Theatre – Page 8 – Ted Mills

Their Bloody Valentine – Out of the Box presents a punk rock presidential musical

February 8, 2013December 9, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

From left, MikeChen as bandleader,Terry Li as Naomi, Steven Stone as AndrewJackson, Maggie Hill asToula and Connor Gould as male soloist. Out of the Box Theatre photo — From left, MikeChen as bandleader,Terry Li as Naomi, Steven Stone as AndrewJackson, Maggie Hill asToula and Connor Gould as male soloist.
Out of the Box Theatre photo

Samantha Eve and her Out of the Box Productions have a penchant for the outre, blood, and … presidents it seems. Over their short production history, they’ve shot cannons of “blood” into the audience for their Halloween “Evil Dead” musical, and revived Stephen Sondheim’s “Assassins,” his paean to the mentally unbalanced killers and would-be murderers. So this Thursday’s opening of the musical “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,” at the Center Stage Theater, is keeping with tradition.

“I think his legacy is haunted by a lot of blood, death and destruction,” Ms. Eve says. “And he’s a fascinating choice for a musical. Out of all the presidents, to make a punk musical about him? Because if you think about it, so much of that emo, punk craze is with the adolescents. And when Andrew Jackson was president, technically the United States was a teenager, a rebellious state of mind.”

Big Behn – Elements Theatre Company returns with a modern Restoration comedy

January 25, 2013December 28, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

Ophra Behn holds a historical position as one of the first female English dramatists, a novelist, playwright and poet who was also once a spy for the monarchy. She’s not a household name, but her adventures in the court of Charles II makes for fine drama. In the hands and pen of contemporary playwright Liz Duffy Adams, Behn’s story results in the farcical “Or,” (the comma is intentional), a 2009 play set to open as part of Elements Theater Collective’s current season.

Sara Rademacher’s Elements brings theater to pop-up locations to put on their small-cast, minimal-set productions. For “Or,” they’ll be playing at Carpinteria’s Women’s Club, Java Station in Goleta, Santa Barbara’s Pescadrome, and many other locations, culminating in a final show at the Library’s Faulkner Gallery.

A Hilarious Quartet – Speaking of Stories First 2013 show is all Laughs

January 11, 2013December 20, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

Sometimes you have to just sit back and laugh. Speaking of Stories does, at least once a year, with its “Nothing But Laughs” evening this Sunday and Monday, which presents four short stories designed to make you ell-oh-ell, as the kids say. Artistic director Maggie Mixsell has curated this show of four comic stories from Somerset Maugham, Kurt Vonnegut, Elizabeth Berg, and Jenny Allen along a very easy criteria.

“I have to at least chuckle,” she says.

The Death Trip – Center Stage one-woman show elucidates the psychedelic experience

December 28, 2012December 31, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

The Ayahuasca plant, when brewed with several other plants of the psychotria genus, produces a psychedelic trip that rivals the synthetic death’s-door effects of DMT. It’s known as the “vine of death.” In Peruvian ceremonies the act of ingesting it is known as “la purga” because of the all-sluices open purgatorial nature of the experience, sometimes even curing diseases. And for one woman, it has been all these things — it has cured her and expanded her consciousness in equal parts. She brings her tale to Center Stage Theater tonight and Saturday.

In the one-woman show “Wind in a Mirror: Ayahuasca Visions,” Josie Hyde uses storytelling, poetry, music and bizarre, Peter Max-ish animations to bring this story to life. A child of the ’60s and no stranger to LSD and expanding her mind, Ms. Hyde claims the late monologist Spalding Gray as a friend and muse. (“He gave me a lot of encouragement … he called me his female opposite,” she says. “We argued.”)

Under Construction – Big Changes to Santa Barbara’s Theater Scene are on their way

December 28, 2012December 31, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

Supporters of the Ensemble Theater Company project participate in a groundbreaking in June by pulling on a rope and bringing down a privacy wallin Victoria Community Hall. Santa Barbara Mayor Helene Schneider and Derek Westen, co-chairman of the project, are in the foreground. Steve Malone/News-Press file photo — Supporters of the Ensemble Theater Company project participate in a groundbreaking in June by pulling on a rope and bringing down a privacy wallin Victoria Community Hall. Santa Barbara Mayor Helene Schneider and Derek Westen, co-chairman of the project, are in the foreground.
Steve Malone/News-Press file photo

As the year closes, the biggest change in theater in Santa Barbara is physical, as the back of Victoria Hall remains open and exposed to the elements while major remodeling carries on. By fall, the Ensemble Theater Company will take the big leap from the tiny Alhecama Theatre on Santa Barbara Street and move into these bigger digs. Meanwhile, 2012 featured the unveiling of the remodeled Garvin Theater with its lavish production of “Avenue Q” followed by “August: Osage County,” while UCSB also premiered a refurbished Hatlen Theater.

The Ensemble had a good year with the hilarious “The 39 Steps,” the bleak “Creditors,” “Black Pearl Sings!” “Crime and Punishment” and “Bell, Book and Candle.” Carpinteria’s Plaza Theater proved to be a place for all sorts of events, from one-man shows to their lavish community productions of “Appointment with Death” and “A Christmas Carol.”

