A fairy tale will unfold on one Gainesville stage. A giant carnivorous plant will take over another. A Broadway star will bring songs from “Hamilton” to town, while dancers turn Tom Petty’s music into ballet and an orchestra pairs Beethoven with the sounds of birds from the Arctic.
This fall, Gainesville’s performing arts scene is offering a little bit of everything. The variety is not new. Gainesville is home to a professional orchestra, a professional ballet company, an Equity theater and a major university performing arts center, in addition to the arts organizations and venues that surround UF.
For the people who run those organizations, that variety is part of what makes Gainesville unusual for a city its size — and part of why live performance still matters in a world where anything can be watched online.
“Gainesville audiences are smart, and they're engaged,” said Brian Jose, director of UF Performing Arts. “We punch way above our weight culturally.”
Here are five performances this fall that show why.
Into the Woods
When: Now until Oct. 25
Where: Constans Theatre
The UF School of Theatre and Dance will present Sondheim and James Lapine’s musical, which follows a baker and his wife as they enter the woods to break a curse preventing them from having a child. Along the way, they encounter familiar fairy tale characters, including Cinderella, Rapunzel and Little Red Riding Hood.
For Tony Mata, head of musical theater at UF, the production carries a personal connection. Mata was working at the Old Globe in San Diego when Sondheim and Lapine were developing the musical. He watched rehearsals during that period and Sondheim later became one of his thesis advisers.
“I was there the first night it played at the Old Globe, when it was four hours long, and they were still chiseling away,” Mata said. “And then when it came to Broadway, that was the year I moved to New York … I have a great affinity for Sondheim and all his work.”
The production also represents the range of theater audiences can experience locally, from a familiar fairy-tale framework to Sondheim’s more complicated questions about wishes, consequences and what happens after “happily ever after.”
Little Shop of Horrors
When: Now until Nov. 1
Where: Hippodrome State Theatre
“Little Shop of Horrors” follows Seymour, a florist shop employee whose discovery of a strange plant quickly turns into something much more dangerous. The show blends rock and roll, doo-wop and Motown.
The Gainesville production also creates professional opportunities for local performers. Former and current UF students are part of the cast, including Valerie Torres-Rosario as Audrey and Taylor Tarver, Rachel Toledano and Olivia Smith among the Urchins.
For Mata, that connection between the university and professional theater is important.
The Hippodrome is an Equity theater, but Mata said its intimate setting also makes it particularly suited for a show like “Little Shop of Horrors.” The theater’s audience surrounds the action more closely than in many traditional theaters.
“Being in a community of people in a theater is an experience, and it’s a wonderful experience because it gets people to talk,” Mata said.
In an increasingly screen-centered world, the audience itself becomes part of the event.
“The excitement of live theater is like no other, and it can’t be duplicated,” Mata said.
Rock on America!
When: Oct. 30
Where: Reilly Arts Center in Ocala
“Rock on America!” combines several works connected by an American theme. One piece, choreographed by Judy Skinner, focuses on Ellis Island and uses projections of original immigrant photographs and videos. Another, Kim Tuttle’s Constellations, draws on images from the Hubble Space Telescope.
Skinner and Tuttle are sisters and lead the company as its resident choreographer and artistic director, respectively. Company choreographer and dancer Tales Ribeiro also contributes a piece inspired by artificial intelligence.
The program closes with a ballet set to Petty’s music. Tuttle grew up with Petty’s music and said his band even rehearsed in her basement when she was in high school.
The program was created around the 250th anniversary of the United States and focuses on American people and ingenuity rather than politics.
For Tuttle, the program also reflects something she believes Gainesville audiences sometimes overlook: the quality of the arts already happening in the city.
“People sometimes think of ballet as being just a frivolous luxury,” Tuttle said. “All of the arts are so important to who we are as human beings.”
She said audiences may also be surprised by how much professional talent exists in Gainesville. Dance Alive has toured in the U.S. and internationally, yet maintains its home in a relatively small college town.
“I think people sometimes underestimate what goes on in Gainesville and the arts,” Tuttle said. “It’s a very arts-driven community.”
Renée Elise Goldsberry
When: Nov. 6
Where: Curtis M. Phillips Center
Broadway talent will be coming to town in Tony- and Grammy-winning artist Renée Elise Goldsberry.
Goldsberry originated the role of Angelica Schuyler in “Hamilton,” developing the character through the musical’s early workshop and shows before its Broadway debut.
Jose saw Goldsberry perform in “Hamilton” in 2016 and said UF tried for years to bring her to Gainesville. This season, her touring schedule finally made it possible.
Her performance will extend beyond “Hamilton,” combining Broadway songs with American Songbook selections, original music, pop and R&B.
For Jose, bringing an artist of Goldsberry’s caliber to Gainesville illustrates the unusual scale of the local performing arts scene.
He said Gainesville’s metropolitan area is much smaller than many cities where these artists perform, yet local audiences regularly see performers who would normally be associated with much larger markets.
“Gainesville audiences are smart, and they’re engaged,” Jose said.
Revolution
When: Oct. 30
Where: Jackson N. Sasser Fine Arts Hall
The Gainesville Orchestra will open its season with “Revolution,” pairing Beethoven’s music with contemporary works, including Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara’s “Cantus Arcticus,” which incorporates recorded sounds of arctic birds.
For Evans Haile, the orchestra’s producing artistic director, that combination is what makes the live concert worthwhile. Audiences can encounter something familiar while also hearing music they may never have experienced before.
“One of the great things about going to a live performance is the fact that it’s a window into another place or perhaps another time,” Haile said.
The orchestra is also part of a broader network of arts organizations in Gainesville. Its musicians live throughout the region, and the organization works with schools and other community groups through performances, teaching and mentorship.
Haile said the amount of arts programming in Gainesville is unusual for a city of its size. “Not every town has that,” he said.
Together, these performances represent a local arts ecosystem that includes the university, professional theaters, dance companies, orchestras and community organizations.
For Mata, that ecosystem ultimately comes down to one word: community. “The audience is an integral character,” he said.
That may be what Gainesville’s fall arts season demonstrates best: In a city better known as a college town, there is plenty happening onstage beyond campus — and plenty of reasons to show up.