St. Petersburg has an awful lot to be proud of in its evolution from beachy retirement town to progressive, inclusive, art hub.
The city’s dedication to creativity and diversity is seen through its thriving local arts scene and one of the largest Pride events in the world. For nearly two decades, St. Pete Pride has recognized and celebrated the LGBTQ community by promoting a “legacy of love” in the Tampa Bay area.
This year’s celebration includes nearly a dozen events throughout the month of June, including the popular Pride Parade, a massive street festival in the Grand Central District, a concert with Todrick Hall and Pussy Riot, and a LGBTQ+ Youth & Family Day on the waterfront.
While Pride month is packed with festivities, its goal is to keep that diversity, inclusivity, and pride for one’s true self going 365 days a year.
Throughout history, one of the biggest drivers of that Pride and progress has been the arts. And the performing arts holds a special place in the hearts of many in the LGBTQ community. That’s especially true in St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay area.
“What we are doing as actors and directors, as creators, we are showing that there’s a commonality,” said Adrianne Hick, the actor who played adult Alison in American Stage’s 2019 production of Fun Home.
“If it’s nutritious for humans, that will include gay and lesbian, transgender, queer and questioning,” said Bob Devin Jones, founder of the Studio@620.
As one of the longest-running local theaters in the area, American Stage has had the privilege of showcasing to local audiences some of the most iconic plays and musicals this side of Broadway. From In the Heights and The Wiz to The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Producers, American Stage has brought many quintessential stories, themes, and characters to its intimate theater in downtown St. Petersburg.
For Hick, American Stage was “a safe place…to explore all the emotion that have to go into” the Tony Award-winning musical Fun Home.
“It was a…perfect kind of experience. One that doesn’t come along very often,” said, Hick, 42, an actor who lives in New Jersey.
Fun Home is a musical adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s 2006 graphic memoir, a poignant and personal exploration of the author’s sexuality and her relationship with her father, who was a closeted gay man.
A Tampa Bay Times review of American Stage’s production praised the theater’s use of its small space to transform the stage into frames and vignettes like Bechdel’s comic panels.
“The adult Allison I played, things that she went through and all the things that she was going through the course of the story, they hit very close to home for me personally,” Hick said. “I think it’s a really cool thing to do at a place like American Stage; to have a shared emotional experience that close with people.”
A treasured memory of FreeFall Theater Company co-founder Eric Davis is the one he has of directing Rent for American Stage in the Park in 2011.
“It was a groundbreaking piece at its time…it’s still relevant,” Davis said. “It’s such a good memory that I carry of such a strong, beautiful production that the community supported so much.”
The Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical by Jonathan Larson was one of the longest-running shows on Broadway. It follows a group of young artist friends in New York’s East Village, struggling to live, love, and pay rent amid the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1990s.
To say Rent was groundbreaking is an understatement, but the musical remains one of the greatest and most memorable of all time.
“One thing I think that was so groundbreaking about Rent was not that it depicted gay characters, but that it also depicted central to the story, principal characters that were straight that were struggling with HIV/AIDS,” Davis said.
It’s also no great revelation that the performing arts have been reflecting and representing the LGBTQ experience since the earliest days. Davis points to shows and musicals like Cabaret for being “one of the first places in mainstream popular culture that we see gay characters portrayed.”
“The greatest shows are the ones that focus on living in your truth and connecting with other people,” Hick said. “If you can connect with one audience member and help them feel they can live a more authentic life, that’s always great no matter what kind of show it is.”
Jones, one of the most influential figures in St. Petersburg’s arts community, said the performing arts has “something that speaks to the humanity of all of us.”
“That’s what I try to pursue (in my work),” Jones said. “I don’t know what the audience is going to take away, but I hope we are serving a mirror to their own humanity.”
Over the last 25 years he’s lived and created in St. Petersburg, Jones has helmed numerous memorable shows at Studio@620 and American Stage – the place that brought him here to adapt Miss Julie. He said he’s had a “very enviable time” in the city “because of my association with American Stage.”
“St. Petersburg has become a much more…sophisticated place because of its diversity, and because its diversity is celebrated, and because its diversity is not hidden,” he said.
For Jones, the “building blocks…of that Pride space is that you not feel menaced in any way. And I don’t feel menaced; I don’t feel unusual.”
“In this very extraordinary city, we have an opportunity to beat back the monsters of all bad ‘isms’ and create that beloved community,” Jones said.
Pride and the performing arts – two communities that constantly intersect, reflect and further the wide range of the human condition. They make people feel seen and heard and represented. And they make communities better places.
“It doesn’t really matter what your sexuality or gender is. There’s a human commonality that happens,” Hick said. “I think that’s the mark of a great story: when the audience can walk away feeling like they’ve been seen, they’ve been heard, and maybe they’ve been changed a bit.”