Warning to parents with impressionable children: Good Ol’ Saint Nick will not be appearing in “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus,” at least not embodied in human form. Now, the spirit of what Santa Claus means, that’s another matter.
This special Christmas show, a collaboration between Ojai ACT and the Ojai Performing Arts Theater Foundation (OPAT), brings a holiday tale about finding the Christmas Spirit in a hardscrabble existence.
Most operas clock in at anything from 21/2 to 5 hours — especially if you’re Richard Wagner — and take weeks to put on, so how can a stable of eager singers get in their chance for a lead role? Also, how can the opera lover keep up with the evolving world of modern music when so few companies want to take a chance outside the standard canon of works? UCSB Opera Workshop’s “Opera Scenes,” this Saturday and Sunday, answers that need, with nine scenes from both obscure and well-known works.
A success last year, “Opera Scenes” returns for an evening that features selections from Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” and “Die Zauberflute,” Seymour Barab’s “A Game of Chance,” Smetana’s “The Bartered Bride,” Donizetti’s “La fille du régiment,” Cimarosa’s “Il matrimonio segreto,” Verdi’s “Attila,” Floyd’s “Of Mice and Men,” and Offenbach’s “R.S.V.P.”
It’s deeply cynical, but the title of Melanie Marnich’s play “These Shining Lives” alludes not just to a small-knit group of factory workers, but also to the radium with which they work. So when one woman arrives home and her husband says she’s radiant and glowing, it’s the literal truth. What these women do becomes the subject of this tough drama, opening tonight at the Performing Arts Theater.
Director Tom Whitaker’s last play was the broad comedy of Moliere’s “Tartuffe.” This time around, he’s going for drama, with a play that attracted him with its strong roles for young female actors.
Two recent plays on old subjects arrive at Center Stage Theater this weekend, courtesy of DIJO Productions. As he also did earlier this year, director and actor Edward Giron has decided to stage both shows at the same time, using the same cast.
“It’s almost like the world’s smallest repertory company,” says Mr. Giron. “It’s daunting. But it exposes two plays to one to two sets of audiences in a very small time frame.”
Kimonos have multiple layers of fabric, but even so, they are light and airy. Or at least they should be. Whoever made one of the kimonos for Opera Santa Barbara’s upcoming production of “Madame Butterfly” didn’t get the memo.
“It’s so heavy! It feels like wearing a futon,” laughs lead soprano Mihoko Kinoshita as we chat about the production. Heavier than any 19th-century outfit, heavier than any armor worn by a Wagnerian goddess — it’s a big costume, but thankfully she has the power to sing past it, a power noted by the London Daily Express and others reviewing her star turn in the lead role of “Madame Butterfly” at the Royal Albert Hall.
For those of us in the entertainment print trade, we know at lot of these people by name, if not face. They keep the wheels greased and the machines running; they send out the press releases and they make the artists accessible; they keep the books balanced and the funds raising; they make sure that everything feels effortless. For the general public, that means they’re invisible for the most part; and they don’t want you to know how much effort goes into being effortless. But they are always on top of the list of the “without whom” section.
So now it’s time to bring a few of these people out in to the light and give them the recognition they deserve, for photographers to backstage crews. They are our Behind the Scenes Superstars.
Santa Barbara’s theater scene marked anniversaries, said goodbye to some well-loved people and maintained high-quality shows in difficult times in 2010.
For companies, it was a year of stasis. The city college’s theater group is still waiting for Garvin Theatre renovations to finish, but that has led to some interesting work in Interim Theatre, converted temporarily from a classroom. Alan Ayckbourn’s “Time of My Life” featured some of Santa Barbara’s best actors Ed Lee, Katie Thatcher, Brian Harwell, et al. for a twisted dagger of a comedy, while “Machinal” and the “The Suicide” featured nothing but SBCC’s drama students onstage, and both productions (revivals of 1920s plays) were brave and daring. The Ayckbourn play also marked the farewell production of Rick Mokler, who had been directing for 20 years. Katie Laris has big shoes to fill, and one can already see she’s ready to take the department in a new, vibrant direction.
Miller James had been holding his dream of running a children’s theater for years at bay, waiting for that chance to start. He had been married to the idea of waiting for the perfect space, but realized that might never come. It would be better, he realized, just to put on a show first. This former costume designer for Opera Santa Barbara and head of Ensemble’s Storybook Theater program decided the time was right, and the personal support was there. And now at the Santa Barbara Community Church, he and his large community company are about to mount “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.”
“The Best” started life as a children’s book by Barbara Robinson, which along the way became a little-seen (and not well loved) TV movie starring Loretta Switt. But it’s done best as a piece of regional theater, for several reasons: it’s a satire on pageants while doing double duty as one; its large cast means choice roles for young actors; its setting (a church) means one can perform it … in a church.
You think it’s hard enough to find an apartment in Santa Barbara if you own a cat? Try a donkey, and a pregnant, soon-to-deliver mother. The “no room at the inn” story of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem is a central part of Christmas, and Una Noche de Las Posadas has been a Californian tradition among Latino communities for a very long time. Similarly, the mid-19th-century tale of good vs. evil known as “La Pastorela” (The Shepherds), follows the shepherds as they make their way to Bethlehem to worship the Christ child and are tempted by the Devil along the way. Both events are part of the Santa Barbara Trust for Historical Preservation’s Christmas weekend, and serve to remind us of our city’s older traditions long before we started borrowing from Charles Dickens and Victoriana.
Tonight’s “Las Posadas” (which means ‘the inns’ in Spanish), starts at El Presidio and turns into a procession that mimics Joseph and Mary’s journey, passing through downtown (including Paseo Nuevo and all the Christmas shoppers), finally ending at Casa de la Guerra, where the couple finally find a place to rest. But along the way, businesses and people will be telling them there’s no room and to move on. Now in its 20th year, it has become a Santa Barbara tradition.
Santa Barbarans like to complain about the weather when it dips below, say, 65 degrees. Likewise, we also like to complain a bit about the number of “Nutcracker” productions in town. However, we should spare a thought for the many communities that rarely get a visit from the sugar plum fairy.
Durango, Colo., for example, loved the fact that our very own State Street Ballet is on tour with the Tchaikovsky holiday classic. Socorro, N.M., gave the company a standing ovation when it performed there. Now the ballet company returns for a series of hometown shows at The Granada.