Jacksonville s 5 & Dime Theatre Co. is returning to the road after closing its downtown venue last year, but where and when the first shows will be remains up in the air.
Bradley Akers was named as 5 & Dime s new managing artistic director last week. He replaces Lee Hamby, who is one of the founders of the group.
Akers, a Jacksonville native and Douglas Anderson School of the Arts graduate, worked for several years in Philadelphia before returning to Jacksonville. He has worked at Players by the Sea as a director and stage manager as well as in the marketing department.
5 & Dime first started putting on live productions in 2011. The theater group has done as few as two shows and as many as 12 in a season, mostly on borrowed or rented stages. In 2017, 5 & Dime opened its own venue on Adams Street in downtown Jacksonville but decided during the pandemic that it would be better off without a home stage.
Duval School Board approves outdoor graduation ceremonies
Duval County Public Schools will host outdoor commencement ceremonies for the second consecutive year. The ceremonies will take place on school football fields for class of 2021 graduates. The move provides some certainty during a largely uncertain school year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
School officials say making the call now gives the district time to prepare for safe, social-distanced ceremonies compared to last school year, when the pandemic prompted mass rescheduling.
When the COVID-19 pandemic originally struck, Duval Schools was forced to close schools in March it would be the last time the class of 2020 would all be on campus together, with events like prom and graduation hanging in the balance for seniors.
Marine Science Center (at Fletcher High)
Duval Virtual Instructional Academy (at Wolfson High)
Separate contracts will be negotiated for ceremonies at the following schools, which lack campus football stadiums:
Andrew Jackson High
Douglas Anderson School of the Arts
Darnell Cookman School of the Medical Arts
Frank H. Peterson Academies of Technology
It s not immediately clear where ceremonies will be hosted for schools that lack football fields. Last school year, the remaining schools ceremonies took place at TIAA Bank Field.
One welcome change this year versus last year s outdoor ceremonies are the timeframes. I hope the ceremonies are not in the morning because it got very hot, Ribault High School Senior Class President Winston Seabrooks said. I hope the school board considers evening ceremonies instead.
After his usual morning meditation, Seth Langner stepped outside into the front yard of his house in the historic Springfield neighborhood, just north of downtown Jacksonville. Earlier he had noticed the thick, dark fog that smothered the city, but by now at 8 a.m. the fog had become suffused with beautiful light.
Langner is a professional photographer, so he pays attention to such things. And he had a hunch.
He hustled inside his house, grabbed his camera drone, and sent it up through the fog in his front yard. On his cellphone screen, which captured what the camera saw, the images were gray and murky until the drone popped up over the fog.
Do This! Holiday events fill weekend calendar
The Holiday Pops show is always a highlight of the Jacksonville Symphony’s season. For this year’s shows, they’ll be joined by singers Erica Gabriel and Brandon Michael Nase and dancers from the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. 7:30 p.m. Friday, 3 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Times-Union Center. $44-$89.
Drew Thomas is Jamaica-born and New York raised, and he knows how to make you laugh. Thomas, a veteran of two seasons of NBC’s “Last Comic Standing,” is at the Comedy Zone, inside the Ramada Conference Center in Mandarin, which reopened earlier this month. He has shows scheduled for 8 p.m. Friday and 8 and 10 p.m. Saturday. $20.