Arts & Culture

Southwest Florida-based singer/songwriter Melinda “Blou Note” Daniel performs live in the WGCU studio.

Players Circle Theater’s summer performance season continues with a production of the Tony-nominated one-man comedy, “Say Goodnight Gracie,” about the marriage and professional partnership of George Burns and Gracie Allen, whose groundbreaking comedy act evolved across vaudeville, radio, film, and television. We will talk with actor Pasquale LaCorte, who stars in the show, and Players Circle Theater Associate Artistic Director Ted Wioncek III.

Southwest Florida-based singer/songwriter Melinda “Blou Note” Daniel performs live in the WGCU studio.

The Bridging the Gap Center for the Arts will host an immersive pop-up art experience titled “In Living Color: A Juneteenth Art Experience,” featuring Southwest Florida-based artist Richard Bravo. Ahead of the event on June 19, 2026, at McCollum Hall, we talk with the featured artist and Bridging the Gap founder and Executive Director Sonya McCarter.

Only 17 Southwest Florida arts organizations to share in $65.9 million in arts funding approved by Legislature for 2026-2027. Again this year, some major arts organizations in Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee and Collier counties have been left on the outside looking in.

Southwest Florida-based artist Christian De Jesús has a solo exhibition titled “UN-MASKED” opening June 5, 2026, at the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center. His unconventional work tends to explore heavy themes of life, death, the complexity of the human condition and the weight of our choices. We will talk with the artist ahead of the show’s opening reception.

The fourth annual Fort Myers Fringe culminates, May 31, 2026, with a special closing performance of “Josephine: A burlesque cabaret dream play,” honoring the life of dancer, singer, actress, spy, and civil rights activist Josephine Baker. We will delve into the performance in a conversation with the show’s co-creator and star Tymisha Harris.

Players Circle Theater closes its seventh season with a production of Bernard Slade’s multi award-winning romantic comedy “Same Time, Next Year.” The play is about a man and woman who carry on a decades-long clandestine affair, meeting just once a year. It is less about the affair itself, and more about exploring how people change over time. We explore the play in a conversation with the director Ted Wioncek III, and actors Kimberly Suskind and AJ Mendini.

The 16th annual Fort Myers Film Festival will deliver five days of film screenings, filmmaker panels, and celebration. The festival, which runs May 20-24, 2026, will include 81 selected feature, documentary, and short films from all over the world. We’ll get a preview of the festival in a conversation with Fort Myers Film Festival founder and Executive Director Eric Raddatz. We’ll also talk with multi-award winning filmmaker Jordan Axelrod, whose short film “Szypliski” will be featured at the opening night red carpet gala at the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center.

Heidi Lewis Coleman is a big fan of legendary artist Robert Rauschenberg, who made Captiva Island the epicenter of his artistic pursuits from 1970 until his death in 2008. Coleman never met Rauschenberg. She moved to Naples in 2021, 13 years after Rauschenberg’s death. But at the opening of her “Dreamscape” solo show at the Alliance for the Arts, she learned that she and Rauschenberg had something in common.