Tag archives: William Soleau
It was all too beastly for words when State Street Ballet staged The Jungle Book at the Lobero under the artistic direction of founder Rodney Gustafson and co-artistic director William Soleau. The company, which leaves this month for a two-city tour of Japan – Tokyo and Osaka – after just finishing a southwestern U.S. tour, […]
Even the cavernous stage of the venerable Granada Theatre was filled to capacity when 170 performers helped launch the Santa Barbara Symphony’s 70th season with Carl Orff’s magnificent Carmina Burana featuring Rodney Gustafson’s State Street Ballet, Santa Barbara Choral Society under Jo Anne Wasserman, the Quire of Voyces under director Nathan Kreitzer, and the Music […]
It was almost two years to the day when State Street Ballet had planned to debut its hugely entertaining version of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty, but COVID intervened and the event at the Granada Theatre was cancelled. But it was clearly worth the wait when the talented dancers, under the direction of artistic directors Rodney Gustafson […]
Montecito über philanthropist Sara Miller McCune certainly knows how to celebrate! For her 80th birthday Sara, a longtime fan of New York’s Great White Way, underwrote the costs of Kismet, which opened on Broadway in 1953 and the following year won a Tony Award for best musical. “Over the years, the music and the words […]
The dictionary says “kismet” is an Arabic word that has come to mean fate or destiny in English. In theater, Kismet was a hit on Broadway back in the 1950s, as the love-and-duty musical about a glib-tongued street poet in old Baghdad whose family encounters princesses and a young caliph was smartly adapted from a […]
As I write this early in October, I can really feel my heart beating just a little bit faster. Kismet, that wonderful musical show, is coming to life once again — right here in Santa Barbara. For one thing, the first week of rehearsals late September in New York City are now over. For that […]
One of the more interesting things I have learned now that we are getting closer to our Kismet performance dates in late October is the fact that all businesses are full of details — and then still more details. This should not have come as a surprise to me since I started my own publishing […]
Multi-talented Scottish actor and performer Alan Cumming brought his highly entertaining show Legal Immigrant to the sold-out Granada, part of the popular UCSB Arts & Lectures program. The almost two-hour intermission-free performance, with a four-member backup band, was a meditation on his ten years as an American citizen and the experiences and change has witnessed […]
Something about the original score by Czech composer and conductor Milan Svoboda for a theatrical production of The Jungle Book drew State Street Ballet Artistic Director Rodney Gustafson’s attention when it arrived unsolicited more than a decade ago with a proposal to use it to create an original full-length work based on the beloved Rudyard […]
The choreographers behind State Street Ballet’s season-opening world premiere, Chaplin, had no idea that Charlie Chaplin had a major Montecito and Santa Barbara connection, the silent-film icon having had a hand in the building of the Montecito Inn in 1928, and marrying Oona O’Neill here in 1943. All they knew was that not only did […]
State Street Ballet has named prolific New York choreographer William Soleau as co-artistic director. Founder of the 23-year-old troupe Rodney Gustafson says the new partnership will propel the already acclaimed company to new heights. “After working with him for the past 18 years, I feel excited he is coming on board. His dedication, artistic integrity, […]
