Helen Murray is an award-winning playwright and director. Murray joined St. Pete’s American Stage as Producing Artistic Director in October 2022. Previous to her current role, Murray has notably worked as Executive Producer for the Aurora Fox Arts Center in Denver and as Artistic Director of the Hub Theatre in Virginia, which she also co-founded. She has authored over seven plays, and has directed over 19 productions. She has received multiple awards for her work, including the Puffin Foundation Award for Outstanding Emerging Artist and the Washington Canadian Partnership Award for Leadership in the Arts.

In this conversation, Murray and Joe Hamilton discuss theatre’s place in the community, the relationship between artistic risks and sure-fire hits, and loose plans for the 23-24 season at American Stage. Murray recounts how her experiences led her to American Stage, and what she hopes to accomplish while she is here.Continue reading

Waveney Ann Moore’s first St. Pete Catalyst byline appeared just over two years ago, on Nov. 25, 2020, and her weekly columns have enriched and elevated our journalistic output a thousandfold. The Guyana-born Moore began writing for us following her retirement from the Tampa Bay Times, where she’d been a well-known reporter and columnist for 24 years. “My husband’s been telling everybody, for the past couple of years since I retired from the Times, that I failed retirement,” she says with a laugh in this SPX interview with Catalyst publisher Joe Hamilton.

This month, however, Moore is taking another shot at slowing down. After more than 100 Catalyst columns – about community, about equity and about the abundance of positivity amongst the people of St. Petersburg – she is now officially, no-turning-back retired.

With Hamilton, she discusses her career, from earliest days in Kansas and Oklahoma, to her work for a Clearwater-based trade magazine and, finally, to the vaunted Times staff in 1994, where she began in neighborhood news before graduating to general assignment reporter. In addition to extensive coverage of the St Pete Pier, Moore was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1998 and 2010. Reflecting on her work with the Catalyst: “I learned a lot about the African-American community that I thought I knew, and I didn’t,” Moore says. “I learned a lot more. And I was able to focus on other minorities … I think it was definitely the people that I met, and the things that I learned, that’s what I value.”Continue reading

Judy Genshaft was President of the University of South Florida for nearly two decades, from 2000 to 2019, overseeing the most transformative change in the university’s history. Enrollment grew by 40 percent; the four-year graduation rate tripled. USF’s endowment jumped from $254 million to $480 million. And most significantly, USF’s research activity has tripled to more than $568 million in expenditures, it’s now one of the top 25 public universities for research. Today, USF ranks as the country’s fifth leading public university in generating new U.S. utility patents. It is also the state’s third preeminent university. Recently, the Board of Trustees voted to re-name the Student Life Building, on the campus of USF St. Petersburg, in honor of the former president. “There’s going to be a big celebration,” she says in this interview, as soon as current renovations to the site are complete. Genshaft, who retired because “it’s time to leave when you’re on the top,” discusses her tenure, and what her accomplishments meant to the college, and to the community, and to her, personally. “Having a passion for what you do really allows you to go through the ups and downs of careers and life. Not everything’s going to be joyous all the time … but having a passion, it’s not a job, it becomes your career, and your love. And afterwards, you can continue on making life better for everybody.”Continue reading