The Countdown Improv Festival is back and bigger than ever.
The eighth annual festival returns to the Performing Arts Building at Hillsborough Community College’s Ybor City campus from Wednesday, August 7th through Sunday, August 11th. The five nights of performances and 102 acts make this the largest Countdown festival yet, says Kelly Buttermore, the festival’s co-founder and co-executive producer. It also makes it the largest improv festival in the country.
“It just keeps getting bigger, which is super exciting,” Buttermore says. “It’s the largest we’ve ever done and it’s now the largest one of its kind anywhere in the U.S., which is really exciting for us.”
On top of acts from Tampa Bay and around Florida, performers will flock to Ybor from 19 states.
“We’ve got people coming from all over,” Buttermore says. “We’ve got a lot of new faces in addition to the people who keep coming back year after year. It’s going to be great.”
The acts come from as far away as Bellingham, Washington, the home base of performer Dartanion London. He brings his act “Loops and Lols,” a one-man improvised comedy funk band.
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Courtesy Countdown Improv FestivalImprov performer Dartanion London, of Bellingham, Wash., brings his act "Loops and Lols" to the Countdown Improv Festival“We’re going to make up some songs together, and they’re probably going to be very dumb,” London writes on the festival website. “You’ll love them. If I hit any wrong notes, I was actually playing jazz.”
A small sample of other acts includes Gamesome Frolick, a San Francisco improv group performing Shakespeare. There’s also Solovela, a solo improvised telenovela by improv comedian Diane Jorge.
Buttermore and her improv partner Justin Peters, the festival’s co-founder and co-executive producer, will perform as their duo act “From Justin to Kelly,” which is named for an infamous American Idol spinoff movie.
New additions this year include an “immersive experience,” as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based performer Michael Ondrick takes over a room of the Performing Arts Building on Friday night for “Mikey Wonka ‘s Non-Litigable Candy Experience.”
“The festival is ever-expanding into different rooms and different concepts,” Buttermore says. “We’re going to have a secret stage this year. If people can find the secret stage, they can watch the shows there. It’s fun for Justin and me. We treat the festival as an art project in itself. There are running bits and narratives that recur year after year. There’s a narrative arc that builds over the course of the festival.”
There will be a Saturday matinee for families and kids and improv workshops for the public. Sunday, there’s a special improv workshop for veterans and active military members.
“In addition to expanding the artistic scope of the festival we are reaching out to more parts of the community as well,” Buttermore says.
The largest Countdown to date comes after the festival saw $25,000 in state funding eliminated by legislative budget cuts and then Gov. Ron DeSantis’ veto of arts funding.
Buttermore says that slashed the marketing budget in half and wiped out a significant source of money for paying the staff.
“It really hurt us and it’s still hurting us,” she says.
But “you can’t disinvite performers” with 100 acts lined up and raring to go, she says.
For more information, go to Countdown Improv Festival and Countdown lineup
FMoPA August events
“TutuTango: A Photographic Ballet in Four Acts” is at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts in Ybor City from August 6th through September 15th.
The collaborative multimedia exhibition features the works of Dorothee Elfring of Barcelona, Spain and Tampa artist Michael Sheehan.
“Inspired by Silent movies, New Wave cinema, and photographer Duane Michals’
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Provided by FMoPA“TutuTango: A Photographic Ballet in Four Acts” is at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts in Ybor City from August 6th through September 15th. storytelling style, this exhibition invites viewers to witness a choreographed encounter between two souls, meticulously captured individually in different parts of the world, yet brought together through similar settings and emotional resonance,” a description on the FMoPA website says.
The opening reception is 5 p.m. on August 8th.
For more information, go to TutuTango
On Saturday, August 17th, “Ybor City Show and Share” at the FMoPA lets members of the public share photos of Ybor City that are important to them. The event's inspiration is the current FMoPA exhibit “Photo Ybor: Then and Now.”
Each participant will be able to share a single photograph and explain why the photo is important to them. The event runs from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. “Photo Ybor: Then and Now” is on exhibit through November 17th.
The FMoPA is on the first floor of the Kress Contemporary, 1630 E. Seventh Ave.
For more information, go to FMoPA
HCC Art Galleries back to school event
Hillsborough Community College Art Galleries is throwing a back-to-school celebration at Gallery221@HCC Dale Mabry from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on August 19th.
The free public event previews what HCC Art Galleries has planned for the upcoming school year. There will be treats, mocktails, music from Tampa’s DJ MES and a silent auction of works by local artists. About 20 artists have agreed to contribute artwork for the auction, including Saumitra Chandratreya, Edgar Sanchez Cumbas, Aneka Ingold, Eric Ondia and Anthony Record. Bids start at $25.
The event also offers a preview of Gallery221@HCC Dale Mabry's first exhibition of the 2024-2025 school year, “Flourishing Dichotomies | Florida Art, Past & Present
.” The exhibit is a collaboration that pairs work by contemporary Florida artists with work from the Vickers Collection, which is one of the world's largest collections of Florida art and is on loan from the Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida through October 17, 2024.
For more information, go to HCC Art Galleries
New exhibits at Leepa-Rattner
Four exhibits open at the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art on St. Petersburg College’s Tarpon Springs campus on August 24th.
