OPEN Network Partner Event – Satchmo & St. Pete: A Love Story

Weaving a human fabric, one story at a time.

Your Real Stories uses storytelling and the magic of theater and other media to challenge people to talk and listen to each other across perceived differences of identity, experience and opinions. They tell the stories of the shared human experience; because, storytelling has the power to transform communities and change lives.   

Join OPEN and Your Real Stories on Friday, October 11th to learn how iconic jazz legend Louis Armstrong touched the lives of St. Pete citizens who saw him play in the days of a legally segregated South. 

Hosted at the Historic Manhattan Casino where Armstrong repeatedly played to a packed house, this red carpet evening will include live jazz musicians, professional dancers, and a theatrical performance based on interviews with Louis Armstrong’s daughter, her mother, and residents who saw Satchmo perform on both sides of Central Avenue.

Back in the days of the “Jim Crow” South, Armstrong would need to perform twice in the same city; first for the predominantly white community, often at the Palladium Theater, then also at the Manhattan Casino for an African-American audience.

Louis D. Armstrong, nicknamed Satchmo, Satch, and Pops, was an American trumpeter, composer, vocalist and occasional actor whose career spanned five decades, from the 1920’s to the 1960’s. Combined with his artistry and personality, Armstrong’s roles in movies like High Society with Grace Kelly and Hello Dolly with Barbara Streisand, allowed him access to the upper echelons of American society, then highly restricted for black men.  As one of the most influential figures in jazz, Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to “cross over”, that is, whose skin color became secondary to his music in an America that was extremely racially divided at the time.

Please join us for what is sure to be a poignant and memorable evening
of Your Real Stories and OPEN Conversations.

General Admission Tickets = $35
Doors open at 7:30 pm for seating. Performance begins at 8:00 pm.

VIP Tickets = $75
Includes a pre-event VIP reception from 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm and reserved seating for the performance.

For Tickets to Satchmo & St. Pete:  A Love Story – please visit Eventbrite

Back for its 6th year, Story Days in Tampa Bay is a six day storytelling experience that reveals the transforming power of stories, using music, dance, poetry, visual art, and theatre.