Tag archives: Ventura

The Grape Jazz Club and Derek Frank Band
By Joanne A Calitri   |   June 11, 2024

Your Society Invites reporter is giving some love to a cool and friendly live jazz club, The Grape in Ventura. I interviewed the owners and stayed for the Derek Frank Band performance on Saturday, May 25.  This locals’ hang has the look of a throwback LA-NYC jazz club interior and the chops to showcase ear-candy […]

A Hardcore Passion for Pizza
By Christopher Matteo Connor   |   January 2, 2024

What does pizza and punk have in common? Maybe more than you think! Both can be cheap and fast, but also contain the potential to have lots of substance. There’s attention to the ingredients. It seems simple, but all put together, it can be something powerful and moving. And tasty… depending on what punk shows […]

A New Moon Rises at Rubicon
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 4, 2023

TV and film writer-producer Jonathan Prince – whose adaptation and book for the world premiere of a musical based on Dark of the Moon opens at the Rubicon Theatre in Ventura this weekend – wasn’t going to let anything stand in his way; least of all the discovery that several big theatrical icons had previously […]

It’s in the Bag:Throw Down Cornhole Festival Invades Ventura
By Steven Libowitz   |   August 30, 2022

When he brought cornhole to Ventura 12 years ago, John Karayan just thought he was adding a bit of fun to the second year of the annual summer block party he organized on the street in front of Spencer Makenzie’s, his popular casual dining seafood restaurant near downtown Ventura.  “We had bands play all day […]

The Lights Go Back on for Gore’s Immersive Show
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 19, 2022

Anybody who caught initial performances of Kerrilee Gore’s When the Lights Go Out immersive theatrical mystery-cabaret show onstage at the Lobero in 2016 couldn’t have failed to be wowed by the production, featuring an impressive cast of dancers, acrobats, and choreographers with vast industry experience, thrilling music, and a spectacular light show. But on the […]

Ventura Ventures: Rubicon Returns
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 17, 2022

The Rubicon Theatre Company (RTC) was the first of the local companies to find a way to produce something for its audiences when the COVID-19 pandemic shut things down way back in early spring 2020. Indeed, RTC was the first regional theater company in the country to offer a socially distanced drive-in series, bringing such […]

Theater Talk: Crossing the Rubicon
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 10, 2022

Later this month, Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre Company finally reopens, more than two years after the pandemic put the kibosh on live theater everywhere, and long after virtually every other venue in the area has returned to roughly regular schedules. The mounting of theater shows again at the converted church a few blocks from downtown Ventura […]

The Arts, “Lockdown Series” Part 2: The Formidable Jade Hendrix
By Joanne A Calitri   |   August 13, 2020

From performing as a solo artist on the Ojai-Ventura music scene, to opening for Ronnie Spector in Los Angeles and the English Beat in Ojai, to gigs with her band on the main stage at the NAMM show and L.A., one thing sings out clearly: Jade Hendrix is a phenomenal female artist. The thirty-something singer-songwriter […]