Visionary arts enthusiasts and institutions have long infused the Florida Panhandle city with creative spirit
Pensacola’s Open Secret:
A World-Class Arts Scene
Pensacola, Florida, has always been a place that defies definition. It was America’s first European settlement, operated under five different flags, and is home to the United States Navy’s Blue Angels. It’s also a Gulf Coast oasis with crystal-blue water and white sand. But its most surprising identity might be that of a sophisticated cultural hub housing one of the most esteemed arts scenes in the South—a scene that’s been decades in the making but always feels like a fresh discovery given the small-town feel of Pensacola’s historic downtown.
“It’s all thanks to the people,” says David Bear, the founder and trustee emeritus of Pensacola’s Art, Culture and Entertainment, Inc., a nonprofit that provides grants and funding to the city’s creative players. “We have this community of volunteers and investors in the arts—and when I say investors, I don't mean just with their wallets. I mean they roll up their sleeves.”
The fifth-generation Pensacolian points to the Vaudeville era as the period in which Pensacola’s artistic influencers first began rolling up their sleeves. The Saenger Theatre on Palafox Street, for example, dates to 1925, when the lavish Rococo structure hosted silent movies and traveling performers. The likes of Ma Rainey (Georgia’s “Mother of the Blues”), Lucille Ball, and Bob Hope performed at the Saenger, and today the century-old playhouse hosts touring Broadway productions—but at multiple points along the way, concerned citizens stepped in to save the theater from demolition and pitch in for renovations.
“We have this community of volunteers and investors in the arts—
and when I say investors, I don't mean just with their wallets. I mean they roll up their sleeves.”
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The Saenger is just one of Pensacola’s decades-old arts organizations. This year the Pensacola Opera celebrates its fortieth season. The Pensacola Ballet has been in operation since 1976, and the Pensacola Symphony Orchestra is just two years shy of its golden jubilee. There’s longevity in the visual arts as well—and a personal connection for Bear. “My grandmother helped open the Pensacola Museum of Art,” he says.
The PMA was founded in 1954 by a group of visionaries from the American Association of University Women. Today, the acclaimed museum houses a permanent collection of seven hundred works from the mid-nineteenth century to the present—pieces that tell the story of this unique city as much as its military forts or undeveloped national seashore do. To celebrate the institution’s seventieth anniversary, museum director Nick Croghan plans to exhibit as much of the collection this year as possible. “We’re doing a big showcase from June through September because this art belongs to the people of Pensacola,” Croghan says.
Art in Pensacola is truly a community affair, and First City Art Center passes the torch to the people through workshops, classes, studio space, and youth outreach programs to the community. So does the Great Gulfcoast Arts Festival, a free, three-day juried art show in Seville Square that brings the work of the nation’s top artists to thousands of attendees each November. That event also kicks off Foo Foo Fest, a twelve-day toast to creativity that fills the streets of Pensacola each fall with drum lines, puppet troupes, digital light displays, interactive sidewalk art, and other vibrant modes of expression.
Remarkably, amid all of these rich traditions, Bear can point to a single favorite art memory in town. “My favorite was when the Pensacola Opera and the Pensacola Symphony Orchestra partnered on a ‘three tenors’ night,” he says. The free event was at the Blue Wahoos Stadium overlooking the emerald green waters of the Inner Harbor Channel. As the sun set, the harmonies of Arnold Rawls, Adam Diegel, and David Portullo accompanied its descent. “It was amazing,” Bear says. It was also something that could only happen in Pensacola.
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Photographer: Michael Duncan
Photographer: Maria Goldberg