MUSE will celebrate artistic inspiration on Friday, February 9, 2018 at the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg at 7:00 p.m. The fifth annual benefit for the arts will recognize the breadth and beauty of art and culture in our City of the Arts, and pay tribute to those that continue to inspire and guide St. Petersburg to its standing as an international arts destination. Proceeds will benefit artists, arts education, and arts & cultural organizations through our Arts Alliance programs and services. Our Fifth Annual MUSE Arts Ambassador Award honors Paul Wilborn, Palladium Theater and Eugenie Bondurant, Actress/Teacher; a beloved team of St. Petersburg artists who are stellar representatives of our City of the Arts.
Paul Wilborn is the Executive Director of the Palladium Theater at St. Petersburg College. Under his leadership the Palladium has won numerous “Best of the Bay” awards and is recognized as the top venue for jazz, blues, choral music, chamber music and dance in the bay area.
Paul is a pianist, musician and bandleader. His American Songbook Series presents intimate cabaret shows at American Stage Theater and other venues around Florida. As founder and leader of Paul Wilborn and the Pop Tarts, he played most major venues in the Tampa Bay area for 15 years.
Paul and his wife, Eugenie Bondurant, are founding members of the WMNF and Studio at 620 Radio Theater Project. Paul contributes radio plays to the project.
Prior to joining the Palladium, Wilborn worked for Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio as Manager of Creative Industries. Major accomplishments included increasing community support for artists and arts organizations, connecting the arts and the economic development communities, and directing Arte 2007, Tampa Bay’s Festival of Latin American Arts. Eugenie Bondurant, SAG/AFTRA actress and teacher, was the first teacher hired at the Patel Conservatory in 2004 leading an on-camera acting program at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts, and taught acting for 12 years at Beverly Hills Studios, where many of her former students, including actress Jessica Alba, went on to become Hollywood stars. A New Orleans native and former runway model, Bondurant worked for decades as an actress in Los Angeles, appearing in movies (Fight Club, Space Truckers) and TV shows, and appears as Tigris in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2. She brought her dynamic on-camera acting program to Tampa from Los Angeles. She also teaches scene study at Andi Matheny Studios in St Petersburg.
Bondurant can also be heard singing the American Songbook with Paul Wilborn and Blue Roses. An “Elegant Chanteuse” with a sultry alto voice, Bondurant finds cabaret the best medium to tell the story in the song. She performs almost monthly with the Radio Theatre Project at Studio@620. Eugenie is also an active voice-over artist. She voiced the vivid descriptions for the ongoing Accessible Mural Tour project.
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