Don’t take my word for it, but The Villages has more entertainment that there are days of the year..
The Villages has its own department specifically dedicated to entertainment. Their web site is <HERE>. Entertainment in The Villages includes:
- Live Performances (ticketed events, nightly entertainment, restaurant entertainment)
- Movies (currently one venue with 8 screens in Lake Sumter Landing)
- The Villages School events (athletics and performing arts)
- Events (festivals, polo field, car shows and markets)
Lucy’s Tip:
Be sure to visit the entire entertainment calendar BEFORE your stay in The Villages. Many of the larger ticketed events sell out in advance. You should consider buying tickets in advance.
Entertainment Venues:
The Sharon L. Morse:
This is The Villages largest Performing Arts Center, located on Main St. in Spanish Springs town square. The Sharon seats just over 1,000 guests in a multi-level theater offering state of the art audio, visual, and theatrical rigging systems to create an entertainment experience second to none. Performances spotlight a variety of artistic disciplines ranging from concerts and comedians to dance, musicals and operas.
Savannah Center:
This facility is located at 1545 North Buena Vista Blvd. The Scarlett O’Hara Theater has a large stage for musical performances and off Broadway shows and a large floor space for formal and casual dances. Across the main foyer is an exhibition area that is home to many events.
Studio Theater:
The Studio Theater in Tiella Del Sol at 806 San Marino Drive. This is a smaller venue featuring many plays, musicals, and music events. The productions are “in-house” as opposed to the larger productions at The Morse. The Studio Theatre Tierra del Sol is a 99-seat black box theatre space. A Black Box is a flexible space. There are many ways to configure stage and audience areas. The typical ways we can construct the space for performance include: thrust, proscenium, and in the round.
Movies
The Villages currently runs one movie theater complex with eight (8) screens in Lake Sumter Landing. There is easy parking (vehicle or golf cart) near the town square, especially in the back of the theater near Barnes & Noble. Open Caption available for select films every Tuesday, and movies do NOT play on Wednesdays.
Tickets for movies (and all events) can be purchased online <HERE>. But for movies, you still need to check in at the box office and they will print theater tickets. There is a refreshment station in the theater, and you should get in line early if there is a very popular movie playing. The theaters are comfortable and spacious.
The theater lobby is now called Lazy Mac’s and has a food station and the lobby also runs a Dueling Pino performance weekly
Nightly Entertainment
There is NIGHTLY entertainment going on all over The Villages. Primarily, there is happy hour and a band playing in each of the three (currently) Town Squares. There is a complete daily calendar of events on The Villages smartphone app, or in the Daily Sun newspaper or online at The Village Entertainment.
There are usually plenty of chairs pre-set in the Town Squares, and there are open air “refreshment stations” in each square.
You will see and participate in lots of dancing in the middle of each square as well as some nights have booth vendors on the periphery.
Restaurant Entertainment
Several of the restaurants owned/managed by The Villages have music programs that are announced via The Villages Entertainment. The primary venues include:
Additionally, many of the independently owned restaurants and bars have nightly music, karaoke, etc. Some of the more popular music venues include
- City Fire (Sumter & Brownwood)
- Amerikanos (Spanish Springs)
- World of Beer (Spanish Springs & Brownwood)
- Cody’s (Lake Sumter)