“Recontextualizing the Atlas: Five Decades of Barton Gilmore” features the work of Gilmore, a full-time SPC faculty member and lead professor in the photography department on the Clearwater campus. “Bruce Marsh: Terra Incognita” spotlights the painter and retired University of South Florida faculty member, whose work in recent years includes a “series of complex paintings of groups in very ordinary situations and places, primarily from his Florida suburban surroundings.”
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Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art/Dolores Coe“Dolores Coe: Lost Worlds” is at the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art from August 24th through December 8th. “Dolores Coe: Lost Worlds” features the work of Coe, a painter and mixed media artist. “City of Dreams: Through the Veil of Surrealism” features the work of Peter Milton, an American artist renowned for his intricate etchings and engravings, often depicting surreal and meticulously detailed landscapes and architectural scenes.
“Lost Worlds” and “Terra Incognita” run through December 8th. “Recontextualizing the Atlas” through December 15th. “City of Dreams” runs through February 2, 2025.
For more information, go to Leepa-Rattner
“Edison Peñafiel: MARE MAGNVM (A Floridian Odyssey/Una Odisea en la Florida)
The University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum’s GENERATOR presents “Edison Peñafiel: MARE MAGNVM (A Floridian Odyssey/Una Odisea en la Florida) at USF- St. Pete’s Harbor Hall Gallery from August 24th through October 26th.
“MARE MAGNVM (A Floridian Odyssey/Una Odisea en la Florida)
is a panoramic video installation featuring a stylized, monochromatic sea populated by 14 boats, each with its own unique collection of characters caught in a perpetual loop,” a description on the USF CAM website says. “Every 30 minutes, the film’s characters arrive back where they began. Despite being larger than life, their boats are constructed of various found objects, including wood, oil drums, and tires, pointing to real-life scenes of migration across bodies of water…Today, the waters of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, along with other sites of mass migration, reflect an ongoing horror, as millions of migrants flee war, instability, and climate change. MARE MAGNVM does not refer to a single migration event, but rather expands the viewers’ experience to encompass the phenomenon as a whole. A panoramic artwork, MARE MAGNVM immerses viewers in the struggle of crossing borders, alerting them to a future in which rising waters will push unprecedented numbers of people away from the places they call home.”
“Skyway 2024: 12 Ways of Looking at a Landscape” is at the USF CAM on the Tampa campus through November 23rd. USF CAM’s contribution to the collaborative, multi-museum Skyway exhibit features artwork by Elisabeth Condon, Keith Crowley, John Gurbacs, Karen Tucker Kuykendall, Caui Lofgren, Bruce Marsh, Eric Ondina, Sebastian Ore Blas, Andrés Ramírez, Bradford Robotham, Erin Titus and Susanna Wallin.
“Their artworks focus on a wide-open notion of landscape, invoking both the particularities of place and the universal ideas they provoke,” a description on the USF CAM website says. “Their wildly varied representations give sharp-eyed evidence of a common territory—the rich artistic landscape of a cultural region that has very much come into its own.”
For more information, go to USF CAM exhibits
Jobsite Theater presents “Thrice to Mine”
Jobsite Theater presents “Thrice to Mine,” playwright and actor Roxanne Fay’s exploration of the legend of Lady Macbeth at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts Shimberg Playhouse from August 14th through 25th.
“Told through magic, ancient lore, and echoes of Shakespeare, we learn how her life became, rich, fulfilled, and deliciously dark,” a description on Jobsite’s website says.
For more information, go to Thrice to Mine
“Mish’s Dog Portraits” at Pinellas Ale Works
“Mish’s Dog Portraits” art show is on display at Pinellas Ale Works, 1962 First Ave. S. in St. Petersburg, from August 9th through September 13th. The opening reception is from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday, August 10th.
The solo exhibit features the whimsical canine creations of Mish Murphy, a visual artist and poet who creates unique, upbeat art focused on dogs, pure-bred to mutts, in both traditional and modernist styles. The show is presented by Funky as a Monkey Art Studio.
For more information, email [email protected].
“Icons & Symbols of the Borderland” at The James Museum
“Icons & Symbols of the Borderland: Art from the U.S.-Mexico Crossroads” is at The James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art from August 24th through January, 19th, 2025.
“Featuring 27 artists and over 80 works of art, including large paintings, collages,
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Provided by The James Museum"Borderline," by Oscar Moya, is part of the exhibit “Icons & Symbols of the Borderland" at The James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art neon, photography, and sculptures, the exhibition explores the unique cultural symbols of the U.S.-Mexico border region and offers a different perspective of the American West,” a press release on the exhibit says. “All artists are members of the JUNTOS Art Association (est. 1985, El Paso, Texas), whose art is deeply informed by both their Latin American heritage and everyday life near the border.”
For more information, go to Icons & Symbols of the Borderland
“Florida Famous” at FloridaRAMA
The opening reception for “Florida Famous,” an exhibit by Paul Leroy Gehres exploring Florida's pop culture and celebrating our local culture scene, is from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, August 2nd at FloridaRAMA Gallery, 2606 Fairfield Ave S. in St. Petersburg. An afterparty featuring drink specials and great music runs from 8 p.m. to midnight.
For more information and to RSVP, go to Florida Famous