Congrats to my friend and neighbor Bob Devin Jones and the Studio @ 620 on their 10th birthday celebration this weekend.
Bob and co-founder Dave Ellis built a space that allows people to stretch their creative wings. There are times when a show or a performer flies right into the Studio’s brick wall, but mostly the artists, writers and performers take flight.
The Studio gave my wife and I a place to hone our cabaret act. It is also home to our Radio Theater Project, which grew from a conversation between Bob and Mimi Rice, into a viable troupe with a five-year track record.
Plus, at the Studio you always get Bob’s cookies and brownies. As I told a reporter recently who was doing a story on the anniversary – Bob understands that creativity requires sugar.
Stop by the Studio on Saturday night for some cake and candles.
Bob Devin Jones
TB Times Arts Writer Stephanie Hayes wrote about the anniversary for the Weekend section today. Here’s a link to the entire story and a excerpt from her light and lively piece:
St. Petersburg’s foremost revolving door for artists and thinkers turns 10 years old this week.
The Studio@620 is a nonprofit enterprise. Only two staffers take a salary, and it remains self-sufficient on the back of government grants, ticket sales, donations, volunteers and the nearly 500 paying members amassed over the past decade.
They have come to see anyone from Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko to John Hope Franklin to Ralph Nader. Shakespeare plays. Paintings by the Florida Highwaymen. Open mic nights. Poetry slams. Gospel brunches. The studio even provided a birthplace for freeFall Theatre, now a professional company with its own venue.
“The Studio@620 is truly so different than anything else we have in the city,” said St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman, a friend of Jones’. “Bob’s venue kind of has everything. He’s been able to do everything from the spoken word to dance to art. He’s been able to showcase so many different types of culture. There was nothing like that before him.”
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