Registry Tampa Bay

I’ve stocked the top spots in this weekend’s top 10 with theater, because it’s one of those weekends when area professional stages are chockablock with good stuff. But wait, there’s more: film and concert series, drag queens and divas, and just one more weekend to catch two top visual art shows. Go get ’em!

  1. Stupid F**king Bird. One of the best arts journalists I’ve ever had the pleasure to know, Philadelphia writer/editor Howard Shapiro, had this to say about SFB: “Fun is not what you expect from Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull . . . But in Aaron Posner’s exquisitely clever adaptation of the play. . . you get the laughs, too. Lots of them.” I’m hearing great things about Tampa Rep’s production, which opens this weekend with a cast that includes local luminaries Jim Wicker, Emilia Sargent, Ryan Bernier and Nick Hoop, as well as relative newcomers Adam Workman, India Davison and Giselle Muise. I’d say fun — and tears, and confrontations, and maybe even a curse word or two — are in store. 5/31-6/16, tamparep.org.
  2. Hedda. The buzz has been deafening for this contemporary adaptation of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler at Jobsite, especially re Emily Belvo’s performance in the title role. But you better hurry — it closes Sunday. Through 6/2, jobsitetheater.org.
  3. Long Day’s Journey Into Night. American Stage tackles Eugene O’Neill’s wrenching drama of family and addiction. See my preview from 5/29Through 6/30, americanstage.org.
  4. Four Guys Named Jose and… Una Mujer Named Maria. Four guys with the same first name but different roots (Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Mexico) meet at a Burrito World in Omaha and discover a shared dream of staging a show of Latin standards — and share an interest, too, in the same beautiful woman. Expect songs like “La Bamba” and “Guantanemera” in four- and five-part harmonies and what sounds like a very good time. You can even book yourself a seat at a cabaret table — with complimentary cava! 5/31-6/16, stageworkstheatre.org.
  5. Buyer & Cellar. Chris Crawford has been winning deserved raves for playing all the roles (including Barbra Streisand) in this slyly inventive play about an out-of-work actor who gets a job being the sole staffer in Ms. Streisand’s underground shopping mall (which is a real thing, by the way, though she apparently never hired anyone to work there). Through 6/9, freefalltheatre.com.
  6. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Feel like seeing something uplifting happen in D.C.? I know it’s hard to imagine, but Tampa Theatre is here to help with its Summer Classics screening of this 1939 political comedy-drama starring Jimmy Stewart as a crusading U.S. Senator, which features, among other great scenes, moviedom’s most famous filibuster. Post-screening Q& A with retired USF film professor Harriet Deer. Sun. 6/2 at 3 p.m., Tampa Theatre, tampatheatre.org.
  7. Marly Music Opener: Pianist Yael Weiss. The Museum of Fine Arts’ estimable Marly Music Series resumes with a concert by acclaimed Israeli-American pianist Yael Weiss. She’ll play three Beethoven sonatas plus works from her Bright Clouds project, which  commissions music by composers from countries experiencing conflict and unrest, such as Ghana and the Philippines. Sun., 6/2, 2 p.m., mfastpete.org.
  8. “Countess” Luann de Lesseps. She’s parlayed her Real Housewives fame into a cabaret career, and now her show, Countess and Friends, comes to the Capitol. Pray she sings her mesmerizingly bad but still kinda catchy “Money Can’t Buy You Class”; think of her as the 2019 Florence Foster Jenkins. 5/31, rutheckerdhall.com.
  9. The Evolution of Drag.  Glamazon Daphne Ferraro hosts a multimedia drag extravaganza at St. Pete’s Palladium Theater to benefit the Tampa International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. Expect comedy, history and fabulous drag in the person of such fabled female impersonators as Kenya Black, Robyn Demournay, Jocelyn Summers, Jaeda Fuentes, Chi Chi LaLique, Kathryn Nevets. Sequins, wigs and heavy makeup are strongly encouraged.  8 p.m., 6/1, Saturday. Palladium Theater.
  10. Last chance, St. Pete! Tonight is closing night for the 10th season of Preserve the ’Burg’s Movies in the Park series, with a screening at dusk of Dr. Seuss’s cautionary classic The Lorax in North Straub Park (5/30, preservetheburg.org). And this weekend’s your last chance to see two superior art shows: the Florida CraftArt Members’ Show, a juried exhibition of handcrafted home accents, furniture, jewelry, wearable art, ceramics, gifts and more (floridacraftart.org), and Theo Wujcik: Cantos at the Museum of Fine Arts, a celebration of the work of master printmaker and painter Wujcik. mfastpete.org.

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