Whether you’re heading to the ballet, a touring Broadway show, a museum or an intimate concert hall, Central Floridians are passionate about the arts. Jennifer McKee introduces you what the big halls have on their schedules this season, while Michael McLeod lets you in on the smaller performance spaces that are hidden gems in our community. Plus, read all about what Congressman Maxwell Frost is doing to keep the arts top of mind in Florida and across the country, and how he hopes to create jobs while keeping dreams alive.

Congressman Maxwell Frost: In Beat with the Arts Community

When Congressman Maxwell Frost introduced new legislation aimed at creating federal grants to support emerging and independent artists this April (the CREATE Art Act), he spoke from firsthand experience. Not only has Frost managed music artists and organized music festivals but he has been a musician himself since the second grade. Read more…

Congressman, Frost announces the CREATE Art Act. Courtesy Congressman Maxwell Frost.

The arts are alive and well in Orlando. Our city teems with concert halls, museums and intimate spaces. Some are grand. Some are tiny. There’s something to fit every mood. Want a larger-than-life experience? Check out our Powerhouses. Want to stay in the neighborhood? Visit a Dynamo near you.  

Have you come to witness a concert or event of a lifetime? You’ll find them in these dramatic, spare-no-expense venues. Be careful what you wish for, however, you may find too much of a good thing. Nah—there’s never too much of a good thing! Discover the concerts, plays, exhibits and the stages that make them shine.

Orlando supports several small-scale but high-quality visual and performing-arts enterprises, sometimes in the converted residences of stay-at-home creatives who don’t have to leave their zip code to extend their imaginations.

Here’s a look at a small sampling of those offbeat and downhome enterprises, including a tribute to a hero who kept tabs on Lake Eola and a big-city girl with a small-town heart, who operates her annual Global Peace Film Festival out of her apartment in New York City but stages it in Orlando venues.