Tag archives: New Vic
The New Vic sounds like a theater in England, but the downtown venue is actually an old, converted church, although Ensemble Theatre Company’s lavish remodeling left few of those attributes visible inside. But there’s no way ETC’s old digs at the antiquated Alhecama Theater could have supported the sets and stagecraft required for its next […]
Ensemble Theatre Company staged its tour-de-force one-man show Vincent at the New Vic, originally presented by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in March to sold-out audiences as it mounted its highly acclaimed Vincent Van Gogh exhibition. The play paints a thoughtful, imaginary scenario about one of the most famous names in the art world […]
Ensemble Theatre Company is bringing back its production of Vincent, the critically-lauded one-man show created by Leonard Nimoy, who spent years researching the hundreds of letters exchanged between the artist Vincent van Gogh and his brother Theo, to fashion the intimately-scaled 1980 play in which the actor portrays both brothers. Veteran thespian Charles Pasternak takes […]
Racial dynamics are at the forefront of the Ensemble Theatre Company’s latest New Vic show American Son. The nail-biting drama, directed by Jonathan Fox, takes place at a Miami, Florida, police station where, in the middle of the night, the parents of an African American teenager anxiously await news of their son, who may have […]
After two false starts forced by the pandemic, ETC is finally bringing American Son to the New Vic Theatre for a mid-April run. The nail-biting drama takes place in real-time in the waiting room of a Miami police station where the parents of a bi-racial African American teenager anxiously await news about their son, who […]
The venerable Granada was socially gridlocked when Westmont College held its 17th annual Christmas Festival “Salvation For All” over two days given the demand for tickets. Michael Shasberger, Adams professor for music and worship, who is retiring in May after 16 years, created the hugely popular event and has directed it each year, normally at […]
It was a late afternoon in early 2017 and Jonathan Fox was en route to a pre-dinner cocktail with Lee Luria, the philanthropist extraordinaire that had just given Fox’s Ensemble Theatre Company a new lease on life — quite literally. With her favorite gin and tonic at her side and Fox acquiring a glass of […]
TV Santa Barbara, the area’s community access center that operates channels 17 and 71, is the recipient of four 2021 Telly Awards, including the prestigious Gold Award for the production of “Make Goleta Count!” Silver and bronze honors were also earned for video productions created in partnership with the Central Coast Division of the American […]
Santa Barbara Revels, presenting its 11th anniversary production at the Lobero, moved to Ireland this year after its Alta California Rancho period piece in 2017. “We wanted to honor the strength and courage of the intrepid Irish emigrants who left their homeland in the early 1900s, specially those who might have traveled on the S.S. […]
It couldn’t have been a more splendiferous end to the Music Academy of the West’s 71st annual summer fest when the Academy Festival Orchestra, under Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel, in his academy debut, performed with the L.A. Master Chorale, under artistic director Grant Gershon, at a sold-out Santa Barbara Bowl. Soprano Susanna Phillips […]
State Street Ballet hosted its third annual showcase of contemporary choreography, Modern Masters, in the intimate setting of the New Vic. The highly entertaining show featured a diverse mix of dance movement featuring works by seven choreographers, including pieces by New York’s William Soleau, the new co-artistic director, Montreal’s Edgar Zendejas, Autumn Eckman from Tucson, […]
Ensemble Theatre has got a bona-fide hit on its hands with Pulitzer Prize winner Ayad Akhtar‘s The Invisible Hand, directed by Jonathan Fox, at the New Vic. The riveting 2014 drama features John Tufts as an American banker kidnapped by an Islamic group in Pakistan, who bargains for his life with guards by demonstrating how […]
It’s not about Halloween! When you see a luminescence in the pitch of the night in theatres across the land, it’s the Ghost Light. According to the Ensemble Theatre program, “The haunting bulb stands (a bulb on a stick) bare-bones and aglow defying the inky darkness and beckoning spirits to come hither and play.” Many […]