Just the description alone – “an experimental performance by Jessica Earley featuring hyperbole, puppetry, dance, awkwardness, honesty and video projections to tell a story about heartbreak and healing” – was enough to conjure images of the kind of experimental performance art that was all the rage 40-plus years ago, but too often earns eye-rolls from today’s cynical audiences. “Hyperbolic” seems like the last adjective one might apply to the demure Earley, who I previously knew mostly through her visual art and past collaborations with performance artist Brian Feldman.

Budgets for cultural organizations are down, but a dazzling performing arts center is rising across from City Hall. Over the years, we have watched a symphony orchestra pull off a remarkable resurrection and an opera company go belly up. Arts groups wounded by the economic downturn and corporate funding cutbacks have been forced to go leaner in order to keep presenting their concerts, performances and exhibits.

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FTA has also donated thousands of tickets to charities, underprivileged children and theater students, as well as more than $1.5 million in scholarships to theater students in the State of Florida. Most recently FTA has invested in a community spaces downtown called The Abbey and The Mezz, donating its use to charities and local arts groups, resulting in these groups raising more than $2 million for their respective organizations.

EIGHTY PERCENT OF ALL PROCEEDS GENERATED BY FTA STAYED WITHIN AND HELPED THE ORLANDO COMMUNITY.

A South Florida lawmaker wants the state to add $30 million to a dwindling seed fund to help startup companies grow to the next level by financing their product testing.

The fund is intended to commercialize research projects at universities and research institutions, like the one by nSolgel LLC, a company co-founded by Sudipta Seal, director of the University of Central Florida NanoScience Technology Center. Seal has been researching whether he could make building material from the ash collected from the burning of coal to generate power.