Tag archives: Brian McDonald
Brian McDonald has no trouble admitting to being a big fan of Barbra Streisand. “From when I first saw Funny Girl as a kid, I was just mesmerized,” he said. “I’ve just always found her incredible.” Which is part of what makes McDonald the perfect choice to star in Ensemble Theatre Company’s season-opening production of […]
By Lisa Duncan “I was one of those kids that didn’t know where he belonged,” Brian McDonald, artistic director of Ensemble Theatre Company, told supporters at ETC’s annual Curtain Up! Gala. With a smile, he recalled his mother watching him dress up as Shirley Temple for Halloween and thinking, “Maybe this guy is a theatre […]
Mary Bridget Davies was just a teenager when she realized that her singing voice sounded a lot like that of Janis Joplin, the iconic rock singer who quickly shot to fame in the late 1960s before her accidental death from an overdose at 27. “My normal singing voice is pretty darn clean in comparison,” Davies […]
Think of the Young Playwrights Festival as a reverse Launch Pad. The springtime program at Ensemble Theatre Company’s New Vic Theater gives aspiring playwrights ages 14-19 the opportunity to create a play that is produced and staged with professional directors and actors, and then presented as a staged reading at the theater. The Young Playwrights […]
It’s way too much of a cliché to say that a rock concert blew the roof off the venue, but there’s no doubt that there will be a “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” at the New Vic Theatre when Ensemble Theatre Company performs Million Dollar Quartet from December 4-22. The Jerry Lee Lewis classic is […]
Just in time for the holiday, Ensemble Theatre Company presents its first play of the new season, the Broadway hit The Thanksgiving Play, written by Native American playwright Larissa FastHorse and directed by Brian McDonald. Good intentions collide with absurd assumptions in the wickedly funny satire as a troupe of terminally “woke” teaching artists scramble […]
Santa Barbara’s iconic New Vic theater celebrated its 10th anniversary in energetic style with a Play It Forward on-stage gala starring a colorful cavalcade of talent as the resident Ensemble Theatre Company (ETC) prepares for its 45th season in the West Victoria Street venue. After 25 years at the rustic 140-seat Alhecama Theatre and a […]
For Ensemble Theatre Company’s education director Brian McDonald, the theme for this year’s fundraiser for the ETC’s education and outreach programs was a bit of a no-brainer: “Come Together.” After all, the title of the Beatles song from their penultimate album provides the perfect prescription for emerging from a pandemic that has kept people apart […]
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 […]
Karen Zacarías’ theatrical adaptation of Into the Beautiful North, which gets its area debut in six performances over 10 days beginning Friday by UCSB Theater Department, is based on the novel by Pulitzer Prize finalist Luís Alberto Urrea – which served as the selection for UCSB Reads back in 2017. Urrea was inspired by the […]
