Tag archives: Ensemble Theatre Company
Ensemble Theatre Company (ETC) executive artistic director Jonathan Fox was already talking about reopening when he was interviewed for the original Giving List book connecting philanthropists and nonprofits that we published last November. At this point, to the surprise of no one, six months later that still hasn’t happened as the pandemic pounced once again […]
After Old Spanish Days was all but cancelled last year because of the pandemic, Fiesta fever was palpable at the Carriage and Western Art Museum with La Primavera, as the unveiling of the colorful festival’s new poster and pin helped kicked off the festivities in front of nearly 100 guests, led by gloriously attired La […]
Our troubles coping with the COVID pandemic have stretched beyond the one-year mark. But that’s a short blip of time compared to the arduous ordeal of relating conflict, rage, war, and more over three millennia — with no end in sight. Such is the plight of the storyteller in An Iliad, the modern-day adaptation of […]
Ensemble Theatre Company isn’t letting the pandemic interfere with its production schedule. The popular company, helmed by Jonathan Fox, is presenting five live-streamed performances of the critically acclaimed 90-minute, one-act play An Iliad, with each live performance being aired and viewable on computers, smart TVs, iPads, and iPhones. Translated by Robert Fagles from Homer’s 3,000-year-old […]
In a COVID coincidence, the second weekend of the school’s zany take on Greek myth cozies up to a more serious – and perhaps even more ambitious – approach to some of the same material in the Ensemble Theatre Company’s live stream of the one-man show, An Iliad. The work is crafted around the stories […]
Ed Lister, who is known in both Los Angeles and Santa Barbara as a skilled scenic artist with credits in the theater credits and mural making, has created a series of vibrant abstract silk screen prints, or serigraphs. They were made starting in the early 1970s while he was teaching printmaking at the Chelsea School […]
Sure, Christmas is almost a month in the rear-view mirror. Yes, Estella Scrooge, which takes place on a present-day December 24-25, is absolutely meant to be a Yuletide holiday story. But if you have yet to see this clever mashup of A Christmas Carol with several of Charles Dickens’ other books, now would be a […]
Just like redemption doesn’t come easy, recovering from the wounds of 2020 from the COVID pandemic and other tough situations this year will likely take significant time. But perhaps a local take on a legendary allegory can go a short way toward helping the healing, or at least create a satisfying enough diversion to bring […]
Ensemble Theatre Company is bursting with some holiday pride about a new show streaming virtually out of Las Vegas this weekend. That’s because the star of The Elijah Rock Variety Show Christmas Special played Porgy in ETC’s 2017 production of Porgy and Bess, an ambitious, critically acclaimed and socially prescient adaptation of the show that […]
British TV talk show star James Corden, who has hosted both the Tonys and Grammys, has given the ultimate accolade to Santa Barbara Youth Ensemble Theatre founder Janet Adderley. Bubbly Janet, whom I have known for 12 years, is a Broadway veteran and starred in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Starlight Express in 1978 before founding her […]
The Riven Rock estate Prince Harry and Meghan Markle bought for $14.5 million had been listed for rent on the website Giggster. The listing, which was taken down on Sunday after media reports, advertised the nine-bedroom, 16-bath property on 5.4 acres for $700 an hour. The listing said the lush estate could be used as […]
For nearly 20 years, Hershey Felder has made a career out of creating one-man shows in which he portrays and plays famous artists from recent and centuries-old history, and the novel coronavirus hasn’t caused him to slow down much at all. Ensemble Theatre Company got in the mix when it presented his Hershey Felder: Beethoven […]
For Brian McDonald, selecting You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown as the production for Ensemble Theatre Company Young Actors Conservatory this summer was a no-brainer once it became clear that COVID-19 had made his original choice – Hello, My Baby, by Montecito’s Cheri Steinkellner – impractical. Not only had ETC’s Education Director played the title […]
While you won’t be able to check out the talented kids at Ensemble Theatre’s Young Actors Conservatory this summer, audiences are invited to join in virtually for the season-ending production of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. The musical that explores life through the eyes of Charlie Brown and his friends in the Peanuts gang […]
American Son, a play by Christopher Demos-Brown, already had a power-packed premise before recent events. On the night a teenage boy goes missing, his parents end up at the police station trying to figure out what happened while dealing with officers who aren’t the most forthcoming with information and assistance. While old wounds concerning their […]
Ensemble Theatre Company has announced a hybrid approach to cope with COVID for its upcoming 2020-21 season, which will consist of four plays, including spring productions of American Son and Tenderly that were originally scheduled for the previous season that was interrupted by the pandemic closures. The remaining two plays are reportedly set to be […]
More than 200 years after her death in 1817, Regency writer Jane Austen is as popular as ever. A new film version of her novel Emma, directed by Autumn de Wilde and starring Bill Nighy, Josh O’Connor and Rupert Graves, is being released later this month, and Masterpiece Theatre on PBS is running Sanditon, based […]
Ensemble Theatre Company’s area debut of a musical adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma – which will run at ETC’s New Vic Theater on the same February performance dates at Never Not Once at the Rubicon (see above) – also has another close tie-in with the Ventura company. The musical version of the romantic comedy features […]
This event wasn’t about Halloween. According to the invitation the ghost light is a “luminescence in the pitch of night in theaters across the globe. The haunting bulb stands bare-bones and aglow, defying the inky darkness and beckoning spirits to come hither and play.” This was a party orchestrated by the Ensemble Theatre Company (ETC) […]
World Dance for Humanity was dead on time when the Ensemble Theatre Company hosted its 4th annual Ghost Light Night, starting at the venerable Santa Barbara Club and concluding at the New Vic two blocks away. The dancers, wonderfully made-up as zombies, kicked off their artfully crafted show with “Monster Mash,” the 1962 novelty song […]
