclaimed Irish artist Brian Maguire, is at the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum from September 5th through March 7, 2026. The opening reception is 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. on September 5th.
“Maguire's paintings are global in scope and are derived from projects undertaken between 2007 and 2024 in Mexico, the Mediterranean, Syria, Sudan, the United States, and the Amazon,” a USF CAM description says. “Maguire's artworks are painted from direct experience and involve the artist spending extensive time on the ground with the communities that welcome him. The results are, plainly put, paintings that visualize the commonality of human suffering and dramatize the plight of people in need.”
For more information, go to La Grande Illusion
“Mind of Things” at ARTicles Gallery
“Mind of Things,” an exhibit of works by Tarpon Springs artist Rocky Bridges and St. Pete-based artist Norbert Gonsalves, is at ARTicles Gallery, 1234 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. N. in St. Petersburg, from September 12 - October 31. The opening reception is 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on September 12.
Bridges uses salvaged and repurposed materials, often metal, to create collages, paintings, and sculptures. Gonsalves is an award-winning ceramacist and board member with Tampa Regional Artists who keeps a studio at the Morean Center for Clay in St. Petersburg.
For more information, go to Mind of Things
“Cool Vibes Only” at d-gallerie
“Cool Vibes Only,” a solo exhibit by New York-based artist Felix Burgos, opens at d-
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d-gallerie"Cool Vibes Only" is at d-gallerie in St. Petegallerie,1234 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr St. in St. Petersburg, on Friday, September 12. The opening reception is 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on the 12th.
“With crisp lines, sun-soaked palettes, and surreal perspectives, Burgos captures the essence of an endless summer, inviting viewers to linger in imagined retreats defined by palm trees, pristine pools, and pastel walls,” an exhibit description says. “His compositions blur the boundaries between realism and abstraction, nostalgia and modernism.”
For more information,
go to Cool Vibes Only
“Goddess of the Hunt” at LAB Theater Project
“Goddess of the Hunt,” by playwright Doug DeVita, is at LAB Theater Project in Ybor City from September 18th through October 5th.
“In this fast-paced, gloriously twisted gay farce, grieving widower Charlie Windsor meets the magnetic and mysterious Diana Black-White in a Midtown bar,” a LAB Theater description says. “Their instant connection rattles Charlie’s lifelong best friend, Broadway actor Ed McGrath, and propels Charlie into a surreal web of performative personas, scandalous secrets, and a mythological showdown where nothing—and no one—is what it seems.”
The shows at 8 p.m. on Saturday, September 27th and 3 p.m. on Sunday, September 28th are special benefit performances with all proceeds donated to Equality Florida to support their mission to secure full equality for Florida’s LGBTQ community. The Gobioff Foundation has pledged to match every dollar raised.
For more information, go to LAB Theater
Powerstories Theatre presents “Ada and the Engine”
Powerstories Theatre presents “Ada and the Engine” at Stageworks Theatre in the Tampa Channel District's Kennedy at Grand Central from September 12-21.
Written by playwright Lauren Gunderson, “Ada and the Engine" tells the story of Ada Byron Lovelace, a fiery young inventor and the daughter of flamboyant poet Lord Byron, at the dawn of the British Industrial Revolution.
Along with friend and soulmate Charles Babbage, inventor of the first mechanical computer, Ada “dreams of a new world where art and technology converge,” and a future where “analytic engines transform society, blending art and information in ways she might not live to see,” a description says.
For more information, go to Ada and the Engine
“Tell Me on a Sunday” at freeFall Theatre
freeFall Theatre in St. Petersburg presents Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical comedy “Tell Me on a Sunday” from September 5 to October 5.
The play tells the story of a young English girl who’s just arrived in New York.
“Brimming with optimism, she sets out to seek success, companionship and, of course, love,” a description on freeFall’s website says. “But as she weaves her way through the maze of the city and her own anxieties, frustrations, and heartaches, she begins to wonder whether — in fact — she’s been looking for love in all the wrong places.”
The show contains Lloyd Webber favorites “Tell Me On a Sunday,” “Come Back with the Same Look in Your Eyes,” and “Unexpected Song.”
For more information and tickets, go to Tell Me on a Sunday
Sand mandala at Drong Njur Center in Wesley Chapel
The Drong Njur Jangchubling Buddhist Center in Wesley Chapel is creating a traditional sand mandala from September 19-22 as a public event leading up to its annual Mani Drubchen retreat.
The lamas will construct the mandala from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, and the public is invited to the temple to witness the process. The annual Mani Drubchen runs from September 23-28. The Drong Njur Jangchubling Buddhist Center is located at 30520 Lynne Dr. in Wesley Chapel.
For more information on the sand mandala, go to the center’s Facebook page
For more information on the retreat and to register, go to Mani Drubchen