Talk of the Town: August 2026
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Giralda’s New Sky
Ever since the success of the 2018 Umbrella Sky installation above Giralda Plaza, the city has looked for a reprise. Various permutations, from colored letters to blue zodiac symbols, have failed to create a similar immersive art experience until this summer. The 2026 Giralda Sky Series has reprised the same visual impact, starting in May with “Cielo Tejido: A Woven Sky.” This rich canopy of colorful textiles handwoven by women from Etzatlán, Mexico, wowed visitors through July.
Now comes “Giralda in Bloom: A Floral Canopy,” a playful twist on the original Umbrella Sky, this time with plastic instead of cloth umbrellas, and with pop color blossom designs that could be on the set of The Dating Game. “This was created by Impact Plan, the same team behind the Umbrella Sky sensation that captured everyone’s attention here in 2018,” said Mayor Vince Lago, who led the dedication ceremony for the new installation. He called it a “fresh way” to bring that concept back, and “a partnership with local retailers” to encourage visitors to stay longer for shopping and dining. “But the most important thing is they experience Coral Gables in a completely different way.” Giralda in Bloom will remain in place through October. – J.P. Faber
Double Vision
The Art Cinema Expands, Finally
Since it began screening films in 2010, the Coral Gables Art Cinema has been a jewel in the city’s cultural crown, attracting thousands of moviegoers each year with its rich mix of indie flicks, foreign films, classic movies and first run blockbusters. But right from the start, Cinema founder Steven Krams said the movie house needed a second screen.
“He knew that a single-screen cinema in this industry is incredibly challenging,” says executive director Brenda Moe, who started with the cinema in 2017. Distributors for big studio films, and even some independent flicks, require multi-week screening commitments – which means curtailing the cinema’s regular programming. “Even with Oppenheimer, as popular as it was, or even with Odyssey, as popular as it’s been for us, our core audience gets exhausted by having no variety.”
Now the dream of a second screen is becoming a reality. Final plans have been approved to transform the adjacent space now occupied by Patio & Things. By the end of 2027, there will be a new 90-seat Jessie Fox Wolfson theater, named after the philanthropist whose “transformational” donation completed the necessary funding. That gift capped a campaign that began in earnest in 2021, with a private initial donation of $150,000, followed by a $250,000 grant from the Knight Foundation.
A tipping point came in 2022, when Mayor Vince Lago wrote legislation for the city to contribute $350,000. Another $100,000 was approved in May, “to fight off the inflation that we’ve had,” he says.
“Mayor Lago has been invaluable,” says Moe. “He has helped us move through each one of our challenges [zoning, financing, planning, contracting] and has helped city staff and the other elected officials understand the importance and value of the work that we’re doing.” These include the economic benefits of increasing annual viewership from 55,000 to 80,000, adding parking revenues and attracting more downtown diners and shoppers. – J.P. Faber
Kaplan’s Recognition
For years, Books & Books founder Mitchell Kaplan has been a stalwart part of the opposition to book banning in Florida, leading marches, demonstrations, and events protesting the state’s program to scour public libraries of books that disagree with their interpretation of history or promote alternate lifestyles.
Now he has received a national honor for his efforts, along with former late-night host Stephen Colbert. Kaplan and Colbert won the anti-censorship category of the 47th annual American Book Awards. The winners were announced by the Before Columbus Foundation, a California-based nonprofit that promotes multicultural American literature.
“I am humbled by the award,” says Kaplan, “but even more humbled to be mentioned in the same sentence as Stephen Colbert.” That former host of CBS’s “The Late Show” was pulled off the air following intense pressure from the Trump administration for his caustic criticisms of the president. Kaplan will receive his award in a formal ceremony scheduled for Sept. 26 at the University of California, Berkeley campus. – CG Staff
Where the Jobs Are
The Foundation Takes a New Aim
The Coral Gables Community Foundation has a well-deserved reputation for raising millions of dollars for college scholarships. Now the foundation has launched a Trades Scholarship Fund for Miami-Dade students who would rather study skilled trades, such as automotive technology, welding, aviation technology, plumbing, electronic systems, and construction – “jobs where people use their hands,” says Foundation board member Roxanne Cason, who was instrumental in pushing the idea forward.
Underwritten by the Stamps Family Charitable Foundation, the new scholarship fund is intended to meet local demand for skilled trade jobs, one million of which could go unfilled nationally
by 2030. “We support this new fund because we believe that a career in the skilled trades is not a second choice — it is a first-rate path to a sustainable livelihood and a life of purpose,” said Mary Snow, Executive Director of the Stamps Family Charitable Foundation.
Cason, who also chairs the Foundation’s Engagement Committee, points to an expected “job loss boom” in tech jobs replaced by AI and the need to rethink attitudes towards trade jobs. “Remember how Rosie the Riveter helped build America? There was a real sense of purpose then [during and after WWII], and people did things no one expected they would be able to do. They got trained on how to do them and they did them, and it didn’t matter if you were a man or a woman…. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could change the view of the trades, which are so essential, so that people would be proud?”
