Three years ago, a few of us attended Brad Nack’s 21st annual 100 percent Reindeer Art Show – a perpetually packed reception at Roy where folks jostle each other to get first dibs at the new paintings – decked out in N95 respirator masks to shield against inhaling smoke and particles from the then still-growing […]
Famed Santa Barbara photographer Macduff Everton and veteran journalist-writer Matt Kettmann, who are both graduates of UCSB, first collaborated on Around the Table: Recipes & Stories From The Lark in Santa Barbara, which was managed by Everton, who also took the photographs, while Kettmann contributed a chapter on wine history in town. Nearly four years […]
A cabaret for Christmas might seem like the mixing of metaphors, but the idea made a lot of sense for PCPA as a way to produce something during the pandemic. That was partly because a show that’s akin to a revue could be done from people’s homes during lockdown without damaging the storyline. But it […]
UCSB Arts & Lectures’ free outdoor fall film festival series of screenings at the West Wind Drive-In comes to a close with two Christmas classics, with a modern parable followed by a Jimmy Stewart tearjerker. In 2003’s Elf, Will Ferrell stars as an elf named Buddy who discovers that he’s actually a human whom Santa […]
PCPA’s 2020 Christmas-season treat is called Home for the Holidays, with the subtitle of “… because where else are you going to be?” Fair enough. With the coronavirus raging all over again, the Central Coast conservatory keeps its virtual programs flowing with a holiday cabaret featuring its resident artists. The free streaming event will be […]
When the pandemic forced interaction to head to the internet, UCSB’s Theater Department quickly picked up the virtual ball and ran with it. Not only classes did move online but the Launch Pad project quickly pivoted to mark its 15th anniversary milestone by having previous participants in the play reading series contribute short pieces to […]
Movie lovers might only know Cheryl Strayed from the film version of her bestselling memoir Wild, which starred Reese Witherspoon in the adaptation of the book that offered alternating harrowing and hilarious stories from Strayed’s solo 1,100-mile trek on the Pacific Crest Trail as well as the personal journey that led her there. But the […]
The Arts Fund has announced that its Funk Zone Art Walk is back, albeit in a reimagined, COVID-19-safe format, which, of course, means virtually. The Funk Zone Art Walk Artist Spotlight is slated to take place over the next three months, when the normal in-person, bi-monthly gathering in the thriving artist studio, gallery, and boutique […]
Rubicon Theatre in Ventura has done a lot of great work, from classic musicals to heart-rending dramas to serving as a home for developing new works. But over the years one show has stood out as qualifying for all three of those categories: Little Miss Scrooge, subtitled “A Dickensian Christmas Story,” which was conceived by […]
When the COVID-19 pandemic forced lockdowns and closures all over creation, Camarillo-based comedian Jason Love just kept on cruising. Sure, his regular in-person gig, including a rotating lineup of stand-ups he put together monthly for the Carrillo Recreation Center in Santa Barbara, went by the wayside. But Love, a former humor columnist for the Ventura […]
If you haven’t yet checked out The Queen’s Gambit, deservedly one of the top-ranked shows on Netflix and one of the best original series in the streaming service’s catalog, now would be a good time to get started on the seven-episode series about a chess prodigy turned accomplished if tortured young woman. That’s because Scott […]
In normal times, opera can be an emotional experience, perhaps even a cathartic one, for members of the audience when the music meets the drama with just the right note. But the upcoming Concerts In Your Car version of Carmen has proven to be quite a tear-jerker just for the creative team even before the […]
Back in the first week of summer, as the pandemic shutdown rounded its third month, pop star and longtime Montecito resident Kenny Loggins kicked off a series of low-priced live, pay-per-view concerts streamed on the Lobero Theatre’s website, with proceeds supporting both the venue and the National Independent Venue Association, which has similar one-off theaters […]
Among the casualties of the coronavirus closures was the complete cancellation of all in-person events last summer at the Music Academy of the West, normally one of the highlights of the year on the classical calendar. Instead, the 120-plus fellows and faculty members collaborated on the Music Academy Remote Learning Institute (aka MARLI), which bridged […]
