Tag archives: Center Stage Theater

Arianna Hartanov, who moved to Santa Barbara to join State Street Ballet (SSB) in 2016, has danced lead roles in the company’s productions of Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, among others. But ballet isn’t her only bailiwick.  As a choreographer for SSB’s Evenings and Modern Masters events, she indulged her contemporary side back in 2019 […]

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 […]

Also emerging from the pandemic for its first live theatrical production in 30 months, Out of the Box (OOB) is reviving a three-decade-old work as well, in this case tick, tick…Boom! (TTB), originally a semi-autobiographical one-man show that Jonathan Larson created in the early 1990s before his Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning Rent. Coincidentally, TTB […]

Nebula Dance Lab didn’t have to cancel its annual HHII Dance Festival during the COVID crisis, although last year’s event did migrate to the virtual world. But what also happened in the more than two years since the festival’s last live weekend, was that the world caught up to Nebula and HHII’s concept of inclusivity, […]

Center Stage Theater and UCSB’s Initiative for New & Reimagined Work are teaming to present the world premiere of Seaward, written and directed by UCSB acting student Cyrus Roberts. An absurdist tragicomedy exploring the issue of identity within the setting of a 1930s asylum for the mentally ill, Seaward finds a new patient stepping into […]

Transform Through Arts Theater’s annual Colors of Love dance show at Center Stage Theater returns to its usual Valentine’s Day weekend performance slot for 2022 after moving to August due to the pandemic last year, and the local collective’s approach to the concept of love has expanded in the interim.  “It’s evolved into more diversity […]

Westmont presents Aaron Copland’s great 20th century American opera The Tender Land January 28 and 30 at 7 pm at Center Stage Theater in Paseo Nuevo. Purchase tickets, which cost $15 for general admission, $10 for seniors or military, at the Center Stage box office at centerstagetheater.org. Please visit the Center Stage website to view […]

American composer Aaron Copland was inspired to write his opera The Tender Land when he saw Walker Evans’ famed Depression-era photographs and read James Agee’s “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.” Now, Westmont Opera is presenting the rarely seen 1954 work as its 2022 production at the Center Stage Theater, representing the school’s return to […]

All of the five virtuoso string musicians who comprise the Grammy-winning folk-grass band Punch Brothers were fervent fans of Tony Rice. The Brothers – who are led by the MacArthur “Genius Grant’ Award fellow Chris Thile on mandolin and includes bassist Paul Kowert, guitarist Chris Eldridge, banjoist Noam Pikelny, and violinist Gabe Witcher – have […]

When the musical version of An Officer and a Gentleman plays November 9-10 at the Granada Theatre, it won’t be quite the singular sensation provided by the massive Santa Barbara-only one-off presentation of Kismet at the same venue two weekends ago. But Officer does offer a rare chance for locals to get an early viewing […]

When CaliAmericana becomes available online and in record stores on October 21, it won’t just mark another album release from a local musician on their own indie imprint. Instead, the compilation CD heralds the launch of Santa Barbara Records, the first independent label in the area that actually signs outside artists as its major thrust […]

As the inaugural collaboration between UCSB’s much-lauded Launch Pad artist residency and performance program with Local Theater Company, the Boulder-based leader in new play development, Yellowstone will have a lot of voices shaping its first-ever fully staged reading on Friday, September 24. But for playwright Jennifer Barclay, the process has been playing out for more […]

Santa Barbara writer Claudia Hoag McGarry has been involved in the arts in town for more than 30 years, including teaching English Skills at SBCC for more than three decades, publishing three novels including two thrillers and a young adult memoir, producing four plays all in the historical drama genre, and writing screenplays and even […]

Who could have predicted dance as the art form that would dominate reopening at the Center Stage Theater? Sure, the “black box” theater upstairs in Paseo Nuevo has been a happy home for several of the local dance companies that produce their own periodic performances and has also hosted a few festivals featuring revues. But […]

The UCSB Initiative for New & Reimagined Work is presenting a staged reading of the classic Chekhov play Three Sisters at 6 pm on May 31. What makes this show most remarkable is that the performance will take place inside the intimate Center Stage Theater, where the general public is welcome to attend for the […]

It’s no surprise that UCSB Arts & Lectures has turned to the XIV Dalai Lama for the keynote event in its year-long 2021-2022 Creating Hope programming initiative. After all, not only has His Holiness, who is believed to be a manifestation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, spent much of his life encouraging people to be […]

Perhaps ironically, it’s SBCC – which has been largely shut down during the pandemic, thus allowing SBIFF to create its makeshift drive-ins down by the beach in the college’s parking lots – whose Theatre Arts Department has compiled stories written by the SBCC community, including students, staff and faculty, to create three separate performances of […]

Watch an engaging video of The Elixir of Love, a two-act opera by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti, on Friday, February 19, at 7 pm at westmont.edu/music. After months of socially distant rehearsals and three days of challenging but safe videotaping, the Westmont Music Department presents its latest opera. Alumna Christina (Farris) Jensen ’09 returned to […]

You could say that Robin Gerber has had a backwards career. After working as a lawyer in Washington, D.C., and then serving as a well-paid Congressional lobbyist for trade unions for 15 years, Gerber, experiencing self-described burnout, junked it all for a life as a writer for newspapers and magazines.  Then her mentor suggested she […]

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 […]