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(... continued) by John Villani, The 100 Best Arts Towns in America

Perhaps the most influential person in Sarasota’s early history was John Ringling, the impresario whose Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus was the continent’s premier entertainment organization for most of the 20th century. In 1927 he made Sarasota the permanent winter home for his hundreds of clowns, elephants, sword swallowers and bearded ladies, forever stamping this community with the reputation of being a circus town. While it’s still the organization’s winter home, Sarasota is more than a place where the traveling circus pitches its rehearsal tents. Much of Sarasota’s arts infrastructure was developed either by the Ringling family or through generous underwriting of efforts in which the family played a quiet yet crucial role. It was through this decades long (and continuing) spirit of noblesse oblige that Sarasota built its regional reputation as a place where the arts were given the venues and support they need in order to flourish. And while today’s audiences for performances of La Traviata by the Sarasota Opera still include more than a few of the sword swallowers and clowns who Ringling lured here (as well as their descendants), what drives the ongoing development of Sarasota’s arts scene are the many thousands of arts supporters who were attracted here by the fine arts legacy the Ringling family’s wealth established and nurtured.

Arts Scene:

One of the nation’s most successful Art Town gallery districts is Towles Court, a 30-gallery cluster of art spaces that range from sculpture and ceramics studios to fine crafts galleries, interior design shops, visual art galleries and sculptors’ garrets. Originally developed as a residential subdivision in the late 1920’s, a significant part of Towles Court’s appeal as a gallery district is its architectural integrity. The neighborhood’s galleries and studios are, for the most part, located in a series of beautifully preserved homes representing a timeline of Florida’s tastes in residential architecture, from Arts & Crafts masterpieces to modernesque 1950’s ramblers. Tossed in among these gems is a new structure or two whose architectural references meld with, rather than assault, the neighborhood’s visual harmony. As is the case with older neighborhoods, Towles Court is an eminently walkable place whose sidewalks and lawns are shaded by towering trees and the occasional palm, which is why the district’s wildly popular series of Third Friday Gallery Walks is the best place to catch a sense of Sarasota’s creative energies. Galleries and studios coordinate their opening receptions, drawing hundreds of art lovers who socialize, buy art, network, and enjoy their community’s sense of creative pride. Downtown Sarasota has a smattering of galleries and coffeebars exhibiting local art, including the Mira Mar Gallery, a nationally known venue representing top artists from the region as well as places such as Santa Fe and Soho.

The crown jewel in Sarasota’s arts scene is the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, a spectacular facility located on a 66-acre estate, programming exhibitions throughout the year in its 21 art gallery spaces. The museum, whose educational outreach programs lend the entire region a sense of promise through their multi-dimensional depth, exhibits works from its permanent collection as well as traveling national and international exhibitions surveying the broad scope of ancient and contemporary art history, but with a decided emphasis on historical works from Europe. The Italianate museum building is located on an estate that also includes the Museum of the Circus, the Ringling family’s Ca d’Zan mansion, and the Asolo Theatre, an Italian Baroque era theatre that the Ringling family purchased, shipped, and rebuilt on the estate’s grounds. Now administered by Florida State University, the Ringling estate adjoins the New College campus of the University of South Florida, an institution whose own facilities include the Caples Fine Arts Complex, as well as the Sainer Pavillion Theatre and Isermann Gallery. The gallery exhibits mainly student and faculty work, while the theatre’s 257-seat venue is the home of the Banyan Theatre Company, whose year-round season emphasizes dramas and new works.

Sarasota’s neighboring community of Longboat Key is home to the well-established Longboat Key Center for the Arts, a facility whose classrooms and three galleries are used for year-round workshops as well as rotating exhibitions of works by local and regional artists. The center also coordinates a jazz concert series as well as the free Sunday in the Park concerts in Durante Community Park. Art Center Sarasota, which is in the process of acquiring its own building, exhibits rotating shows of contemporary work by its members as well as themed shows of work by regional talents. Another non-profit exhibition facility is the Center for Arts and Humanities, which features local work. Sarasota’s also home to the Museum of Asian Art, a facility whose exhibitions feature traveling shows of work from Japa, China, Thailand, Nepal and elsewhere, as well as pieces from its own permanent collection. Through the winter months the museum’s lecture series brings national experts to Sarasota for public presentations.

Asolo Theatre Festival is home to two companies, a resident group of Equity actors and a group of students from Florida State University. Performing in a reconstructed, 500-seat Scottish opera house on the grounds of the Ringling Museum of Art, as well as in a smaller, modern black box, Asolo’s season of mainstage and black box works covers classic American productions as well as newer pieces from the cutting edge of international theatre. Florida Studio Theatre, which presents its plays year-round, focuses on Broadway and off-Broadway plays, as well as a Festival of New Plays and an annual Playwrights Festival. The Players Theatre focuses its year-round presentations on musical theatre and a performing arts academy.

Sarasota’s also home to the Florida West Coast Symphony, the Sarasota Ballet and Sarasota Opera. The Symphony uses Holley Hall and the Sarasota Opera House for its September to May season, as well as the much larger, 1,700-seat Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall for its Masterworks concert series. Sarasota Opera’s downtown venue, once a Vaudeville theatre, is a beautifully restored, 1033-seat performance space that’s home to the opera’s eight-month season of operas and recitals. Sarasota Ballet uses the Van Wezel and FSU’s Performing Arts Center for its seven-month season, while La Musica, presents its season of chamber music concerts and recitals in the downtown Opera House.

» Excerpted from The 100 Best Art Towns in America, © 2005 by John Villani. Reprinted with permission of the publisher, The Countryman Press/W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. To order, click here.