Year-round, Greater Gainesville stages a bevy of performances, a powerful connection between live actor and audience. The performing arts are a refreshing escape from the glowing monitors of the here and now. For theater addicts and newcomers alike, here is a quick rundown of Gainesville’s up-and-coming shows, performing groups and key venues.
Gainesville Circus Center
The Gainesville Circus Center is home to the titular troupe, specializing in trapeze artistry and eye-popping carnival routines. Their colorful event history reveals an emphasis on dance. This is no doubt due to the exciting artistic direction of executive director, Corey Cheval, an experienced instructor of performing arts.
- “Circus in Wonderland:” Lewis Carroll’s psychedelic classic retold as a frolicking visual feast.
- “Dusty’s Ragtime Circus:” In this song-and-dance special, circus performers’ magic pairs well with the beat of ragtime music
University of Florida Performing Arts
A constant source of inspiring and creative original performances, University of Florida Performing Arts is studded with grand venues. The Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, the Squitieri Studio Theater and the University Auditorium have rung proud with countless performers over the years.
- “The Nutcracker:” A weird uncle gifts his young niece with an anthropomorphized nut cracking device. It wages war against a self-aware rat monarch in the living room — standard stuff.
- “Stomp:” The most impressive display of janitorial jiggling this edge of the American Southeast occurs in “Stomp.” No household object is safe from these rhythmic dudes and their boundless energy.
- “Shen Yun:” A wild night of ancient Chinese mesmerism, “Shen Yun” hardly needs an introduction. Its treasure box of creative offerings delights Americans everywhere with the best of China’s traditional culture.
The Hippodrome
In 1972, six artists founded The Hippodrome with a bang. Its first year saw seven mainstage productions and two production tours for kids. Now situated in The Federal Building, The Hippodrome’s new edifice boasts a beauty rivaled only by that of its theater performances.
- “Murder for Two:” two piano-playing performers light up the stage; one of them playing a grand total of 13 characters. Audiences are bound to have almost as much fun as the actors in this silly crime thriller.
- “A Christmas Carol:” By now, Charles Dickens’ reformed curmudgeon, Scrooge, has been a human, a duck, a smurf and Jim Carrey. The power of this classic lures in audiences every year. The Hippodrome is keeping that tradition strong.
Gainesville Community Playhouse
Gainesville’s Little Theater Association took root nearly a century ago. The Gainesville Community Playhouse is its proud legacy, hosting such live works as “Nuncrackers,” the Christmas musical. The elegant Vam York Theater is their base of operations — a $2 million venue that lives up to its investment.
- “Romeo & Juliet:” Shakespeare’s timeless tragedy depicting young love. Expect the bard’s classic style of plot points involving violence and death.
- “Shrek the Musical:” Return to the infamous swamp, with a lively rendition of Shrek and Donkey rescuing Princess Fiona. This musical offers at least a least kind of a reason to feel better about encounters with massive, discolored hermits in the woods.
- Clue: the board game-turned-movie-turned-play. This bloody whodunit delves hilariously into a bit of good-old-fashioned murder mansion ambience.
Actors Warehouse
This community-driven crew shares stories about what it is like to be human, using the art of performance. Their on-stage displays evoke powerful emotion, inspired from the reason the nonprofit theater was founded: To increase diversity on stage in Greater Gainesville and provide a safe, welcoming space for performers to be authentic and creative.
- “Some Old Black Man:” This production is based on the book by James Anthony Tyler. It is a poignantly titled tale of father and son, their search for reconciliation and family repair. Bring tissues.
- “Women Playing Hamlet:” A play within a play, “Women Playing Hamlet” fulfills its eponymous promise with a story about a young woman’s struggle to don the mantle of Shakespeare’s most iconic character.
By Drew Mortier.