Straz Center for the Performing Arts

About

The Straz Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts venue in Tampa, Florida, United States. It opened in July 1987 at a cost of $57 million as the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. It was renamed in 2009. The Straz Center is owned by the City of Tampa and operated by the David A. Straz Jr. Center for the Performing Arts, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation.

The Straz Center is located downtown on a 9-acre (36,000 m2) site along the east bank of the Hillsborough River. As the second largest performing arts complex in the Southeastern United States (behind the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts), the 335,000-square-foot (31,100 m2) venue provides an environment for a variety of events. It has a leading Broadway series and produces grand opera, as well as concerts, performances and events. The center estimates that it has a statewide economic impact of $100 million annually, generates 100,000 hotel room nights a year, and has 110 full-time and 250 part-time employees. Attendance runs on average 600,000 guests per year. In 2009, the Straz Center officially began a new program entitled the "Broadway Genesis Project," which presents premieres of musicals and plays that might move to Broadway. In 2018 the Straz Center went under an extensive multi-million dollar renovation that included new wood floors on the stages, new cooler LED lighting, and improved dressing rooms for performers. Judith Lisi was the chief executive officer for 30 years through September 2022. Greg Holland took over as president and CEO in October 2022.

The center is named for David A. Straz Jr. (1942 - 2019), a Tampa banker and philanthropist. He ran a losing campaign for mayor of Tampa in 2019.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)。Photography via Wikimedia Commons.