May 8–10in & around Central Florida

Ocala Civic Theatre opens its Children of Eden run Friday evening -- Stephen Schwartz's musical, staged by the longest-running community theater company in the state. The Friday opener typically plays to a partial house; the better seats stay open longer than the weekend's matinees.

Live Oak Theater's youth production of The Wizard of Oz Jr. opens Friday night and runs through the weekend. Family-friendly, well-staged community theater in a Brooksville room scaled for exactly this kind of show.

Inverness brings its third annual Memorial Bulls & Barrels rodeo to the Citrus County Fair Grounds Friday at 7:30 PM. Real-deal bull riding plus barrel racing, classic county-fair-rodeo format. Tickets through the gate.

Clermont PAC stages the Taylor Swift tribute show Friday evening. The Fearless tribute leans into the early-era Swift catalog and pairs naturally as the kind of date-night-or-mom-and-daughter night out the lineup is designed for.

The Opry's house Friday Night Live runs at 7 PM in the Weirsdale room. Bobby Randall fronts the OBO Band -- the venue's standing house band -- in the format that's been the Opry's anchor for years.

Savannah Center hosts the Phil Collins / Genesis tribute Saturday -- a curated greatest-hits format with the catalog full enough to fill the program twice over.

The Sharon books Jason Petty's Hank Williams tribute Saturday evening. Petty's Hank impression is the gold-standard touring version of this -- there's a reason it keeps coming back to The Sharon.

Mount Dora's Sunset Park hosts Plaid in the Park Saturday -- a Highland Games kind of energy with pipers, dancers, and food, set on the lakefront downtown. Free, walkable from anywhere in Mount Dora.

Mount Dora's library hosts a Saturday-morning Irish music session -- open-format, all-levels, the kind of low-pressure community-music moment that makes a Saturday morning land somewhere unexpected.

The Mount Dora School of Ballet's spring production of The Little Mermaid runs Saturday at the Community Building Auditorium. Family-friendly, choreographed at student level, and the kind of show where the audience is largely the dancers' families.

Reilly Arts Center brings back its grindhouse-style screening series Saturday at 6 PM -- the kind of B-movie programming the room handles better than expected.

The Reilly's Dueling Pianos bookends Saturday with two shows -- the early at 6 PM is the family-leaning version, and the 9 PM Uncensored set goes harder. Tickets through Reilly.

The Old Mill Playhouse hosts A Mother's Tribute -- the Request Line Live! crew running a Mother's-Day-themed song-by-request format Sunday. It's the most explicitly built-for-the-holiday show of the weekend in The Villages.

Sunset Park runs Mount Dora's Sunday Village Market starting at 9 AM -- vendors, makers, the lakefront downtown setting at its best. A workable Mother's Day morning anchor: market browse, lunch nearby, done by early afternoon.

The Sunday-matinee Children of Eden at Ocala Civic Theatre runs at 2 PM. Matinee timing makes it the cleanest theater-as-Mother's-Day option: no late curtain, plenty of time for dinner after.

Live Oak's Wizard of Oz Jr. closes Sunday afternoon at 2:30 PM -- the kid-friendly Mother's Day matinee that lands clean in Brooksville's downtown theater space.

Brooksville's Parks & Recreation runs its Sunday FunDay program at 1 PM -- a kids-and-families afternoon at one of the city's recreation venues. Free; the kind of low-key Mother's Day option that doesn't require a reservation.

Ocala Civic Theatre closes Sunday with An Evening with Encores at 5:30 PM -- a cabaret-format showcase pulling moments from past Civic productions. A natural Mother's Day Sunday-evening close after the matinee crowd clears.