Maggie Yates - Page 4

Ensemble Theater Company's season opener is a brand new adaptation of Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives, rendered for the stage by ETC's artistic Director, Jonathan Fox.

Stand Up Stories Multicultural Tales to Live By is a collection of parables that brings to life stories from the Greek, Chinese, Native American, and African traditions. Stand Up Stories opens at Santa Barbara's Lobero Theater this weekend, and runs for two nights only: Friday, September 29, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, October 1, at 2 p.m.

Disgraced examines the American experience from a variety of viewpoints: a Jewish-American man, an African-American woman, a white woman, and Amir, the play's tragic lead, who is from an Islamic background the child of Middle-Eastern immigrants. Disgraced is an award-winning piece of literature that delivers an intense, intelligent discourse about race and privilege, and a jarring exploration of the stratifications and compartmentalization of American culture.

Ana s: A Dance Opera is a multimedia collaberation featuring the life story of writer, intellectual, and provocateur, Ana s Nin.

After a successful turn at the Avignon L'Off Festival in France, Anais, A Dance Opera, presented by Mixed eMotion Theatrix, comes to Santa Barbara's New Vic Theater September 8th and 9th. Anais explores the beguiling, nonconformist life of writer, Anais Nin, through music, modern dance, and theatre.

A community's point of view is expressed through the local art scene, and Santa Barbara's On The Verge Festival promotes underrepresented points of view by producing theatre by female playwrights, LGBTQIA playwrights, and playwrights of color. In its third year, On The Verge's company of young artists delivers an enthusiastic community atmosphere and theatre that's accessible in cost and pertinent in subject matter.

Rooted in a fearless, purposeful approach bridging the gap between player and viewer, the festival incorporates work from up-and-coming visual artists, musicians, and theatre makers who have focused their message on community engagement.

While concepts in High Society may have been viewed as 'kitschy' when the play premiered two decades ago, in the age of Instagram stars and The Real Housewives, these characters, who are charming in their relative innocence as compared to the shameless celebrities of the information age (even our president is a faux-lebrity real estate mogul-turned-reality show host), seem tame. High Society is a pleasant enough way to spend an evening, but it doesn't really go anywhere. There are no risks, no extraordinary thrills: just a very safe presentation of feel-good music from a bygone era.

An intricate and demanding musical for even a cast of seasoned adults, Sweeney Todd is an exciting, ambitious theatrical undertaking that is sure to push the young cast to discovery in their craft. "Having a young cast is certainly the most challenging aspect of this process," says Marian Azdril, Showstoppers board member and costumer for Sweeney Todd. "There are many layers to this sophisticated and complex story. We hope this cast learns to do the homework, and come prepared to every rehearsal!"

'Stupid Fucking Bird,' which runs this weekend and next at various locations throughout Santa Barbara, offers a self-aware, fourth-wall-indifferent show with a wicked sense of humor.

There's a lot to unpack from director and professor Simon Williams' production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle, the Brecht epic that expands a parable into a detailed exploration of how well human kindness fares in a lawless land of political upheaval within a universe marked by an stylistically absurd mercilessness.

The final piece this season, Allan Knee's Syncopation, features two distinct couples: Anna and Henry, the main characters who are learning to ballroom dance together; and a narrative told through the interlacing of theatre and dance. Where more conventional styles of musical theatre include lyrics to continue the story between scenes of spoken dialogue, Sycopation uses narrative choreography, bringing an unusual (and exciting, for those fans of ballroom dancing) theatrical experience to the New Vic.

Elaine Gale's one-woman show, One Good Egg, offers Santa Barbara a frank conversation about gender and the female experience. One Good Egg is about Gale's journey toward motherhood-one that delivers an important narrative about handling a very specific type of failure: the inability to have a child. Motherhood is a potent topic in a culture facing a fast-evolving definition of gender identity and gender roles, and One Good Egg is an exploration of the female experience in direct relation to fertility and creating a legacy.

After a zombie apocalypse, the President (or 'Zombie Clown-in-Chief,' as the creator describes him) is up for re-election, running against action-hero staple, Dwayne Johnson. Described as a protest by the production company, Zombie Clown Trump is a testimony of the power of free speech. Check out the cheek at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in Santa Monica, at the OMR Theatre June 2, 8, 9, 16, 17, and 24th.

One Good Egg features a female perspective of the contemporary American experience, especially the complicated relationship between feminine identity and parenthood. Yet, the egg is a broader symbol-one that represents manifestations of fertility beyond pregnancy and childbearing. Gale's intent is to explore the personal and societal imperative to create legacy-whether it be passing on ideas or DNA. One Good Egg invites audiences to accept (and appreciate) the optimism that can flourish in even the most absurd or aching moments.

'What came first? The music or the misery?' asks Rob Gordon, sad-sack hipster and star of Out of the Box Theatre Company's upcoming musical, 'High Fidelity.'

Lit Moon's highly stylized version of 'Richard III' is strangely appealing (albeit disjointed and inaccessible—especially for those without a fairly thorough grasp of the narrative). This envisioning of the play tends more toward a performance-art installation than overtly representational theatre.

Florence Foster Jenkins: you may have heard her name from a recent resurgence in popularity due to being portrayed by the un-ignorable Meryl Streep in the 2016 biopic. But before there was the movie, there was the play, Glorious! The True Story of Florence Foster Jenkins, The Worst Singer in the World by Peter Quilter, which begins its run in Lompoc this weekend at the Civic Auditorium, and has performances until April 9.

A company with a persistent ambition to prioritize social justice in their work, DramaDogs has adopted a format for short, dramatic presentations that inform and entertain, and encourage audience engagement. Their production of From Eve's Fair Hand, by local writers Jinny Webber and Terre Ouwehand, shares (through monologue) the voices of female writers who left their mark on our cultural history. An appropriate celebration of Women's History Month, From Eve's Fair Hand introduces women like Amelia Bassano Lanier; Lady Mary Wroth; Aphra Behn; George Sands (nom-de-plume of Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin); Gertrude Stein; Virginia Woolf; and Vita Sackville-West; women who dared to write-while-female in eras when that act was considered one of non-conformity or rebellion.

The Producing Unit presents a staged reading of American Dreams, a performance piece exemplifying the broad and varied brands of "American" living. Directed by Peter Frisch and featuring Bill Egan, Tom Hinshaw, Meredith McMinn, Robert Riechel, Jeremy Tristan, and Ivy Vahanian, this series of monologues from a dozen different characters invites audiences to consider the very concept of the "American Dream," and how this socially constructed entitlement varies for each individual-yet exists consistently as a vital thematic goal.