Longtime Montecito actor Rob Lowe and his village-raised actor/writer/producer son John Owen Lowe have teamed up to co-star as a fictional TV father and son on a new Netflix comedy series. Unstable, which debuts on the streaming service Thursday, March 30, is about the dynamic between Ellis (played by Rob), a successful – if exceedingly […]
Jason Libs didn’t migrate to Los Angeles and Santa Barbara from the Midwest via Miami, Nashville, and Barbados to play six nights a week in a piano bar. It just kind of worked out that way. “I came out here to be a songwriter and to sell my songs to, and produce for, other artists,” […]
Opera Santa Barbara’s recent seasons have represented remarkable innovation for the company, from staging productions for the Concerts in Your Car series during the pandemic, to taking on Wagner for the first time, to mounting a mountain of new works. That ambitiousness continues this weekend with The Light in the Piazza, the first time OSB […]
Several former Dos Pueblos High School “theater geeks” who are pursuing their dreams of a professional life in the performing arts have created a cabaret show called Our Time: Celebrating High School Theater Kids Gone Pro. The one-night only event serves to honor Clark Sayre, their beloved high school theater teacher and Broadway veteran (Merrily […]
Imagine an artistic hub in downtown Santa Barbara brimming with materials, tools, ideas, and creativity, a curated and dynamic gathering space where community members are welcome to imagine, invent, create and collaborate, all in an ecologically friendly way. That’s the idea behind a new vision for the Art From Scrap (AFS) workshop as a permanent […]
Over the last couple of months (and as recent as this week), Montecito residents have been repeatedly reminded of the deadly debris flows of Jan. 9, 2018, as atmospheric rivers have resulted in torrential downpours bringing back memories of massive floods that claimed 23 lives and is still being cleaned up today. But a couple […]
Hollywood has never had a more decorated composer than John Williams. The now 91-year-old music maker has composed the music and served as music director for more than 100 films including all nine Star Wars movies, the first three Harry Potter films, Superman, Jaws, Home Alone, Schindler’s List, E.T. The ExtraTerrestrial, Jurassic Park and all […]
The Glenn Miller Orchestra’s bus was rolling through the Arizona desert when music director Erik Stabnau answered the phone last week, but it could have been anywhere from California to Kalamazoo, as the big-band jazz outfit pretty much lives on the road, performing 200 dates a year. What makes that remarkable is that the band […]
Dishing with Diltz: Henry Diltz has shot some of the iconic photographs in rock music history – his famous images include the Crosby, Stills & Nash “On the Couch,” The Doors’ Morrison Hotel, and James Taylor Sweet Baby James album covers, as well as treasures photos of Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Jimi Hendrix, […]
Santa Barbara-born author Caroline DeLoreto, a Functional Diagnostic nutrition-practitioner, LMFT (Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist) counselor, energy healer, and educator who worked as a health teacher at Santa Barbara Middle School for 15 years, has scheduled two local events to launch her new book. From Lyme to Light: A Spiritual Journey and Guide to Healing […]
Dunn School’s Kalyan Balaven, head of school for the private co-ed college prep boarding and day school in Los Olivos, had no idea of the floodgates that would open when he decided to find a way to help a student from the Ukraine who early last year was initially only seeking a few extra days […]
Charles Lloyd reported that he wasn’t in good shape when we connected by phone last week. But it wasn’t a physical issue ailing the octogenarian saxophonist-composer who back in the late 1960s enjoyed one of the first million-selling jazz albums. It was a spiritual sadness after hearing that Wayne Shorter had died overnight. “We were […]
UCSB Dance Company’s 2023 company consists entirely of female or non-binary dancers, which wasn’t a conscious choice but simply the result of having no male senior dance majors on campus this year. But rather than fighting against what is, Artistic Director Delila Moseley decided to double down. “I just decided to go with it, and […]
