FST Summer Season Closes with a ROAR!

FST's 2017 Summer Cabaret season wraps up with Carole Bufford's
Roar! The Music of the 1920s and Beyond. This sassy songbird sings audiences through the end of summer in the John C. Court Cabaret from August 22 through September 24. Tickets may be purchased online at FloridaStudioTheatre.org, by phone at (941) 366-9000, or by visiting the Box Office.

Roar! The Music of the 1920s and Beyond features classics from the Jazz Age songbook made famous by the likes of Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Helen Morgan, Ruth Etting, Al Jolson, and more. Join as Carole travels back to a time where flappers, vamps, and sheiks were shimmying in gin joints as a whirl of great social and political change happened all around them.

Making her FST debut, Bufford shares her connection and passion for this timeless era of music stating, "It was a really exciting time in our country's history, and the music really reflects that. The fast, footloose freedom of the Roaring Twenties, and then the drastic drop once the Great Depression hit. It is all fascinatingly apparent in the music. It also laid the groundwork for all popular music that came after. You can hear it trickling down through the years, its influences apparent in a multitude of genres. I love music with high stakes, wonderful melodies, and well-crafted stories. The Jazz Age has an overabundance of just that recipe."

Called "A sizzling cabaret performer" with a "Bright, rangy voice" by The New York Times, Bufford has made a name for herself on the Cabaret theatre scene. Timeout agrees calling her "One of cabaret's brightest rising stars" with "A distinctive, bluesy voice." She has traveled all over the US (The Colony's Royal Room- Palm Beach; Venetian Room- Dallas; Cabaret 313- Detroit; Broadway By The Bay- San Mateo; Upright Cabaret- L.A.) and recently made her London Debut. She was also featured in Michael Feinstein's Great American Songbook series at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

FST Producing Artistic Director, Richard Hopkins speaks to the excitement felt in welcoming Bufford to the Court Cabaret stage stating, "I am delighted that Carole will bring us her music from the 1920's. She is one of the shining lights of The New York Cabaret scene and when our audience hears her vocal prowess and her musical interpretations, I hope they will be as delighted as I am to have her here."

This revue of jazzy, full-bodied vocals and sizzling serenades opens in the Court Cabaret on August 22 running through September 24. Tickets may be purchased online at FloridaStudioTheatre.org, by phone at (941) 366-9000, or by visiting the Box Office.

Known as Sarasota's Contemporary Theatre, Florida Studio Theatre was founded in 1973 by Artist Jon Spelman. Starting out as a small touring company, FST traveled to places such as migrant camps and prisons. The company eventually settled down into a permanent home, acquiring the former Woman's Club building - now renamed the Keating Theatre. In the years that followed, Florida Studio Theatre established itself as a major force in American Theatre, presenting contemporary theatre in its five theatre venues: the Keating Theatre, the Gompertz Theatre, the Goldstein Cabaret, the John C. Court Cabaret, and Bowne's Lab Theatre.

Even with its growth, Florida Studio Theatre remains firmly committed to making the arts accessible and affordable to a broad-based audience. Under Producing Artistic Director Richard Hopkins, FST develops theatre that speaks to our living, evolving, and dynamically changing world. As FST grows and expands, it continues to provide audiences with challenging, contemporary drama and innovative programs.