This Brooks Ain’t Babblin’
By Steven Libowitz   |   May 27, 2025

A lot has changed in the world since Albert Brooks launched his career more than half a century ago as a comedian. A career that more or less revolutionized comedy with his appearances on just about every TV talk and variety show on the air led to landing key roles as an actor and making […]

What the Puck? The Bard is Back in the Park 
By Steven Libowitz   |   May 27, 2025

Topanga Canyon-based Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum returns to Elings Park atop the Mesa with their outdoor staging of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, transforming the gorgeous Godric Grove Amphitheater into an enchanted forest for the holiday weekend May 24-25. The professional troupe sold out its single performance of Dream last year, when the actors incorporated […]

 

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Warriors Playoff Ride Ends
By Scott Craig   |   May 27, 2025

Westmont baseball’s (43-14) season came to a disappointing end when the Warriors, needing only to win one game, dropped both ends of a double header, 6-2 and 6-4, to Cal State Monterey Bay (38-17). The Otters advance to this week’s Super Regional in Nampa, Idaho, to face Northwest Nazarene, where the winner will advance to […]

Local Artists Featured ‘On the Edge’
By Scott Craig   |   May 20, 2025

Montecito’s longest running juried exhibition for tri-county artists will run from May 15 – June 14 in the Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art. A public opening reception for On the Edge, featuring juror Adam Belt, is Thursday, May 15 from 4-6 pm. The museum received a record 458 entries by 216 artists. From these submissions, […]

Valley Fever: Chumash Museum Opens
By Steven Libowitz   |   May 20, 2025

The long-awaited Santa Ynez Chumash Museum and Cultural Center is a project that dates to 2005. That inaugural impulse two decades ago was itself based on ideas that had begun germinating some thirty years before. All those decades of thinking and planning were seen as actually coming to long-awaited fruition when construction began in 2018. […]

VADA Talks… at VADA 
By Steven Libowitz   |   May 20, 2025

VADA Talks is an ongoing series of events featuring renowned guests from varied professions as they discuss how art has inspired the work they do. The series was created to support The Visual Art & Design Academy at Santa Barbara High School, which integrates rigorous academic coursework with project-based, career-focused art and design instruction in […]

The Voyage of a King
By Henry J. Ohrtman   |   May 20, 2025

If you’ve ever been to a bakery First thing in the morningThe scents are so seductiveWith an endless line now forming. After forty full daysof fasting in the desert The first thing the fiend said –If thou truly be the Son of GodCommand these stonesbe made bread. When Odysseus’ menate the Sun God’s cattleThey were starving at […]

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  • Mourning and Dancing: A Double Concerto
    By Steven Libowitz   |   May 20, 2025

    The Santa Barbara Symphony’s adventurous 2024-25 season comes to a close this weekend with another unusual entry, as the pair of concerts represent the first time the organization has booked a soloist – in this case the very estimable violinist Gil Shaham – to perform different repertoire in the Saturday and Sunday concert. The Grammy-decorated […]

    PacWest Tournament Champs
    By Scott Craig   |   May 20, 2025

    Westmont baseball (41-12) defeated the Sharks of Hawai’i Pacific (32-22) 5-3 to win the PacWest Tournament Championship – in its first year of eligibility – on May 9 in Fresno. The tournament championship came eight days after the Warriors clinched the PacWest Regular Season Championship, the first PacWest regular season championship team won by a […]

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    ‘One Death at a Time’
    By Leslie Zemeckis   |   May 13, 2025

    If a crime could ever be called delightful, Abbi Waxman is its likely author. Her latest One Death at a Time will have readers laughing all the way to the final page. Julia is a former actress newly arrested for the murder of her sworn enemy who, most inconveniently, was found floating in her pool […]

    Thirty Years of ‘Brilliance’ with State Street Ballet
    By Steven Libowitz   |   May 13, 2025

    State Street Ballet closes out its 30th season with The Brilliance Program: Balanchine, Arpino, and Beyond, a title meant to characterize the works featured on the May 9-10 performances at the Lobero Theatre – but also apropos for the company’s spectacular season, the first full one under the leadership of Artistic Director Megan Phillips and […]

    Beauty of a Ballet from Ukraine 
    By Steven Libowitz   |   May 13, 2025

    In a strange situation for an often ballet-starved town, the Arlington Theatre is also hosting a prime example of the art form this week – for the first time since the local Festival Ballet’s annual performances of The Nutcracker last December – as the State Ballet Theatre of Ukraine presents Sleeping Beauty on May 13. […]

    Book ‘em: Gay’s ‘Delights’ and a Panda’s Predicament
    By Steven Libowitz   |   May 13, 2025

    Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights, UCSB Reads’ 2025 selection, is a New York Times bestselling collection of essays – written daily over the course of a year – celebrating small, ordinary wonders. Gay’s humorous, poetic and philosophical essays cover a wide range of topics, with vignettes that include such luminous oddities as sharing a […]

    True Blue: CAMA’s Philharmonic Concert is Also a Farewell
    By Steven Libowitz   |   May 13, 2025

    This year’s annual Santa Barbara visit by the Los Angeles Philharmonic on Friday, May 9, at the Granada not only closes out CAMA’s orchestral International Series for 2025-26, but also serves as the penultimate concert in president Mark Trueblood’s CAMA career after 27 years at the helm. It’s rather appropriate, as the LA Phil was […]

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