Welcome to Sunshine Sisters, an interview segment featuring the women making an impact in St. Petersburg today. I'm Karen Carmichael. My guest today is Colleen Cherry. I first met Colleen when she was the volunteer coordinator at American Stage , and she's currently the community relations specialist at USF St.

Pete and the newest host of Bulls by the Bay, the new segment that we get every week from the university. Colleen, how are you today? I'm

so good, Karen.

Tell us a little bit about where you grew up.

I was born and raised in this area. My parents came from Brooklyn, so still have that Northeast connection.

I went to Gibbs High School for Pinellas County Center for the Arts Musical Theater Program. That was my first real introduction into the St. Pete community of course, that was a long time ago, and it's changed a lot since then, especially the arts.

But, back in the day we had the studio at six 20 when Bob Devin Jones was running it, that allowed us high school students to produce our own work. So that was a a, a really cool time. Did you go to college here? I went to Marymount Manhattan in New York for my freshman year, but then I transferred back to the University of Tampa because I still had that bright future scholarship that I could apply there, so I could graduate with slightly less debt than if I would've stayed in New York.

Yeah. It is expensive. Living in New York is expensive. What inspired you to get involved in St. Petersburg?

From a young age while I was in high school, we were able to produce our work here as artists. Having people like Bob Devon Jones, and Paul Wilborn at the Palladium.

People who say yes to the ideas of artists and give us a space and platforms to do it. So I've just been kind of involved in the art scene here. Pretty much my whole life, ever since high school, working professionally, producing my own work, getting involved with all of the different theater companies and concert venues around here.

I think I've performed on pretty much every stage in St. Pete. No kidding. Yeah.

Tell us a little bit about what it was like to work at American Stage .

So I worked at American Stage, well actually my internship right after I'd graduated from college, so about a year or so after I had been, gigging and kind of freelancing and doing,

office managing jobs in between, like temping and things like that. I got an internship at American Stage back when Todd Olson was the artistic director, so that was, 2012 I think. I got to do three of the remain stage shows as part of like the ensemble, but underst studying the lead roles and taking workshops and things like that.

It was before they had their kind of formal apprenticeship program when I started working there. So that was how I got my start with them. A few years later I got hired as a house manager at first, I had come in for an audition and Stephanie Golar was the artistic director at that point, and I didn't get the job for that audition, the first thing that I auditioned for.

But I did get cast and it's a wonderful life. That was the radio play, that Christmas play that we did for several years. She liked me and was like, Hey. Would you like a job? Do you wanna house manage when you're not performing? So I started house managing and then their volunteer coordinator had resigned.

So she brought me on to be the volunteer coordinator and kind of her executive assistant, doing lots of community outreach. It was a small staff, so we all wore many hats. But it was a great way for me to learn how. A nonprofit theater company works. I got just kind of a crash course in all things nonprofit, so learning how to fundraise, learning how to put on these events all about donor cultivation and community outreach and forming those partnerships.

So it was. A lot. It was, I've made lifelong friends during my time there that I'm still very close with. I learned so much. I got to teach, that was where I really started to kind of hone in on my teaching artist skills that I still get to do. So teaching with the summer camps and teaching improv classes to adults and to kids.

So yeah, it was. A really formative, five years of my career. Getting to learn so much and while also getting to perform, but during that time I just kind of ate, slept, breathed theater. It was my entire world and social circle. And then, I left in 2019, so kind of just in time before COVID.

Took all of that away. I know, I know. What they went through

with COVID is sad and they're still having a hard time getting their, you know, making sure that they're gonna be able to be solvent, I think.

It's really hard for arts organizations and theaters across the board right now mm-hmm.

That are still recovering from COVI and recovering from, funding sources being slashed. Mm-hmm. Which is, is really hard. And then just people not going out as much as they used to. It doesn't seem that way.

Like Yeah.

People are, they're going out to the bars, they're going out to things, and I think people are hungry for it. They just, a lot of folks just don't know about the theater. A lot of the people that moved here mm-hmm. During the COVID times. Sure. I think maybe don't realize like, Hey, there's great theater companies right here in downtown, just all across the Tampa Bay area.

So I kind of make that my personal mission. Anytime I meet new people to let them know like, Hey, go check out a show at American Stage. Go check. Things out at free fall. You know, go get connected with these places so that you know, you can take part in it. It's a great date night, and there's always incredible programming going on, incredible performances.

But when we're playing to empty houses, it's very disheartening, I think, as an actor,

I've thought about this a lot and I almost feel like when people see us as an arts community, somehow the performing arts don't get looped into that. Yes. Because there's murals all over the place.

There's art museums all over the place, and people key into art and they think of visual art.

Mm-hmm.

Not performing art.

Yeah. And there's such a robust performing art scene here between the theater companies. I agree. And dance and musicians. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. I just try to spread the good news about all of the incredible arts that are happening here.

Do here too.

Yep. I love it. Thank you. That's what, that's what we do at Radio St. Pete. We love that.

