Tag archives: Gioia Marchese

Springtime means flowers, sunshine, and thoughts of romance, but (at least in the area high school’s theater departments) it’s also the season for massive musical undertakings, bringing Broadway shows into the on-campus auditoriums. As in all years, the three big public schools have staggered their shows, with each having only a single overlapping weekend, meaning […]

Santa Barbara High School is the first of the local public schools to mount their spring production, leading the charge with the ever popular The Rocky Horror Show, the stage musical from which the 1975 cult film was adapted, running April 14-22 at the school’s theater. New theater department director Gioia Marchese chose the deliberately […]

Otto Layman’s celebrated tenure at the helm of Santa Barbara High School’s Theater department spanned more than a quarter of a century and ushered in an era of big musical performances that rivaledprofessional productions.  His replacement, Justin Baldridge, started in fall 2020, and suffered from terrible timing, of course. A veteran of multiple Off-Broadway productions […]