There are two important opening nights happening tonight that couldn’t be more different from one another, except that I can pretty much guarantee you’ll have a wonderful time whichever one you choose.
In Tampa, A Tuna Christmas opens at the Straz Center’s Jaeb Theatre starring two of the most versatile actors in Tampa Bay or anywhere — Jobsite favorite Spencer Meyers (Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch) and Theatre Tampa Bay award-winner Derrick Phillips (Richard III with Tampa Shakespeare Festival, KJ in Stageworks’ The Aliens). They play a total of 22 characters — and we do mean characters, with names like Bertha Bumiller, Garland Poteet and Sheriff Buford Givens — in a Southern-fried romp set in the third-smallest town in Texas (that would be Tuna), where comic mayhem threatens to upend the Yuletide yard display contest. Wed.-Fri. 12/11-13, 7:30 p.m.; Sat. 12/14, 2 & 7:30 p.m.; Sun. 12/15, 2 p.m.; Wed.-Thurs. 12/18-19, 7:30 p.m. Jaeb Theater, Straz Center, 1010 N. MacInnes Place, Tampa. 813-229-STAR (7827), strazcenter.org.
In St. Petersburg, it’s the opening concert in the 2019-20 Palladium Chamber Players series, one of the treasures of the local music scene. Violinist Jeffrey Multer, Florida Orchestra concertmaster and series artistic director, is joined by the Players’ newest core members, cellist Julian Schwartz and pianist Marika Bournaki, as the Mile-End Trio. Their program will include Beethoven’s delightful Archduke Trio as well as the Piano Trio in G minor by the Czech composer Bedrich Smetana (The Moldau). Wed. Dec. 11, 7:30 p.m., The Palladium, 253 Fifth Ave. N., St. Petersburg. 727-822-3590, mypalladium.org.