You have a lot of experience, obviously downtown and just in general in, you know, I guess Pinellas County and St. Petersburg. So what do you see as the biggest challenge for St.

Pete moving forward in 2025?

Hmm. I mean, I know the hurricanes are top of mind for everybody right now as we are in the beginning of hurricane season. I know that that really hurt the arts. Going, going back to that, you know, a lot of people had to cut back on their programming or cancel shows, and that's a lot a lost revenue.

And so many of our residents, so many people were impacted with. Their housing and being displaced. So I think preparing for hurricane season and just housing in general, it's, it's very expensive to live right now. So my fiance and I actually bought a house last year. We were really fortunate, like we're millennials that own homes.

What that's. An anomaly. Um, but we found a home in Seminole, which is, you know, where I grew up. It's great to be closer to family, but I had my heart set on finding a place in St. Pete, but it was just too hard for us to find something that we could afford.

Yeah. This is not the time to be looking for housing in St.

Petersburg. And it's not only the rental market, right? Mm-hmm. I mean, but the rental market is still impacted by the folks that were impacted by the storm. Yes. So until they can get home, they're renting Exactly. And it's, it's unbelievable how many folks are still not back in their own houses and it's been almost a year.

It is.

It is.

And the rental prices were kind of skyrocketed prior to that. Yes.

COVID to thank for that. Everybody wanted

to come to

Florida.

I know. I was like, come on. You know where my fiance and I was also born and raised here. So we're two Floridians.

Like we've been through so many hurricanes, we've been through so much and we're still here. I'm grateful that we were able to find something that we could afford and we love it, but I was very grateful to get this job at USF St. Pete, so I could still have this connection to the city. Sure.

'cause I'm still a St. Pete girl. But it was hard, you know, having weekends like, oh, it's so, it's so far. It's only a 20 minute drive. But having this connection and being here every day and still being a part of the community has really meant a lot to me. Sure. Of course it has.

Yeah.

Tell me about one accomplishment that you're really proud of.

I've got, I've got a lot, I've done a lot of things that I'm proud of. I would say this year I'm very proud of my band, the Florida B Orchestra. So we are a 30 piece band, led by Jeremy Douglas. He is our founding, music director, orchestrator extraordinaire.

He's a. Musical genius. He formed this band many, many years ago, but we had kind of gained momentum pre COVID where we were putting on these shows and selling out the palladium. Our shtick is that we perform music that you probably won't hear live, artists like David Bowie and of course Bjork

madonna and all kinds of fun stuff with a full orchestra and rock band. With some of like people from your favorite local bands, your favorite local singers are all in this band. It's kind of a super group. And we bring a lot of theatricality to what we do. But for two years we did a Buffy, the Vampire Slayer Festival called Buffy Fest, where it was kind of like a comic con where we did the full musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with music from the show

people, it, it just exploded. Like it started out kind of as a joke of like, what should we do next? And I was like, you know, I've always wanted to do the Buffy musical. Somebody caught wind of it and then we got funding and they're like, yep, let's do it. It's gonna bring tourists here. So we were gearing it up to become an annual thing.

We had actors from the show coming and being special guests of it, but then after COVID, it was the. Third year was supposed to be March of 2020, so of course that got postponed until this year. So it was several years of people going like, Hey, one second to be rescheduled. I still have my tickets from 2020.

And we were able to bring it back earlier this year, and it was just incredible. People traveled in from all over the country to come see it and were messaging us, telling us like how much it meant to. Have it finally brought back. But the logistics of putting something like that on was just mind boggling.

And that's why it took so long to bring it back. 'cause you know, 30 musicians and actors, everyone's booked, everyone's got gigs. So it was hard to, to get that. Back up. But we did it and it just, the energy in that room was incredible. So it was at Palladium, am I right? It was at the Palladium earlier this year.

And it was just us, we didn't bring any actors from the TV show 'cause we wanted to be full focus on the local visual artists that we had in the artist market. So that like they can make some good money. And that, you know, it was all about the community.

Buy the community for the community.

Clearly with all of the experience that you've had, you've had a few mentors, right? Can you tell me about one of them?

Yeah. There's, there've been a lot of people who have kind of guided me on this very like, unconventional path that I've been on kind of using my work my career, both in the arts and in like community outreach and things like that, in my sort of nonprofit and now higher education career. But I would say my friend Tiffany Ford now, Tiffany Baldwin, she's gotten married, but she was the director of education at American Stage when I started there.

And she became, she is now one of my closest friends, but she kind of was the first person to really encourage me to bring like, play and authenticity into work. So she kind of. Had that experience of being in the theater and the arts world, but also having an administrative career on top of it. And kind of merging those two, but bringing that authenticity to my work of like, you don't have to play a role, you know, like this is professional Colleen, and this is actor Colleen.

And the real Colleen is somewhere in between. Helping me bring my full self into the work that I do and yeah. She's been great. She's now had a full career change and now she is, she just finished grad school for mental health counseling and she's working at the women's center over in Tampa.

