Beverly Ward News

Join New Art City Theatre's inaugural Playwrights Festival in April 2024. Celebrate the development of new theatrical works with four carefully selected plays from nationwide submissions.

New Art City Theatre (NACT), a Ventura, California pioneering theatre company dedicated to the development of new theatrical works, is accepting original plays and musicals from playwrights for NACT's inaugural playwright's festival to be held in April 2024.

Ensemble Theatre Company (ETC), Santa Barbara's esteemed resident theatre company, is has announced 'Play It Forward,' a benefit concert featuring current and former ETC students alongside six renowned Broadway stars.

Rubicon Producing Artistic Director and Co-Founder Karyl Lynn Burns retired from the company on Sunday, November 13, following the acclaimed sold-out run of In the Heights.

Rubicon Theatre Company will begin its 25th year with a “Starry Soiree” celebration headlined by Emmy, Tony, Grammy and SAG Award Nominee NORM LEWIS. At the October 8th event, attendees will be treated to a concert of musical theatre hits sung by Lewis, Broadway’s first African-American “Phantom” and celebrated artists of stage and screen.

At a gathering last week of local dignitaries, RUBICON THEATRE, Ventura’s non-profit professional theatre company, shared progress and plans for a new community gathering space at the theatre.

Rubicon Theatre Company has received an extraordinary donation and a commitment for a future legacy gift that will help ensure a bright future for the organization.

Ensemble Theatre Company presents the 2nd annual benefit concert for its education and outreach programs with Broadway alumni performing music from the great American songbook on Sunday March 22, 2020.

Rubicon Theatre Company has just extended the company's acclaimed, sold-out production of Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which now continues through November 17, 2019. Directed by Kirby Ward, with a company of 24, the production runs Wednesdays through Sundays in Ventura's Downtown Cultural District at the company's home at 1006 E. Main Street, Ventura, CA  93001.

In Part 2 of our interview, Kirby & Beverly Ward talk about how they decided to stage 'Big River' in the round at the Rubicon Theatre Company. The result is a production of intimacy and atmospheric beauty.

An innovative immersive production, in which orchestra musicians step on stage to perform with the cast and an in-the-round configuration, highlights Rubicon Theatre Company's evocative, atmospheric production of 'Big River.' With a score by country music's Roger Miller, 'Big River' won 7 Tonys in 1985. The cast features Broadway veterans Josey Montana McCoy, David Aron Damane, and, in a special appearance, Renn Woods as Alice.

Rubicon Theatre opens the company's 22nd Season with an environmental production of the musical Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, opening October 26 at 7pm and continuing through November 10, 2019. Directed by Kirby Ward, with a company of 23, the production runs Wednesdays through Sundays in Ventura's Downtown Cultural District at the company's home at 1006 E. Main Street, Ventura, CA  93001. 

Rubicon Theatre opens the company's 22nd Season with an environmental production of the musical Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, opening October 26 at 7pm and continuing through November 10, 2019. Directed by Kirby Ward, with a company of 23, the production runs Wednesdays through Sundays in Ventura's Downtown Cultural District at the company's home at 1006 E. Main Street, Ventura, CA  93001. 

Rubicon Theatre wraps up its extraordinary 2019 Jack Oakie Summer Youth Program with the annual Kids for Kids fundraiser. This year's concert is titled a?oeBroadway Through the Ages.a?? This exuberant evening of song and dance will be guided entirely by student directors, choreographers and designers, and will feature some of Broadway's hottest tunes including a?oeEpic 2a?? (Hadestown), a?oeGod, I Hate Shakespearea?? (Something Rotten), a?oeA Change in Mea?? (Beauty and the Beast), a?oeAstoundinga?? (Little Women), a?oeYour Daddy's Sona?? (Ragtime), a?oeNowadaysa?? (Chicago), a?oeHopelessly Devoted to Youa?? (Grease), a?oeNothinga?? (A Chorus Line), and more! Songs will be performed by students from across all of the summer programs.

Rubicon Theatre of Ventura has announced a two-week extension of the company's World Premiere presentation of WOMEN BEYOND BORDERS, a funny, poignant and powerful new play about the shared experiences of women everywhere, inspired by the remarkable true journey of a small group of women artists who wanted to find a way to inspire change through creative expression.

Rubicon Theatre continues the company's 21st "Coming of Age" season with the World Premiere of WOMEN BEYOND BORDERS, a play inspired by and loosely based on the remarkable journey of Lorraine Serena and a dynamic group of California-based artists who founded the non-profit Women Beyond Borders (WBB). Determined to "make art as if the world matters," Serena and her friends fell upon the idea of box as metaphor: hope chest, treasure chest, womb, coffin, etc. They replicated a miniature wooden box no bigger than the size of a human heart and sent the boxes to curators and friends in other countries with the goal of encouraging dialogue, collaboration and community among women and honoring creativity. The founders of WBB were astonished at what came back to them - eloquent expressions of the enormous depth and variety, but also the universality, of women's experiences throughout the world. The boxes were accompanied by equally astonishing artists' statements, in the form of letters, poems and stories asking about transcending barriers: geographical, social, racial, economic, emotional, gender-related, spiritual, etc.

Rubicon Theatre continues the company's 21st 'Coming of Age' season with the World Premiere of WOMEN BEYOND BORDERS, a play inspired by and loosely based on the remarkable journey of Lorraine Serena and a dynamic group of California-based artists who founded the non-profit Women Beyond Borders (WBB).

Rubicon Theatre Company has announced what is expected to be the biggest and most extraordinary Kids for Kids Benefit Concert in the company's history for Saturday, December 29 at 7:00 p.m. at the theatre, located at 1006 E. Main Street in Ventura's Downtown Cultural District. More than 70 young people will be performing onstage or via video in an entertaining musical variety show that raises funds for scholarships for next summer's education and outreach participants. 

Rubicon Theatre's 20th Anniversary Season culminates with a two-piano version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's soaring epic South Pacific, helmed by award-winning director KATHARINE FARMER and featuring a cast of 28 led by Tony honoree BEN DAVIS (Baz Luhrmann's La Boheme) and MADISON CLAIRE PARKS (Luisa in The Fantasticks Off-Broadway).

Rubicon Theatre's 20th Anniversary Season culminates with a two-piano version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's soaring epic South Pacific, helmed by award-winning director KATHARINE FARMER and featuring a cast of 28 led by Tony honoree BEN DAVIS (Baz Luhrmann's La Boheme) and MADISON CLAIRE PARKS (Luisa in The Fantasticks Off-Broadway).