Gulf Coast Life Arts Edition

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.

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.

The fourth annual Fort Myers Fringe will bring a roster of top nationally and internationally touring independent, experimental, and alternative artists to Southwest Florida for a wide variety of performances including deeply personal storytelling, boundary-pushing comedy, live music, and shows specifically for kids and teens. We will get a preview of the festival with founder and organizer Bill Taylor, who is also the founding Producing Artistic Director for Theatre Conspiracy. We will also highlight Theatre Conspiracy’s upcoming summer offerings, which include a blend of intimate theater and live music events.

A solo exhibition of works by Southwest Florida-based painter, illustrator, writer, and designer Kathleen Kinkopf opens May 1 at the Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center.Ahead of the opening, we’ll talk with Kinkopf about her striking works, often described as “magical realism” with highly detailed realistic imagery infused with dreamlike symbolism and fantasy elements.

The Naples-based nonprofit House of Gaia hosts the “Bee Gaia Bloom Art Show” April 25, 2026, featuring works created by artists within the neurodivergent community. House of Gaia Founder and Director Lulu Carter joins us to explore the sensory, multimedia exhibit and the organization’s broader focus on arts education, social inclusion, community building and kindness.

The Bridging the Gap Center for the Arts will host a murder mystery dinner theater event, April 25th featuring the first public performance of the comedic play “Devil Ain’t Got No Tail in Grandma’s House,” written by Veronica Barber, who is the mother of Bridging the Gap founder and Executive Director Sonya McCarter.