Planned Parenthood California Central Coast (PPCCC) is one of scores of affiliates across the country that share a vision of a future where everyone has an equitable opportunity to experience health and wellness – including high-quality sexual and reproductive health care provided with respect and without judgment. Founded in 1964, PPCCC might be best known […]
Piano faculty member Jerome Lowenthal figured he’d wrapped up his half-century at the Music Academy when he was the star of MA’s 2019 Opening Night Gala, “Honoring a Legend,” a densely packed evening that featured a cocktail reception, a performance at Hahn Hall curated by Lowenthal that featured a series of MA alumni pianists from […]
State Street Ballet’s (SSB) spring show, which has a single performance on Saturday, March 4, at The Granada, is drawn entirely from its existing repertory. But nobody should think the dance concert will be anything less than thrilling. That’s because co-artistic directors Rodney Gustafson and William Soleau have put together a program that covers the […]
Cancer physician and researcher Siddhartha Mukherjee, who has been praised for making scientific discoveries read like riveting mysteries, is coming to town to talk about his new book, The Song of the Cell, an exploration of medicine and our radical new ability to manipulate cells. The author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Emperor of All Maladies […]
It took a little while to reach Sharon Allen of the World Telehealth Initiative (WTI) to arrange an interview last week. That’s because the cofounder and executive director of the barely 5-year-old nonprofit was over in Ukraine, in the midst of a week-long visit to the war-torn country as part of a special expansion of […]
In the early days of the pandemic, Angelin Preljocaj, the French choreographer famed for creating contemporary classics, dove into developing his distinctive version of Swan Lake, perhaps the most iconic ballet in the canon. Transforming the timeless tale of love, seduction, betrayal, and remorse into a modern cautionary story of ecological tragedy and societal failure, […]
If Diamond to Dust: A Flying A Fantasy is even half as much fun as interviewing the principals who dubbed themselves “good whiskey collaborators” in a conference call, audiences are in for a heckuva ride. This screwball comedy from the pen of actor/director/UCSB Theater professor Michael Bernard will have its world premiere at Westmont this […]
After hundreds of screenings and appearances by more Academy Award-hopefuls (and likely winners) gathered in one place this side of the Oscar luncheon, the 38th Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival wrapped last weekend. But there’s still plenty of movie magic around beyond the cineplex and streaming. UCSB Arts & Lectures’ annual visit from the […]
The midtown bookstore goes local for author events on three successive days to mark the end of the month, beginning Sunday, Feb. 26, with Shaunna and John Stith’s Black Beach: A Community, an Oil Spill, and the Origin of Earth Day. With Earth Day 2023 barely a month away, the Stiths’ first children’s picture book […]
Due for a day trip but desiring to hear chamber music at your destination? Here are a couple of concerts to consider. Over in Ojai, the Chamber On The Mountain presents the Neave Piano Trio, featuring violinist Anna Williams, cellist Mikhail Veselov, and pianist Eri Nakamura, who have been praised for “eloquent phrasing and deft […]
Ken Saxon had a clear vision when he founded Leading From Within (LFW), the Santa Barbara nonprofit that supports leaders and staff of other local nonprofits. “I came to Santa Barbara from the business world, where our most important investments were the ones we made in our people,” Saxon said. “But when I started serving […]
It’s no wonder that the young actor, producer, and TV writer, John Owen Lowe, called watching the world premiere of Grace Point – a thriller that marks his debut as a lead actor in a feature film – at the Metro 4 cinemas at SBIFF last weekend a “surreal experience.” “I grew up going to […]
In a season that has seen premieres of two locally generated works in Cody Westheimer’s San Marcos Preserve-inspired Wisdom of the Water, Earth, and Sky and Peter Bernstein’s arrangement of his father Elmer’s Toccata for Toy Trains, the Santa Barbara Symphony’s third successive concert centered on a new work might produce the most profound piece […]
An American Dream represents mezzo-soprano Nina Yoshida Nelsen’s 10th production with Opera Santa Barbara over two decades, but there’s no doubt that the California debut of the 2015 opera represents a milestone for the Montecito native. Nelsen, who has sung in the world premieres of seven new operas, had a hand in shaping the role […]
