Tom Hall

Three new exhibitions open at Florida Gulf Coast University on August 17. A fourth show, “The History of the United States, Vol. I & II, 1774 – 1844,” opens August 27th in the Wasmer Art Gallery with a roundtable discussion.

This week, “Waiting for Godot” opens, five shows continue their runs and there are two limited engagements at Southwest Florida theaters.

Art Center Sarasota is closing its 100th season with four exhibitions, including “Putting Breath in the Body” by Antoine Williams. It includes a collection of mixed-media paintings, drawings, and collages that weave together Black Southern folklore, working-class sensibilities, personal history and the writings of influential artists and thinkers throughout the African diaspora.

In 2024, Annette Trossbach retired as the Laboratory Theater of Florida’s first and only Artistic Director. She was succeeded by Todd Lyman, but he soon departed for health reasons. So, co-founder, Nykkie Rizley, filled the void with Waner Del Rosario stepping in as Board President. And the Southwest Florida theater community held its breath, waiting to see if The Lab would survive intact or have to compromise its reputation to fill seats and attract donors and sponsors.

"Ladies Night" will premiere August 23rd as part of Arts Center Theatre’s Readers Theatre program, which gives local audiences the opportunity to experience a new work before it reaches the stage as a fully produced production.

A major new public art project is getting underway in Sarasota. The city is inviting artists to apply for a $100,000 public art commission for its One Stop Shop building. The application deadline is Aug. 31.

“Tree of Debris,” “Celestial Convergence” and “Bloom” are the names of the three sculptures in FGCU’s new sculpture garden behind the Arts Complex. They were created through a collaborative design-build project by students enrolled in the Sculpture Techniques courses held the past 2 years by Professor Steve Hughart.

The Alliance for the Arts 10-acre campus is home to a number of permanent outdoor sculpture installations, including Michael Singer’s “Caloosahatchee Water Wall” and James DiGiorgio’s “You Are Here.” Hurricane Ian severely damaged “You Are Here,” but local artist and fabricator Jason “Sandman” Sanders has repainted, welded and returned the sculpture to its original angle.

Theatre Conspiracy closes its summer season with Carey Crim’s hilarious comedy “What Springs Forth” at the Off-Broadway Palm Theatre. Artistic Director Bill Taylor describes “What Springs Forth” as “laugh out loud funny.” It's about four female friends who think they’re going to a relaxing, high-end spa for a weekend of facials, mani-pedis and massages. Instead, they find themselves at a wilderness survival retreat during which they discover they didn’t really know each other as well as they thought they did.

The Punta Gorda Mural Society’s next mural will pay tribute to the Rotary Club of Punta Gorda. But Lake Alfred artist Keith Goodson is not painting “Rotary: A Century of Service” on its future home on the west wall of the Ace Hardware building on Marion Avenue. Instead, he has painted it on mural cloth that will be affixed to two aluminum panels, which are currently in fabrication. The panels will enable the Mural Society to remove and relocate the mural should the building ever be damaged or torn down.