One of the perks of the Santa Barbara Symphony’s decision to dive into digital rather than completely forgo its 2020-21 season is the opportunity to celebrate an important milestone for Beethoven, perhaps the most important composer in the classical music canon. The symphony is marking his 250th birthday with “Beethoven @ 250,” a chamber music […]
Prior to the arrival of COVID-19, veteran virtuoso playwright, performer, and pianist Hershey Felder had made a career out of creating and performing solo shows about composers Claude Debussy, George Gershwin, Frédéric Chopin, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Liszt, Leonard Bernstein, Irving Berlin, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky that have been seen across a wide range of […]
R. Michael Gros’s direction of Santa Barbara City College’s student production of Antigone represents both his debut of putting together a show via Zoom and his swan song at SBCC Theatre. That’s because, as he announced on his Facebook page early in the morning of November 4, Gros has submitted his formal retirement papers as […]
Don’t tune in to Lobero Theatre’s latest Live from the Lobero pay-per-view performance by Steppenwolf’s John Kay to hear “Born to Be Wild” or “Magic Carpet Ride.” In fact, don’t expect to hear any Steppenwolf songs at all. That’s because Kay, who has lived in Montecito for the last eight years, has recently not only […]
High Five, Santa Monica suspense writer Joe Ide’s latest action-packed thriller in his IQ series of books that Time Magazine calls “an electrifying combination of Holmseian mystery and SoCal grit,” will be dissected in a virtual conversation with the author at 6:30 pm on Wednesday, November 18. Ide will talk about the series, which rapper […]
Dawn Porter’s much-heralded documentary, John Lewis: Good Trouble, which chronicles the life and career of the legendary civil rights activist turned longtime Democratic Representative from Georgia, came out shortly before Lewis passed away last summer. The film, which features both rare archival footage and exclusive interviews with Lewis, celebrates his 60-plus years of social activism […]
It’s doubtful we’ll hear Blu Cantrell’s “Hit ‘Em Up Style,” which Rhiannon Giddens covered so memorably a decade ago as part of a genre-busting, talent-bursting display by her then-band The Carolina Chocolate Drops, the Grammy Award-winning outfit that blended acoustic instruments with a decidedly modern approach. Indeed, Giddens, an operatically trained singer, songwriter, fiddler and […]
Santa Barbara surfer and filmmaker Heather Hudson, creator of the groundbreaking documentary surf films The Women and the Waves, has a new film she’s sharing with local audiences. 93 – Letters from Marge is the story of surf pioneer and icon Marge Calhoun (1924-2017) told through letters she wrote during the last years of her […]
Last year marked the 50th anniversary of John Van Hamersveld‘s iconic “Crazy World Ain’t it” emoji – it was called an illustration back in 1969 when Van Hamersveld created his first versions of the drawing at Bellevue Studio on Bonnie Brea in Echo Park and went on to develop the idea for a T-shirt graphic […]
Rather than collapsing in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, PlayFest Santa Barbara is instead pivoting to digital to co-host an encore stream of Angela J. Davis’ Agathe, which was selected from an international pool of new works. The highly praised digital rehearsed reading of the play, which was directed by Saundra McLain and produced […]
UCSB Theater’s new show is generating historical perspective for the challenges of the pandemic UCSB Theater’s Generations, a new piece devised for Zoom and directed by Anne Torsiglieri, aims to make the best of the bad situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, perhaps finding the silver lining in the seemingly endless sequestering. Fashioned as an […]
Last Sunday afternoon, Tom Ball and Kenny Sultan played at the Cold Springs Tavern. November 3 will find the acoustic blues duo at the roadside bar in the woods below the San Marcos Pass again. So will three of the four Sundays after that. No surprise there – Santa Barbara’s “Good-Time Ambassadors of the Blues” […]