Salaries for skilled trade workers can be surprisingly high, with none of the baggage of debt for a four-year degree that may offer little in the way of employability. In-demand trade workers can also become entrepreneurs and start their own companies to further climb the economic ladder.
“We have incredible [local] institutions offering these certificate programs, the labor market has a strong need, and we have expertise in managing scholarships already,” says Mauricio Vivero, president and CEO of the Foundation. “There’s a tremendous opportunity here to rally people willing to support students in this alternate pathway.” The bottom line, he says, is that skilled trades are “good paying jobs, you get certified faster, you don’t have to wait for a four-year degree, and the community – our economic ecosystem – needs them.” – J.P.Faber
New Public Art
Miami Artist Loriel Beltran and His “Late Script Colada” Painting
Coral Gables continues to enrich its public spaces, inside and out, with new art. The latest lobby installation is a large painting by Miami artist Loriel Beltran in the new 4225 Ponce de Leon office building. Titled “Late Script Colada,” it creates an illusion of vibration by molding the curved bottoms of plastic coffee cups into the painting itself.
“The white things you see are colada cups,” says Beltran. “I’ve been incorporating them and some of the studio waste into the work, you know, as a way to connect it to the outside world” – especially the Miami world. Beltran, is represented by the prestigious Lehmann Maupin Gallery in New York and has his work in the Guggenheim Museum in NYC.
Across town is the latest exterior public art is the seven-foot+ textured bronze sculpture “Power Tower,” by acclaimed American sculptor Lynda Benglis. This flowing, golden form, in the tradition of Italian modernist sculptures of the early 20th century, now adorns the formal main entryway of the downtown Regency Parc building at 2601 Salzedo street. It is the newest addition to the city’s Art in Public Places Program. Benglis, whose works are in New York’s Museum of Modern Art is known for her poured latex sculptures as well as her energetic, twisted metal shapes. – J.P. Faber
Another Sort of Healing Hands
GableStage Brings the Art of Puppetry to Kids Who Need to Smile
By Sofia Alfaro
For most bed-bound kids with serious illnesses at Nicklaus and Holtz children’s hospitals, the people who visit them – doctors, orderlies, nurses – are rarely fun. Except for a band of roving puppeteers from GableStage, whose job it is to take them on imaginary adventures and leave them laughing.
“For these kids, people usually only come into their room to give them more medicine, some kind of treatment, or a diagnosis,” says Laura Guerrero, director of artistic and education programming at GableStage. “But with this program, it’s being able to give these kids the opportunity to just be a child and enjoy something fun.”
This past spring, that fun erupted in the rooms and hallways of Nicklaus and Holtz through a puppet show entitled “A Dose of Fun: The Wonder Show!” For six weeks, GableStage brought professional theatre – through puppetry, music, storytelling, and interactive play to transplant units, oncology floors, family waiting areas, and long-term pediatric care spaces at the top two pediatric hospitals in Miami.
The GableStage project started when two of its former board members, Lee and Iris Osaison, connected the theater with the Carol Marie Weber Foundation. The charitable foundation wanted to fund a program for both children and the arts. GableStage brought the project to FIU, it’s long-time partner for theater reaching a younger audience. They have jointly produced Shakespeare-inthe- Schools for more than a decade, reaching highschoolers with 45-minute adaptations of the bard’s classic plays. Actors were often drawn from the FIU theater program; for this project, FIU theater professor Ivan Lopez was asked to write and perform.
At the time, Lopez has only been teaching at FIU for two weeks. He started there after 11 years as a hospital clown for Nicklaus Children’s “healthy humor” program, which ran out of funding. One of Lopez’s colleagues “had a ton of puppets” so he pushed for a puppet play. Together with GableStage, the idea was fleshed out “with themes of bravery, kindness, resilience and joy,” says Guerrero.
The storyline revolves around “Chef Kitty,” a royal chef. She has severe anxiety, so her humorous quest to create “dragon soup” hit home with young patients. “The main message was that courage doesn’t mean lack of fear,” says Lopez. “You can be afraid and still be courageous. The kids are at the hospital because something is wrong with their body, but they’re still kids who have this incredible capacity to play and use their imaginations.”
The results, says GableStage executive director Bari Newport, were profound. “We met a two-year-old child awaiting a transplant who had spent more than half her life in protective isolation. During the performance, she laughed and smiled with delight while her mother’s visible worry lifted, if only for a moment,” she says. “We witnessed moments of genuine relief and joy in places where those experiences can be all too rare.”
The fall production of “A Dose of Fun” expects more bedside performances for severely ill children who cannot leave their rooms. It will receive support from the Carol Marie Weber Foundation, but after that Newport is worried. “Despite the extraordinary response from children, families, and hospital partners, sustaining the program has proven surprisingly difficult,” she says. “While everyone immediately understands its value, funding for arts-in-healthcare programs remains scarce.”