Tom Hall

Entering 2025, the City of Fort Myers Public Art Committee has three vacancies to fill.

The late Luciano Pavarotti ran an international voice competition in Philadelphia in the 1980s and '90s to foster emerging opera talent. Opera Naples and the Luciano Pavarotti Foundation are bringing it back! The competition will be held at FGCU's Bower School of Music & the Arts Thursday through Saturday.

In tandem with the Pavarotti Voice Competition, the Luciano Pavarotti Foundation Opera Naples Academy will present the comedic opera “Don Pasquale” in two performances this weekend. This weekend’s performances at the Wang Opera Center give some of today’s rising opera stars from around the world the opportunity to perform with a live orchestra.

Art Fest Naples began as a fundraising idea for Eden Autism Services. Twenty-eight years later, the annual art festival is still going strong. The festival runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, January 18 and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, January 19.

Five shows open, there are previews for a world premiere and eight other shows continue their runs at area theaters during the week of January 13, 2025.

William S. Burroughs' collaborations with painter and sculptor David Bradshaw are the subject of “Propagation” at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery at Florida SouthWestern State College. The exhibition includes a series of 3D works that the two of them created using guns and dynamite.

The Brits love “The Da Vinci Code,” so the only surprise was that they waited until 2022 to adapt the 2003 novel for the stage. The drama jumped the pond in August of 2023, and Producing Artistic Director Tyler Young was first in line for the rights to produce the play in Florida.

Arts Center Theatre on Marco Island is presenting Neil Simon this season, starting with “Last of the Red Hot Lovers.” There’s an abundance of physical comedy, amplified by the cozy confines of the 82-seat theater, where the front row is a mere 4 feet from the stage.

For more than 30,000 years, artists have been painting murals on walls, whether in caves, Egyptian tombs or Minoan palaces. But walls crumble. Buildings get condemned. Stanchions get washed away by storm surge. Now there’s an alternative.

Southwest Florida will be the site of three outdoor art festivals January 11 & 12: the Naples Artcrafters Fine Art & Craft Show; Bonita Springs National Art Festival; and the 40th Annual Cape Coral Art Festival and Market Place.