Circle Bar B Theatre

The Heart of Spain – Flamenco Arts Festival returns to Santa Barbara with a master pianist

September 24, 2010June 18, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

By the time you read this, Alberto Pizano will have already been handed the resolution honoring Spanish Heritage Month from Santa Barbara County and had his photo taken as a thank you. For the council, Pizano represents the best in our community, and those in the arts will know that Pizano and his daughter Vibiana, co-founders of the Flamenco Arts Festival, represent the opportunity to see a culture that often seems so close to us, yet still a continent away. For 10 years, the Pizanos have brought the top stars of this flamenco to our city.

The Pizanos have marked the 11th year of the two-day festival by moving in a new direction, as far as traditional flamenco goes. David Peña Dorantes changed the flamenco world in his native Spain by choosing the piano — not the traditional guitar — to play, and now he is coming here.

Shaken and Stirred – ‘The Cocktail Hour’ features local stage veterans and tackles the enigma of the father-son relationship

September 24, 2010June 18, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

Pity the wealthy upper class of the Northeastern United States, as typified by the family at the center of A.R. Gurney’s play “The Cocktail Hour.” In place of a quiet reunion upon prodigal son John’s return home, a family is rocked by the news that he intends to turn their foibles into a play. It’s title? “The Cocktail Hour.” Let the martinis and bickering commence.

Gurney’s comedy also toasts to the end of Circle Bar B’s theater season, and David and Susie Couch have called in their favorites to make the evening a proper sendoff to a year well done. Leesa Beck, Matt Cooper, Don Margolin and Kathy Marden star, and Jim Sirianni — a long-time favorite who most recently helmed DIJO’s “Frost/Nixon” — directs.

Swinging ’60s – ‘Girl in the Freudian Slip’ surfaces at Circle Bar B Dinner Theatre

May 28, 2010May 26, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

The bedroom/analyst's office farce "Girl in the Freudian Slip" deals with Dewey Maugham, a married psychoanalyst who secretly lusts after his shapely and sex-positive patient, Barbara Leonard, played by Nicole Hollenitsch, above. — The bedroom/analyst’s office farce “Girl in the Freudian Slip” deals with Dewey Maugham, a married psychoanalyst who secretly lusts after his shapely and sex-positive patient, Barbara Leonard, played by Nicole Hollenitsch, above.

“The Girl in the Freudian Slip” would have been lost to the sands of Broadway time in the 1960s if opening night reviews were anything to go by. It didn’t last too long in 1967, but Bernadette Peters, who made her debut in the original cast, did (to the tune of seven Tony nominations, two of which she won). As did playwright William F. Brown, who went on to write a musical called “The Wiz.”

Circle Bar B Theatre has made a successful run of resurrecting light comedic fare and plans to do so again this weekend, when Joe Beck directs its next production.

Keeping the Holmes Fire Burning : Circle Bar B opens season with ‘Sherlock’s Last Case’

April 2, 2010May 26, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

Does director Jim Cook like mystery and murder, or do murder and mystery seek out Jim Cook? Only last season at the Circle Bar B Theatre, Cook investigated “The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940.” Kicking off this season, he walks in with the master detective of 221B Baker Street and “Sherlock’s Last Case.”

“Susie (Couch, the owner and producer of Circle Bar B) picks the shows, and I’m like, another murder mystery? OK,” jokes Cook. “And it’s not really what the show’s about. It’s more the creativity and the working with actors onstage and creating a believable world in which this takes place.”