Among the many reasons to get out of the house and into a theater or a gallery or a music club — besides the getting-out-of-the house part, which is major in these days of weak TV — is the chance to get swept up in something bigger than yourself. Not necessarily something as big as, say, the Cloverfield monster, but something on a whole other plane from the everyday grind of primary campaigns and stock plunges and office politics — artworks and artists with the power to stir your imagination and maybe your soul.

The theater season is a virtual who's who of big names. There's Hamlet, for instance, at TBPAC, and his hapless buddies Rosencrantz and Guildenstern at Jobsite. Petruchio is taming Kate at American Stage. Sweeney Todd is sharpening razors at the Mahaffey in the barebones, actors-playing-instruments version of the Sondheim musical that killed, so to speak, on Broadway. And in TBPAC's Jersey Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons get their life stories sung.

Speaking of Jersey boys, none is bigger than Springsteen. His April gig at the St. Pete Times Forum is the culmination of a spring music schedule that's full of welcome big-star comebacks: k.d. lang at Ruth Eckerd, Ani DiFranco at Tampa Theatre, They Might Be Giants at Jannus. The film season is, of course, full of big names (George Clooney, Hugh Jackman, Speed Racer). But it also promises some big-time weirdness from the fertile imaginations of Michel Gondry and Harmony Korine, some big-time laughs (we hope) from Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, and a hefty helping of local filmfests.

In dance, be prepared for a series of big moves — invasions, if you will. The Russians are coming (Moiseyev Dance Company and Russian National Ballet at Ruth Eckerd); the Chicagoans are approaching (Hubbard Street Dance at TBPAC); and the Pilobolans are landing (members of the dance troupe Pilobolus, not alien life forms but so impossibly limber they might as well be).

And if size really does count, artist Cameron Gainer will be king of the Tampa Bay art world this spring when he brings his fiberglas recreations of two fabled monsters (or monster hoaxes) — Bigfoot and Nessie — to USF-CAM.

Read on for more arts news, as CL's critics choose their best bets for the season. Then get out there and start living large.

This article appears in Jan 30 – Feb 5, 2008.