News from the Arts Council of Hillsborough County

Bad Dates Coming....Get Ready to Laugh!!!
A one-woman show about Haley Walker, a Texan transplanted to New York City where she has lived through marriage, motherhood, and divorce, Bad Dates is a hilarious and touching comedy.

A single mother with a teenage daughter, a stressful job, Tibetan Buddhists, the Romanian mob and 600 designer shoes come together in tales of rotten romances as Haley ventures back out into the dating game, Sex in the City meets Tracey Ullman!

Featuring Jessica Rothert, a recent transplant to the Bay Area with an impressive resume, as Haley, with Rosemary Orlando directing and Tandy Ecenia of Tandova, Inc., designing the set, this promises to be a fun, fun, fun date night!!!

Bad Dates will play Thursday, November 18 through Sunday, December 6, 2009, at the Shimberg Playhouse, Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center 1010 N. W.C. MacInnes Place Tampa, FL 33602 .

Showtimes are: Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays @ 8 p.m. & Sundays@ 4 p.m Single tickets available at TBPAC @ 813-229-7827 or online at www.tbpac.org

General Admission Ticket Prices are $24.50. Students and Seniors, 90 minutes prior to curtain and for the Preview Performance on Thursday November 18 are $10.

Plus.....
SAVE THE DATE!!! Saturday, January 9, 2010 - You are invited to STAGEWORKS Masquerade Ball IV, Magical Mystery Tour, Tie-Dye Black-Tie on Saturday, January 9, 2010 at the Centro Asturiano located at 1913 N. Nebraska Avenue Tampa, Florida 33602.

Our evening begins at half past 6, don't be late. Suggested Attire: Creative Black Tie or Radical 60's Chic This year's Masks: "groovy" eye wear!www.stageworkstheatre.org

Bill Maher returns to TBPAC!
Comedian, political satirist and 21-time Emmy nominee Bill Maher returns to the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center on Thursday, December 3, 7:30 p.m. Regularly priced tickets start at $45.50. www.tbpac.org

For the last 15 years, Bill Maher has set the boundaries of where funny, political talk can go on American television. First on Politically Incorrect and for the last seven years on HBO's Real Time, Maher's combination of unflinching honesty and big laughs have garnered him 21 Emmy nominations. Maher's 2008 film, an uproarious and unprecedented swipe at organized religion, Religulous, has become the seventh highest-grossing documentary in history. Visit billmaher.com for video clips, interviews and more.

National Endowment for the Arts News
Congress passed a $12.5 million funding increase as part of the FY 2010 Interior Appropriations bill for both the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). President Obama was scheduled to sign this bill into law by October 31, which concludes National Arts and Humanities Month. The nation's two federal grant-making cultural agencies will now each have budgets of $167.5 million, their highest funding levels in 16 years. As so many state and local governments have had to cut arts budgets across the country, this well-timed federal appropriations increase for the arts is a welcome infusion of funds.

The FY 2010 Interior Appropriations bill (H.R. 2996) was passed in the House by a vote of 247-178 and in the Senate by a vote of 72-28. Please play your part and send a quick e-mail to your members of Congress at the Americans for the Arts E-Advocacy Center and let them know how much the arts will benefit from this funding increase. http://capwiz.com/artsusa/utr/1/MIWKLNRGGT/ACFOLNRLEN/4173125061

What's Next: While the NEA and NEH's budgets have now been finalized, many other federal programs such as the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are still operating under a continuing resolution until December 18, 2009. We will keep you posted on these legislative updates in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, please save the dates of April 12-13, 2010 for National Arts Advocacy Day in Washington, DC. With the incredible advocacy success that we had this year that included $50 million in the federal economic stimulus bill for arts jobs and now the $12.5 million increase in NEA and NEH budgets, we need to keep building on this positive momentum. Come join us.

Help us also continue this important work by becoming an official member of the Arts Action Fund. If you are not already an official member, you can join the Arts Action Fund today www.artsactionfund.org or call 202.371.2830

The Florida Orchestra presents Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto
This Friday, November 6, 2009 at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center in the Carol Morsani Hall, the Florida Orchestra will present Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. James MacMillan will conduct and Jeffrey Multer will play violin.

If tears of rapture and joy could transform themselves into musical notes, they might approach the achingly beautiful themes found in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. Featured in this program are Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 4 and the US East Coast premiere of James MacMillan’s The Sacrifice, conducted by the composer.

Regularly priced tickets start at $22. www.tbpac.org