Revel-ution – Five Years of Song and Celebrating Solstice at Santa Barbara Revels

December 14, 2012January 7, 2016 tedmills Leave a comment

In its five-year existence, Santa Barbara Revels have traveled as far away as Bavaria (on stage at least), to explore the multi-faceted and multi-cultural worlds of winter solstice celebrations. This year, they plan to bring it on home with a trip to America’s Deep South and the Appalachia. Santa Barbara Revels puts a secular spin on the holiday season, celebrating the turning of the year, December 21, the day with the shortest amount of daylight.

No matter what the culture or religion, the day has been celebrated for good reason: the sun begins to come back into our lives, and warmth is around the corner. The event, featuring 70 dancers, musicians, and singers, comes to the Lobero this weekend for three shows.

What the Dickens! – Rubicon Theatre’s Musical version of Scrooge changes ages and genders

December 14, 2012January 7, 2016 tedmills Leave a comment

Rebecca Johnson as Estelle Scrooge Jeanne Tanner photo — Rebecca Johnson as Estelle Scrooge
Jeanne Tanner photo

“Christmas Carol” often introduces kids to the world of Charles Dickens. It’s a structured classic, not too long, and primes readers to jump into the longer works, their hundreds of characters with crazy names, love of description, and heartstring-tugging plots. And the play version remains a favorite from community to community. With Rubicon wanting to try something a little bit different this year, but still giving the people a “Carol” for the holidays, it presents “Little Miss Scrooge,” which opened this past Wednesday and runs until Dec. 23.

“Little Miss Scrooge” acts as half modern update and half mash-up with the rest of Dickens’ oeuvre, and the more novels you know, the more obscure references will tickle you.

The Woman Who Dressed Hollywood – Edith Head comes to life in one-woman show

December 2, 2012January 15, 2016 tedmills Leave a comment

JamesBlairphoto Susan Claassen as Edith Head in the Center State Theater production of "A Conversation with Edith Head" James Blair photo — JamesBlairphoto Susan Claassen as Edith Head in the Center State Theater production of “A Conversation with Edith Head”
James Blair photo

When I was a kid I had the movie poster for Steve Martin’s “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” in my room — Mr. Martin was my favorite comedian at the time — and I memorized all the names on that poster, including a certain Edith Head, who had designed all the costumes. As I grew up watching old movies, I noticed Edith’s name popping up everywhere. I also didn’t know that the Steve Martin film would be her last, as she died just after the film wrapped, at age 83. She left behind a filmography of 1,131 films as costumer, with 35 Oscar nominations and 8 wins.

“A Conversation with Edith Head,” which opens tonight at Center Stage Theater and runs through Sunday only, brings to life the woman who dressed Betty Davis in “All About Eve,” and Robert Redford and Paul Newman in “The Sting.” This one-woman show, co-written by and starring Suzanne Claassen, has earned rave reviews since it opened in 2002. Performed as a chatty conversation between Ms. Head and the audience, it takes in Ms. Head’s 60 years in the business and even opens up the floor to questions at the end, answered just as Ms. Head would do herself.

Closing the Book on 2012 – Ensemble Theatre gets witchy for December

November 30, 2012January 7, 2016 tedmills Leave a comment

Clockwise from top, Leonard Kelly-Young,Thomas Vincent Kelly, Susan Ruttan, Mattie Hawkinson and Zachary Ford David Bazemore photos — Clockwise from top, Leonard Kelly-Young,Thomas Vincent Kelly, Susan Ruttan, Mattie Hawkinson and Zachary Ford
David Bazemore photos

It’s time for the Ensemble Theater Company to put on its big holiday show, and what can be more seasonal than… witches? With “Bell, Book and Candle,” opening tonight, you can have both yuletide fun and the casting of spells. This 1950 Broadway play from John Van Druten later got made into a Hollywood film starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, their only other on-screen team-up apart from in “Vertigo,” along with Jack Lemmon and Ernie Kovacks. Its mixture of romantic comedy and witchcraft influenced the show “Bewitched” six years later, and its domestic nature still gets played out in shows like “Charmed.”

The setting is Manhattan, circa 1950, and it’s Christmas time. Gillian (Mattie Hawkinson) is the young woman who is working her charms on her upstairs neighbor Shepherd (Thomas Vincent Kelly, last seen here in “Opus”). And “charms” is right: she’s a witch, and he doesn’t know it yet. But there’s also a rule — perhaps it’s in the back of a book of spells, who knows — that if a witch falls in love, she could lose all her powers. Gillian has two relatives to help her through this troubling time: Aunt Queenie (Susan Ruttan), also a witch, and Gillian’s brother Nicky (Zachary Ford). Also on hand is Sidney (Leonard Kelly-Young) a crazy writer who is working on a book about witchcraft. Guest director Brian Shnipper is set to work this all up into a magical holiday brew.

Your Finest Hour – Artists JEFF & GORDON help people create their dreams of success

November 30, 2012January 7, 2016 tedmills Leave a comment

How do you define success? Is it that gold watch? Is it holding that golden statuette? Is it standing on the podium as confetti cascades down? Is it the roar of the crowd? Or a quiet moment? And what is success anyway? Something that takes decades to achieve? Or a year? What about a week?

These are questions the art duo Jeff Foye and Gordon Winiemko, also known as JEFF & GORDON (and sometimes, to confuse NASCAR fans, Jeff Gordon), have been mulling over. They are also questions they want you to ask yourself as part of their interactive art piece, “Moment of Glory.” This free event takes place this coming First Thursday at the always boundary-pushing Contemporary Arts Forum.