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Straz Center for the Performing Arts

WHO WE ARE

Built on an abandoned gravel lot in a city that was lacking cultural offerings, the Straz Center began as the dream of a community. Today the Straz Center is the largest performing arts center in the Southeast and the only one with an on-site performing arts conservatory. The Straz Center was incorporated in 1980 and opened in 1987.
 
In the early 1990s, the Straz Center (then known as Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center) established arts education as a community priority, working closely with area public, private and home school programs to enhance arts education for children throughout the seven-county Tampa Bay area. Outreach programs included curriculum connectors to Florida education standards and teacher study guides in print and online. The Straz Center’s extended in-school artistic residencies, summer programs and after school offerings helped to fill the increasing gaps in arts education left by budget cuts.
 
Since 1991 the Straz Center’s Education department housed programs such as Tampa Bay Youth Orchestra and Community Arts Ensemble, a free summer theater day camp that served urban children in need by connecting them with nationally known artists in a rehearsal-based process. Each summer, an original musical play was written and produced especially for that year’s group of up to 100 children to perform in a fully-staged production for friends and family in one of the Straz Center’s main halls.

Explore The Straz Center

Wait Wait! Stand Up Tour at the Straz



It’s the Wait Wait Stand-Up Tour — a night of stand-up-comedy featuring some of Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me’s funniest panelists. 

Wait Wait’s panelists are talented bunch — some of the most hilarious and insightful people in the country. You’ve heard them answering questions on Wait Wait — subject to FCC limitations. Here’s a chance to enjoy a full evening of their brilliant stand-up comedy. 

Your host is veteran stand-up and Wait Wait regular, Alonzo Bodden. Joining Alonzo will be a rotating group of panelist/performers including Mo Rocca, Maeve Higgins, Maz Jobrani, Hari Kondabolu, Helen Hong, Negin Farsad, Adam Burke, Cristela Alonzo, and Emmy Blotnick!

There never seems to be enough time on the weekly radio show to really get to know our incredibly talented and funny panelists. So, we’re taking them on tour. See you soon!

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