New Beginnings with ‘The Boys’
By Steven Libowitz   |   November 5, 2024

For the last several years, New Beginnings’ annual fall fundraiser has moved beyond the typical wine-and-dine gala concept to actually put the focus on the longtime nonprofit’s areas of service – via presenting a theatrical event that mirrors themes of issues it works to combat. This year’s offering, The Boys Next Door, examines issues of […]

‘Dracula’ Doesn’t Suck
By Richard Mineards   |   October 22, 2024

Ensemble Theatre Company opened its latest season at the New Vic with Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors, directed by veteran actor Jamie Torcellini and written by Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen. The five-member cast played a variety of characters with the blood-sucking count portrayed perfectly – not to mention amusingly – by muscle-bound hunk Adam […]

 

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More from Montecito

Bonkers in Yonkers
By Steven Libowitz   |   October 15, 2024

Jonathan Fox was both surprised and moved when he saw Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers in its original Broadway run back in the early 1990s, back when he was still a grad student in New York.  “I was familiar with his earlier plays like The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park, so I was […]

ETC’s ‘Dracula’: Count on the Laughter
By Steven Libowitz   |   October 15, 2024

While Lost in Yonkers walks a fine line between poignancy and humor, there’s no such balancing act in the play that opens Ensemble Theatre Company’s 46th season this month. Unless you count the challenge of mastering the fast pacing, quick-change scenes, joke-filled dialog and sheer physicality of Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors, Gordon Greenberg and […]

Step into Hitchcock’s Suspense Station
By Steven Libowitz   |   October 15, 2024

In a strange twist of fate, The 39 Steps itself is actually being showcased in another venue over the next two weekends. The Alcazar Ensemble will present Vintage Hitchcock: A Live Radio Play, Joe Landry’s stage adaptation of three of Hitchcock’s most renowned stories, October 11-13 and 18-20 at the Carpinteria venue. The thrilling world […]

‘Spy for Spy’ Plays with the Idea of a Play as a Playlist
By Steven Libowitz   |   September 24, 2024

Ventura playwright Kieron Barry’s latest work, Spy for Spy, is a two-character romantic comedy that’s also a memory play, and a mixed-up one at that. There are six scenes that serve as snapshots of significant moments in the relationship between high-strung lawyer Sarah and free-spirited aspiring actress Molly. These include when they first fall in […]

Shimmy Shimmy: Kerrilee’s Goal is Exaltation
By Jeff Wing   |   September 17, 2024

The decorous sunken lawn in front of Pierre Lafond is ordinarily a still point of shade-dappled peace, the calming eye of any given day’s hurricane. The trees lean in with leafy solicitude, birdsong seasons the scented air, and the good people of Montecito engage in lively conversation, gesturing and gabbing. Into this bucolic set piece […]

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  • Dimensions of Dementia: ‘The Father’ Debuts
    By Steven Libowitz   |   September 17, 2024

    Critics have unanimously praised Florian Zeller’s The Father, a play that takes the unusual perspective of presenting the world from the vantage of an elderly but still elegant man going through progressive stages of dementia. His shifting and relative reality – including concepts of such taken-for-granted facts as time and place – wreaks havoc on […]

    This Magic Moment: New Festival at the Alcazar
    By Steven Libowitz   |   August 27, 2024

    Recovery from the pandemic is still a part of our world, and if there’s anything that hasn’t fully come back, it might be our shared experiences of humor and magic. Combining those two for an immersive weekend is the point behind the first annual Comedy & Magic Festival at the Alcazar Theatre in Carpinteria. Fourteen […]

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    Out of the Box’s Taylor-made Retrospective
    By Steven Libowitz   |   August 27, 2024

    If Donald Trump can re-post deepfake AI images implying that Taylor Swift has endorsed him in response to her terrorist threat-canceled European shows, there’s certainly no reason that Out of the Box theater company – which is much more politically/socially aligned with Swift’s actual proclivities – can’t co-opt the title of the pop singer’s massive, […]

    Fairies, Magic, and the Bard Come to Godric Grove
    By Steven Libowitz   |   August 20, 2024

    It’s been more than a decade since the eloquent words of William Shakespeare have been recited in the all-natural environs of Elings Park, the huge private nonprofit open space high above the Mesa that’s perfect for performances of the Bard’s best. But now late summer is bringing two different productions of Shakespeare plays to Godric […]

    Cornucopia of Cabarets
    By Steven Libowitz   |   August 20, 2024

    Ensemble Theatre’s Pay It Forward: Legends of Broadway benefit event last weekend was a smashing success, a sold-out soirée of song which even had some special surprises, including an appearance by the Gay Men’s Chorus augmenting the half-dozen veterans of the New York stage, screen and TV as they all celebrated the music of 10 […]

    ETC’s Newest Play Brings Understanding and Entertainment to the Constitution
    By Zach Rosen   |   August 13, 2024

    As a high school student with governmental aspirations, I attended a two-week program in Washington, D.C. to study constitutional law – one of the highlights on the syllabus was the promise to meet and hear one of the Supreme Court Justices speak.  While Antonin Scalia may not have been my personal choice of who to […]

    Come to the (Outdoor) Cabaret
    By Steven Libowitz   |   August 6, 2024

    PCPA is bringing Cabaret’s Kit Kat Klub to the sleepy Danish village of Solvang, where the denizens of the famous decadent sanctuary – artists and performers, misfits and outsiders – will perform outdoors under the stars at the Solvang Festival Theatre August 2-25. The Kander & Ebb musical is set in 1929-30 Berlin during the […]

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