The Palladium and St. Petersburg College four years later – the news is very good

The following are excerpts from a short speech I gave to the SPC Values and Visions luncheon on Thursday, Jan. 27, in the Stavros Great Room at the Palladium:

Welcome to the Palladium at St. Petersburg College. You’re in our Side Door Cabaret where the best jazz and blues musicians in the bay area come to play. You’re also in our staging room where opera performers get made up and dressed. You’re in the rehearsal hall where members of the St. Petersburg College concert chorus do their vocal warm-ups before a concert AND you are in a St. Petersburg College classroom, where students in the Music Industry and Recording Arts Program take classes.

The Palladium is that kind of place.

The Palladium turns 13 in 2011 and I’m happy to report the theater survived childhood and is becoming a very precocious and busy teenager.  With us today in the audience are some of our founders –  Bill and Hazel Hough, and Gus Stavros.   

Back in the late 1990s these community leaders had a vision for an affordable, professional venue for Tampa Bay performers, schools students and our arts and cultural organizations.  They acquired this magnificent building and gathered adjacent property for parking, and made the theater work, despite the odds.

 Four years ago, the Palladium board of directors entrusted St. Petersburg College with the future of the Palladium. And I’m happy to report that we are in the midst of the Palladium’s most successful year in its history. We are hosting more events and selling more tickets than ever before. 

The college has been a very good steward of this theater. Adding a new , state-of-the-art sound system, a new air conditioning system, fiber optics, more reliable electric power, a freight elevator and much, much more.

When the college took over the Palladium there were plenty of people asking – why does the Palladium exist? We are in a market with three major performing arts venues – so who needs another one?

 But while those venues bring us Broadway shows and national and international performers – the bulk of their events involve touring companies and road shows. The Palladium is all about our own homegrown talent and creative efforts.

 We are the place where a Isabelle Poole, a young St. Petersburg ballerina like gets a chance to play the lead in the Nutcracker. Where Kyle Gee, a local opera singer on his way to Julliard can do a recital to raise money to help pay for his schooling.  A place where St. Petersburg College student Sean Neavins gets to work the sound board for his event and many others.

It’s also the place where hundreds of local musicians and pick up a paycheck and get to play in the best music room in the bay area. 

It turns out this is a perfect week to describe about what we do here. Let’s just review eight days starting last Friday, Jan. 21st – opening night of Rigoletto.  The St. Petersburg Opera sold out two of their three performances of that great Verdi opera. Last Tuesday, when the weathermen were telling people to stay home the opera played to a crowd of over 500 people. 

The Palladium helped birth this incredible organization by providing low-cost space and encouragement – Dar Webb, my predecessor,  was responsible for that.  Now, the opera has become its own organization and the Palladium’s biggest client. And while a number of the leading roles are cast nationally, most of the singers and musicians on stage live in our community.

During our 2010-11 season SPO will  perform three fully staged productions. Madame Butterfly is next.  And they’ll be back for three more next season.

 Yesterday, the opera loaded out and the Buglisi Dance Theatre loaded in. Their show is tonight (Jan. 27) and the noise you hear upstairs is the start of their tech rehearsal. Buglisi is here because they are a magnificent company I saw at a New York showcase, but also because their lead dancer, Helen Hansen French, grew up in St. Petersburg. A local committee helped bring the company here and has helped us sell more than 400 tickets so far for tonight’s show. Helen, by the way, is also an adjunct dance instructor at SPC. 

On Friday (Jan. 28), the band of the United States Air Force Reserve will play a free concert to a capacity crowd and music student from SPC will join them on stage for at least one number – as they have for the past two years. 

Saturday (Jan. 29), we present my favorite show of the year – The Boogie Woogie Blues Piano Stomp. We’ve sold almost 600 tickets for that show so far. It’s not a touring show but our own creation. We bring in four of the best boogie and blues pianists in the country, including St. Petersburg’s own Liz Pennock.  

And finally, on Sunday, in partnership with the St. Petersburg College Sustainability Office, we’re presenting a documentary called “Climate Refugees.” That showing is free and the director will appear via Skype for a live Q & A.

 That’s just one week. If my staff members look haggard, you can understand why. We have eight full-time staff and a dozen or so part-timers making this all happen. 

We’re a small operation but as my Director of Operations Kathy Oathout likes to say – being part of St. Petersburg College is like having the Verizon Network behind you. When we need something, the college folks are there to help.

That said, we’re still an arts organization that depends on community support to fulfill our mission. You can do that by becoming a member. You can donate to our Friends of the Palladium program fund. You can volunteer. You can bring your friends to a performance.

My thanks to everyone at St. Petersburg College and to all our members, audiences and friends for helping us to reach this point. I’m happy to report our future is bright and the Palladium is here for the long-term.