Michael Raabe News Today

The original musical was written by Eric Davis and Michael Raabe.

OZ: A World Premiere Musical This captivating COVID-delayed new chamber musical by freeFall’s talented stalwarts, Michael Raabe (music & lyrics) and Eric Davis (book & lyrics) is an unmitigated joy as it explores Baum’s conflicted impulses. Davis’s whip smart book moves briskly to connect the melodious 18-song score, often using fan letters accompanying projected portraits of porcelain doll-faced children who alternately gush, cajole, and finally, beg Baum not to abando...

Poor L. Frank Baum (of “Wizard of Oz” fame) desperately wants to be Melville or Dickens—to write substantial novels for adults. But this path is hard, slogging work fraught with writer’s block. Baum’s problem is that his Emerald City fantasies flow from his mind like a tsunami, and make him the most treasured children’s book author of his era. When “printing ‘Oz’ books is like printing money,” it’s hard to stop.

Hunting white seabass off the coast of Catalina is the pinnacle of Southern California spearfishing. Here's what it takes.

USF Contemporary Art Museum to open new exhibit

Act 3, Lady Erika Najibo to play First Friday Seminole

An ogre sings outdoors in ‘Shrek’ “Shrek, the Musical,” the stage version of the hit animated film, is usually produced with a cast of roughly 30 playing everyone from the green ogre named Shrek to dozens of fairy tale characters. All of them will be on hand, but in a different way in a new outdoor production presented by the Dingbat Theatre Project. All the actors play multiple characters and manipulate a variety of puppets. It is staged by founder Luke Manual McFatrich (he also plays...

There are dozens of music, theater, circus, dance and arts events available to experience in person and online this week.

Westcoast Troupe follows the ‘Pipeline’ The Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe combines live theater and video for the Sarasota premiere of Dominique Morisseau’s timely drama “Pipeline.” The play, which WBTT originally planned to present live in the fall, is being filmed inside the theater and will then be shown in outdoor screenings in the theater’s parking lot Friday through April 30. Home streaming will be available May 1-23. The roughly 90-minute play is about an inner-city publi...

Video views of art in the world In conjunction with its current show, “Janaina Tschäpe: Between the Sky and the Water,” the Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College is offering a video series tied to the career retrospective of the artist. On Saturday and Sunday, the museum will be showcasing some of Tschäpe’s video works that were created from 2000 to 2014 and touch on some of the painted and sculpted pieces featured in the exhibition. Showings start at the bottom of every hour and wil...