What do you like about your job?

Oh, I love my job. It's so much fun. I just started in March and I remember asking that question in my interview to the people interviewing me, like, what do you like about this job? And they were like the people.

And that has so held true for me. I was a little overwhelmed at first 'cause it's the biggest organization I've ever worked for. I've always worked for small nonprofits where you learn everybody's names within the first week. But the first few weeks I was there, I was just meeting so many people and trying to keep it straight of like, who do I go to for what and where.

And now I'm kind of settled into it. I know that, and I'm starting to kind of build those relationships across the campus and. Just being surrounded by so many fascinating people with all these diverse backgrounds and the professors that are doing all of this incredible research that's just so interesting.

And just making the world such a better place. And the students, every time I have conversations with the students and kind of try to find ways of like, okay, how can I support you? How can I find those community members to help you with what you are doing? They just blow me away with. They're brilliance.

So I love getting to work with people across the campus, but also getting to meet and connect with people across the community. So it's, it is a perfect job for me. I knew when I was like hunting for a job. It took about three months for me to find something of constant job hunting that I was like, I'm gonna know my job when I see it.

Not having full clarity around like, what do I wanna be doing with my life right now at this phase of my career? And then as soon as I saw this job posting, I was like, oh, there it is. That's my job. I am getting that job. And I did, and, and I'm loving it so much.

What does a typical workday look like for you?

Not typical. It is never typical and I love that about it. 'cause I am a very, I, I like a certain amount of routine and I have a bit of that, but also kind of changing it up day to day. So I get to meet with a lot of people. I work closely with our marketing and events team, so planning events on campus.

For instance, next week, I'm one of the organizers of the St. Pete Strong Youth Conference that is, put on by the Dream Faith Foundation, where we are going to welcome 400 to 500 middle and high school students to campus and have all of these different breakout sessions where they're gonna learn all, steam related activities and career paths.

So that's been a big focus since I've gotten started meeting with the organizers and planning that event. Going out to different community events, different city events, and, getting to know the folks who are making things happen here in St. Pete. And getting to hang out with our comfort dog.

Snowbird, who is my best friend.

Pictures of Snowbird.

He's such a delight. My very first day, was his birthday party. So I got to go to a dog birthday party my first day. But he is part of our university police department's, therapy dog. He's a comfort dog, so he just goes around and brings joy and comfort to the students and to the staff, and we love him.

Anytime he comes to my office, it's such a treat. What are you doing to keep cool this summer? So the campus is on the water and I love that my office is literally right on the water, so I usually like to take a long walk on my lunch, break along the water. It's too hot to do that right now, so I try to find the shadiest paths possible.

Thankfully, there are a lot of trees on campus, so just trying to find the shade. We have these fun little branded, fans. The little fans that attach to my phone that's like battery powered, so I walk around with that and it gives me a little bit of breeze when I have less of one.

Yeah. I walk my dog down there in the morning and in the morning it's great. Yeah. 'cause the breeze is coming in off the water and it's still coolish. Even at. Seven o'clock. It's already starting to get warm, but it's still kind of cool. And there are enough trees around, like you've said.

Mm-hmm. You know, but I can, but as the day goes on, it does get warmer down there

yeah. So there's not much staying cool, but, staying hydrated, that's my goat too. Yeah. That's drinking a whole bunch of water all day long.

That's key. Well, before we wrap this up, I always like to ask people if they have a book or a movie or a podcast that they can recommend to our listeners.

So what have you got?

A podcast that I love is called Song Exploder. The host is Rhi Kh Hiway, and he. Reaches out to different, musicians, singer, songwriters, famous people that you know, to sort of break down their creative process of their songs. So how they wrote it, what inspired it.

Sometimes you get to hear snippets of old recordings, like they're sort of rough demos and it's really cool to kind of get into the minds of the creative process. Can I shamelessly self-promote a play that's coming up that I'm in? Please do.

Please do.

Right. So I am an artistic associate with Job Site Theater.

We're the resident company at the STR over in Tampa, and we are doing a production of Puff. That is a parody of a very popular franchise of a certain Boy wizard that was a book series and a movie series that you may have heard of. It is a total parody. So the author of said books doesn't get a scent from it, so we love that.

But it is a very silly, fun time. I am one of the characters in that playing multiple different characters in that universe. That is opening in July. We go into previews July 9th and running through the first weekend in August. So check out job site theater on Instagram and Facebook to more info.

So is this good for kids or is it. More geared towards adults.

We don't love to make recommendations. Okay. For, 'cause you know, every, every kid is different. Sure, sure. But it is, there's mature content and lots of potty words. Okay. So I wouldn't recommend it for Little Littles.

Well, Colleen, it's been a pleasure.

I have been speaking with Colleen Cherry. Who is the community relations specialist at USF and the newest host of Bulls by the Bay that we air every Monday on Radio St. Pete, you've been listening to Sunshine Sisters. This is Karen Carmichael.