Kevin Haeberle, the Santa Barbara native who heads a nonprofit called The Community Hot Rod Project and the self-described “gearhead,” wants people to know that the organization isn’t only about hanging out with hot rods. Sure, Haeberle has an impressive resumé that includes being selected fresh out of high school to be one of eight […]
Here comes the Santa Barbara International Film Festival: more than 200 movies, including 52 world premieres and 78 U.S. premieres, representing more than 40 countries and just about every film genre ever invented, including a wide swath of documentaries elucidating myriad topics. The usual Oscar nominee-decorated/movie star actor tributes and an even more Academy Award-hopeful […]
The culmination of jazz saxophonist/composer/educator Ted Nash’s expansive winter residency in town and over Zoom this year comes next weekend (Feb. 18-19) when the Santa Barbara Symphony premieres his Transformation – a rethinking and newly arranged for orchestra take on a segment of his 2021 collaboration with Glenn Close, Transformation: Personal Stories of Change, Acceptance, […]
Still stuck about where to take your sweetheart for Valentine’s Day? SOhO might have the solution. Veteran Santa Barbara songbird Shawn Thies, who has emotional richness amid the silky smoothness, is bringing along a bunch of her musical friends for a Tuesday, Feb. 14, dinner show at 7 p.m. at the restaurant-nightclub, including local stalwarts […]
When the seemingly endless series of atmospheric river rainstorms drenched the area last month, people from Santa Barbara, Lompoc, or Santa Maria whose houses were flooded could find shelter and services at local facilities that are set up for just such emergencies. Not so much for residents of the Santa Ynez Valley. “We don’t have […]
Few and far between are folks who are not familiar with the Miranda warnings, the ones that police have to read to criminal suspects that remind them of their right to be represented by an attorney and to refuse to answer questions at all. Far fewer are the people who know anything at all about […]
If Jesse Colin Young never sang another song besides “Get Together,” his place in rock history would be assured. Indeed, the ‘60s feel-good, quasi-protest song is so iconic that FestForums has borrowed it as the title of their tribute concert to the late producers of Woodstock and Newport Folk & Jazz festivals. Young will both […]
Dana Lawton has admitted to being obsessed with the Farallon Islands and the swarthy keepers and families who served as lighthouse keepers there back in the mid-1800s, working the Fresnel lens that warned ships approaching San Francisco to stay away from the fog-shrouded rocky islands. Fortunately, Lawton is a choreographer who also runs a Bay […]
While the world enters its new “normal,” the need to break bread with one another, both metaphorically and literally, is more welcome than ever. The sharing of conversation over food is a bonding act between people as old as civilization itself and with State Street now a bustling pedestrian thoroughfare, it is the ideal time […]
Despite being nominated for the Outer Critics and Drama League Awards and hailed by The New York Times’ critic as a rare “funny and moving, wonderful and weird” play from the “most singular voice of his generation, [one that’s] humane, literate, and slyly hilarious,” Will Eno’s 2004 The Realistic Joneses is only now having its […]
Taking the famed Monterey Jazz Festival out on its official tour for a third successive road trip (2020-22 were dormant) is just the latest MJF honor for pianist Christian Sands, a two-time Grammy nominee and former child prodigy who started playing professionally at 10. MJF is celebrating its 65th year as one of the world’s […]
Less than six years after the four-decades-old Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra played its final concert in town, a new ensemble that’s even more community-based and oriented is stepping in to fill the void with an even more ambitious approach. The Santa Barbara Chamber Players (SBCP), created by local musicians who first practiced during the pandemic […]
David Crosby’s death at age 81 on January 18, just five weeks before he was slated to perform as part of the Lobero’s 150th anniversary celebration, was surprisingly shocking even though he’d been in less than perfect health for years. After the initial sadness, what came quickly to mind and heart was both the first […]