Arts notes

By Times staff

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 7, 2001

Early start for Florida Studio Theatre

Florida Studio Theatre is opening its mainstage season three weeks earlier than it did last year, with Smoke on the Mountain, a bluegrass gospel revue, starting Oct. 23. The Sarasota theater's 2001-02 schedule also includes Donald Margulies' Pulitzer Prize winner Dinner With Friends; Two Pianos, Four Hands by Ted Dykstra and Richard Greenblatt; and the premiere of Naked by the River by Michael T. Folie. The theater's cabaret season opens with The Rhythm of Life: The Songs of Dorothy Fields on Nov. 13.

Resident conductor gets big hand

Florida Orchestra resident conductor Thomas Wilkins received good notices in his classical subscription concert debut in September with the Detroit Symphony. Filling in for Neeme Jarvi, Detroit's ailing music director, Wilkins led "a compelling concert," reported Detroit News music critic Lawrence B. Johnson, who especially praised his "searching traversal" of Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances. Wilkins will split this season between Detroit and Florida, as resident conductor with both orchestras, and then goes full time to Detroit in 2002-03.

Free pipe organ concerts

A series of five free one-hour Monday afternoon concerts features area organists on the Palladium's 1926 Skinner pipe organ. Margaret McAllister begins the series at 4 p.m. Monday at the concert hall at 253 Fifth Ave. N, St. Petersburg. (727) 822-3590.

'Masterpiece Theatre' opener

Masterpiece Theatre begins its new season on PBS' WEDU-Ch. 3 at 9 p.m. Monday with the Royal National Theatre staging of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, updated to 1930s Venice, directed by Trevor Nunn. David Bamber is the merchant of the title who takes out a loan from Shylock, played by Henry Goodman.

Cultivating a sculpture garden

From the Toledo Museum of Art, home of the new Georgia and David K. Welles Sculpture Garden, come these suggestions for things for kids to do in a sculpture garden. They apply to bay area sculpture gardens as well, such as those at the Gulf Coast Museum of Art, Largo, and the Tampa Museum of Art.

Walk around, under and through the sculpture, if you can.

Lie down under the sculpture and look up. See how the clouds in the sky make the sculpture look different as they pass by.

Look through spaces in the sculpture. What do they look like? The windows of a rocket ship? Of a submarine? Or does it seem as if you are looking through the eyes of a dinosaur?

If you could sit on this sculpture -- on some you actually can! -- decide where you would sit and then try it out. Does the sculpture look better with you on it?

Make your body into the shape of the sculpture. This is especially fun to do with other people as other parts of the sculpture.

If the sculpture moves, move that way yourself.

Find sculptures that are alike in some way -- for example, in the Toledo Museum of Art Sculpture Garden, there are several sculptures representing animals. Are several red? Are any made of glass? Find as many as you can.

Note to parents: Some sculptures are okay to sit on; others are not. If touching is forbidden, it will be clearly marked, but be aware so your kids -- and the art -- will be safe.

Fame game

Artist Josette Urso of Tampa and New York is exhibiting paintings and collages in a one-person show at Museum West Fine Art, San Francisco.

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