Pasco Speaks Out: Is Culture Lacking in the Tampa Bay Area?

Patch sites across the Tampa bay area asked readers if the region lacked culture, and we got a lot of really great answers.

The editor of New Port Richey Patch thought one answer in particular stood out:

Tom Gale is director for Center for the Arts at River Ridge, which is a Pasco school district facility. The Center for the Arts is a full-servoice production facility that serves 40 schools in West Pasco, in addition to community and local groups. It specializes in stage production.

Here's what he had to say, under the name Center for the Arts at River Ridge

Culture is an active relationship between arts organizations and community members and as such is commerce like any other commerce. Arts organizations have to develop products that are of value to the community members who have to actively purchase tickets to those events. With so much that keeps people home or attracts them to other commercial past-times and with so much less disposable income, everyone in the arts and entertainment industry has to work harder to keep the community connection active. As the director of the Center for the Arts at River Ridge, a school district facility, I must balance providing performance services to the forty schools in western Pasco county with providing time for community groups to use the facility, as well as purchasing any additional concert or play event for the public. It is always difficult to even make back the costs of the programs no matter how much time and money we spend in getting the word out. The bottom line is that unless arts presenters can cover their costs and make a little profit from their offerings, they cannot afford to offer much. Arts diversity is possible only with consistent and wide spread community support; spending money to purchase tickets to live events. So community members, get out and actively attend arts functions. Artists and presenters, offer your patrons products worthy of their hard earned dollars. Active grassroots support of the arts comes first; diversity develops naturally from there.

Sandra Dornick, a New Port Richey Patch reader, also had this to say about cultural offerings in Pasco.

Sandra Dornick

Your article is questioning lack of culture in this area ... when indeed it is verified by another particle on this same day, promoting a Nude race. Pasco will never find it's way out of the negative stigma it has held for decades with top billings like that. That is one reason Pinellas has it all over us.

What do you have to say about culture in Tampa Bay? Let us know in the comments section.