The election will be three days in the rear-view mirror when The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra Septet with Wynton Marsalis performing “The Sounds of Democracy” streams for free as part of UCSB Arts & Lectures’ Thematic Learning Initiative, its community conversation arm in conjunction with events. Led by trumpeter-composer Wynton Marsalis and featuring seven […]
Free to Laugh, a short documentary about the power of comedy to help inmates to heal after prison, follows a comedy workshop teaching improv and stand-up to women on parole and probation, one of the more underrepresented communities representing and a voice that is seldom heard. The film, which was shot on location at Amity […]
Chaucer’s Books continues to confront the coronavirus crisis with an increasing number of virtual events, bringing authors online to read from and talk about their works. The first of three such talks this week takes place at 11:30 am on Sunday, November 8, the early hour due to the fact that the writer in question, […]
When Dale Griffiths Stamos wrote and directed her latest short fiction film, Entwined, she had no idea that events less than a year later would bring extra focus to the 14-minute work. Entwined, which is about a Black man and a white woman in their sixties discussing the prejudicial injustices that drove them apart in […]
It takes not only a surfeit of talent but also a lot of moxie to go from singing in a church choir and performing gospel music as a teen to achieving international pop stardom as a young adult. Katy Perry, born in Santa Barbara in 1984 as Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson, surely has plenty of both. […]
For some, stepping in as Santa Barbara High School Theatre’s new director might have included imagining the daunting task of filling the oversize shoes of predecessor Otto Layman, who retired last spring after 25 years at the helm. But Justin Baldridge doesn’t see his role as trying to duplicate what the beloved Layman accomplished in […]
By his own accord, UCSB Professor of Theater and Dance William Davies King has spent a lifetime collecting nothing, which he brought to light in his 2008 book Collections of Nothing. Cheez-It boxes, “Place Stamp Here” squares, hotel door cards, and the little stickers found on fresh fruit are examples of the valueless ephemera that […]
Humorist-author-comedian-actor Mike Birbiglia, who has enjoyed success as a writer, stand-up comic, director, and actor (including a recurring role in Orange is the New Black, shows up on your computers and other devices in a special stream for UCSB A&L as part of the House Calls virtual series. Birbigs will read from his new memoir, […]
Actor Paul Reubens developed his Pee-wee Herman character for a live stage show that premiered in 1980 after being workshopped at Los Angeles’ famed improv troupe The Groundlings. The character became a huge success, as Pee-wee would go on to appear in the TV movie The Pee-wee Herman Show and the feature film Pee-wee’s Big […]
Who knowingly purchases the former residence of a notorious serial killer? Meet Tom and Barbara, proud new owners of the most infamous house in Sacramento. The middle-aged couple purchased the residence where Dorothea Puente ran a boarding house where she murdered elderly and mentally disabled guests before cashing their Social Security checks in the 1980s. […]
State Street Ballet was the first arts organization in town to perform the pandemic pivot as the statewide orders that shut down audience events came just two days before their planned premiere of Sleeping Beauty back in March, forcing the company to come up with a new approach quickly, resulting in a studio rehearsal version […]
Vivek H. Murthy, MD, the 19th Surgeon General of the U.S., began to focus his attention at the end of his tenure in 2017 on chronic stress and isolation as problems that have profound implications for health, productivity, and happiness. The author of the prescient book, Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a […]
Interviewing Charles Lloyd can be almost as enjoyable an experience as attending one of the legendary saxophonist’s concerts, which are always journeys into the ever-in-the-moment confluence of man, musician, and his muse that can veer from riveting to soul-stirring to spiritual near-bliss. That’s because Lloyd, who has lived in the hills of Montecito with his […]
She is the Ocean, the new documentary from Inna Blokhina, the director of the award-winning film On the Wave, is an in-depth exploration of the lives of nine women from around the world who share a love for the sea so profound that they have chosen to make the ocean the center of their physical, […]