Big names from jazz, swing, Broadway and the blues are among the first acts announced for the Dr. Phillips Center’s Frontyard Festival — which is now just a couple of weeks away.
A few events had previously been previewed by the downtown arts center, including Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s Wild & Swingin’ Holiday Party on Dec. 12, but on Thursday afternoon, more headliners joined the lineup, including jazz great Wynton Marsalis, blues singer Keb’ Mo’ and Broadway star Michael James Scott, best known as the Genie in the musical “Aladdin.”
Officials made the announcements at a news conference on the Seneff Arts Plaza of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, where the ambitious daily, six-month, open-air festival will take place. It begins Dec. 5 and will include a mix of national and local entertainment, as well as daily outdoor health and wellness events.
“Safe, safe, safe is the manner in which we are going to do this,” said center president Kathy Ramsberger. AdventHealth is the festival’s presenting sponsor and adviser on COVID-19 precautions.
Critically, for local performers struggling financially after seeing jobs disappear because of coronavirus, the festival will provide employment opportunities.
“Our industry has gone through a terrible time,” said arts-center board vice chairman Chuck Steinmetz. “We’ve had to cut down everything here so we could stay open.”
The Dr. Phillips Center, which has canceled or postponed hundreds of events, furloughed much of its staff in May. “It looks like we’re really not going to be up and running until late next year,” Ramsberger said on Thursday.
The Frontyard Festival, in its outdoor-theater setting, will dramatically change the way the high-profile space across from Orlando City Hall appears. Already, individual steel platforms fill much of the plaza, which will be enclosed with wooden fencing and entered through a specially constructed archway. Each platform is elevated and spaced 6 feet away from neighboring “boxes,” as center staff refers to them.
Citizen Cope, a high-energy funk act, and alternative hip-hop/R&B band G Love & The Juice will open the festival. Other nationally known performers include Grammy-winning country stars Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires; Brent Smith and Zach Myers of rock band Shinedown, performing acoustically; El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico celebrating a “Mega Latin Christmas”; operatic tenors Fernando Varela, Craig Irvin and Devin Eatmon, also with holiday songs; Washington, D.C.-based Step Afrika, a dance troupe dedicated to Black stepping; and gospel singer Tye Tribbett.
Scott, who is from Orlando, will launch his first holiday album, “A Fierce Christmas,” in a Dec. 19 concert accompanied by a 12-piece band and 16-voice choir comprised of local students.
Among the Central Florida arts organizations performing during the festival will be the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bethune-Cookman University Concert Chorale, the Orlando Gay Chorus and Central Florida Community Arts, which on Dec. 15 will present “Noel: The Carols of Christmas” with choir and orchestra. In the spring, the annual UCF Celebrates the Arts festival also will be part of the event.
Many shows go on sale at 10 a.m. Nov. 20 at frontyardfestival.org.
The programming is being devised in conjunction with Foundation Presents, which runs nearby performance venues The Social and The Beacham, as well as iHeartMedia — which owns 12 local radio stations including Magic 107.7.
YMCA of Central Florida is a partner in the wellness program, which will offer yoga, Zumba and fitness “boot camps” during the morning hours each day.
In collaboration with the Central Florida Music Association, a free “Live and Local” lunch series will be offered 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays. The musicians who perform during the series will be paid, with their compensation supported by OUC, Ramsberger said. Lunch will be available from on-site food and beverage vendors.
Food is also a part of the evening ticketed events, with a wide variety of options available for pre-order or delivery to a private “box” by using a new mobile app.
“It can be barbecue and a bucket of beer; it can be charcuterie and a bottle of champagne,” Ramsberger said.
Ticket prices will vary based on box location and minimum seat requirement. Each box can hold up to five seats. An example provided by the center shows that the lowest price for a front-row box on opening night, which carries a four-seat minimum, would be $184, or $46 per person. A box closer to Orange Avenue costs $144, or $36 per person, for a group of four.
The outdoor theater also will have two 16-by-28-foot LED screens broadcasting the shows.
Speaking at Thursday’s event, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer quipped he would have a fine view from his third-floor office across the street.
More seriously, he said City Council will soon vote on granting $70,000 to local arts groups to enable them to participate in the festival.
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings praised the entertainment sector as “vital to our community” and said arranging a festival of such scope in a short span of time was “nothing short of extraordinary.”
All the officials said it was the public-private partnerships that made the Frontyard Festival possible.
“I like things that are cool, that are innovative, that are collaborative,” Dyer said. “This is cool, innovative and collaborative.”
Find me on Twitter @matt_on_arts or email me at mpalm@orlandosentinel.com. Want more news and reviews of theater and other arts? Go to orlandosentinel.com/arts
