Friends › Paul Wilborn
Paul Wilborn is Executive Director and artistic director of the Palladium Theater at St. Petersburg College. The Palladium presents the best in opera, chamber music, jazz, blues, cabaret, musical theater, and much more.
Paul is also a popular cabaret entertainer and band leader. His American Songbook Series programs — which feature music along with commentary — have recently focused on Cole Porter, Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra and other composers and singers from the golden age of American songwriting. He continues to perform in clubs and in concert with his trio, Blue Roses, and his large band, Paul Wilborn and the Pop Tarts.
Paul was a founding member of Ybor City’s Artists and Writers Group, which presented the legendary Artists and Writers Ball. He was also a co-founder of Guavaween, which attracts more than 100,000 people annually. He is also a founder of Arte 2005 and 2007, and is helping to plan Arte 2010, Tampa Bay’s Festival of Latin American Arts.
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 2005 and 2007.
Before joining the city, Wilborn was an award-winning reporter and columnist for the Tampa Tribune, the St. Petersburg Times and the Associated Press in Los Angeles. He was a member of the St. Petersburg Times' Editorial Board for two years. His writing was recognized nationally and statewide with numerous awards. In 1996 he was named Florida’s Reporter of the Year by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 1998 he was among 16 international journalists chosen for a Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowship at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
He is a graduate of the University of South Florida and a Tampa native.