Maggie Yates - Page 4

Ensemble's production of Death of a Salesman is intimate and Willy's final sacrifice is tragic and inevitable. The production offers high-caliber performances and a unique visual narrative, and it engages the audience with timely questions about inter-generational disconnect, the definition of success, and our relationship to the expectations and entitlements ascribed by our culture.

Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller's American tragedy, equates the worth of a man's life with his earning potential and forces characters and audiences alike to examine their expectations around the idea of 'success.'

'Broadway Songs of the Spirit' features arrangement and orchestration by John Douglas, with performances by Tariqh Akoni, Kevin Winard, Santino Tafarella, Nicole McKenzie, Andrea DiMagio, Tim Beccue, Brianna Gilman, Andrew Martinez, and John Douglas. Produced by Clark Sayre.

Last fall, The Producing Unit performed a reading of one of Ruhl's latest works, How to Transcend a Happy Marriage (directed by Peter Frisch)--a play about testing the boundaries of a 'traditional' marriage. A married couple  has a dinner party, and learns about the physical and emotional configuration of a polyamorous lifestyle from a new acquaintance, Pip, who is part of a throuple. In the past several months, the company has turned the content into a fully staged piece, which will be performed at Center Stage Theater from January 25-February 3.

2019 is looking to be a season of exciting, provocative performance art that features a variety of voices. Here are my top picks for the nine shows of 2019 that shouldn't be missed (in order by date).

Ensemble Theatre Company's production of The Legend of Georgia McBride, directed by Jenny Sullivan, avoids the landmines. It's neither preachy nor offensive, and it tells a story of redemption that's timely, socially relevant, and charming. The show takes place over the period of a year, starting and ending around Christmas, an appropriate staging choice for a piece with such a clear connection to the general themes of the yuletide season. Georgia McBride is about family, forgiveness, celebration, and general joy to the world.

For Ensemble's upcoming extravaganza, 'The Legend of Georgia McBride' (by Matthew Lopez, directed by Jenny Sullivan), actors Stephen Spencer and Bill Brochtrup have stepped up to the challenge of transforming into drag queens. The play follows Elvis impersonator Casey (Spencer), who gets fired from his gig at a Florida bar to make room for the newest entertainment sensation, a drag show starring Miss Tracey Mills (Brochtrup). With a pregnant wife at home, Casey has to adapt or find another job, so he tries his hand at female impersonation.

Based on William Makepeace Thackery's mid-19th century novel, Vanity Fair follows the adventures in adulthood of two young women from different backgrounds. Whereas Amelia comes from a wealthy family, her friend Becky has learned to depend on charm and wiles to secure a comfortable future. Becky tries to snag a rich husband before a less-than-glamorous destiny as a governess comes to fruition.

After years cloistered in a backyard in the suburbs of Paris, the victim of cruel jokes by local children and the over-attentive smothering of his landlord/guardian, one intrepid lawn gnome has set off for adventure. Keep your eyes open downtown: you'll see him trying the various wine, cheese, and patisserie offerings of our petite Riviera by the Pacific. Cheerful and charming, he adds a hint of whimsy to anyone's Instagram feed. You can also see his stage debut (playing himself) in Out of the Box Theatre Company's upcoming musical, Amelie, at Center Stage Theater from November 9-18.

Hamill's Pride and Prejudice creates the bridge that connects the nuanced tropes of Austen's 19th-century feminism to the conversations about gender equality happening currently. Westmont's production was a refreshingly fierce look at the symptoms of the gender power imbalance that are still festering in today's culture.

Hamlet's father, the King of Denmark is murdered by his brother, Claudius (Jarred Web), who then marries Hamlet's mother, Queen Gertrude (Olivia Rose Nathan), and takes the throne. No one suspects foul play except Prince Hamlet (Tadja Enos), who senses something rotten in the state of Denmark. His fears are validated when his father's ghost spurs him to avenge his untimely death. Hamlet takes up the mantle of vengeance with single-minded focus, sacrificing relationships along the way.

This weekend, Santa Barbara Shakespeare presents 'As You Like It,' a Shakespearian gender-bent forest frolic, in Montecito's Manning Park. Bring a picnic and a bottle of wine, and join SB Shakes in the Forest of Arden to experience the revelry of one of Shakespeare's most popular comedies.

Ensemble Theatre Company Celebrates a 40-year Milestone, Kicks off Season with David Ives' 'The School for Lies.'

Two Santa Barbara theatre companies have joined forces to produce WOMEN FORWARD, two plays in rep that celebrate the lives of strong, intelligent women. This dual production, created in collaboration between DramaDogs, A Theater Company and Dogstar Theater Company, includes Edward Albee's drama THREE TALL WOMEN and Peter Shaffer's comedy, LETTICE AND LOVAGE. Both plays, produced in rep, focus on the empowerment of the female-not in response to male animosity, but as a function of the natural female experience. Directed by DramaDogs' Ken Gilbert and Dogstar's Nita June Davanzo, these two companies will share the stage at Center Stage Theater September 7th-16th.

This music-infused interpretation of the Alberta Hunter's life is a true American rags-to-riches success story. Hunter, a jazz and blues singer, achieved critical and commercial acclaim in the 1920s-50s. In the late 1950s, she abruptly abandoned music to become a nurse. Several decades later, Hunter retired from nursing and returned to the stage for a two-week engagement at renowned New York blues bar, The Cookery. At age 82, this jazz legend rekindled the public's love for her powerful voice and spirit-her two-week stint at the Greenwich Village nightclub stretched into a multi-year, late-in-life comeback.

The year-end New Works Lab at UCSB, which challenges students to write, direct, design, and perform short plays, gives students a chance to experiment with form, style, and collaboration. This year's plays offered comedy, drama, and an excursion into the absurd, while expressing insecurities about the future on both a personal and global level.

Christie's presentation is a colorful, and at times poignant, journey through personal memoir; his gruff-but-likeable stage presence and interesting story make for a thought-provoking evening in the theater. It's a casual style of performance, with a minimal use of traditional theatrical conventions, for an effect of live, un-cut documentary. Christie is an engaging speaker with good material from a life lived on the fringe.

The Invisible Handplays out events in a market atmosphere without stringent guidelines, in which capitalism can run amuck. 'Pakistan is the wild west,' says Tufts. 'How will capitalism thrive in an unregulated environment? It thrives with enormous consequence.' Directed by Jonathan Fox, The Invisible Handalso stars Mujahid Abdul-Rashid and Sarang Sharma. This Southern California premiere runs at the New Vic Theater April 12-April 29th, and then moves to the English Theater Frankfurt in May.

Punk's not dead! So says Out of the Box Theater Company, who brings Green Day's American Idiot to Center Stage Theater April 6-15.

High school theater programs are faced with an interesting set of challenges that professional or community theatre companies don't necessarily experience. The age and commensurate maturity of the student actors limits the type of works that can be meaningfully and effectively produced, and there's the practical consideration of aligning the choice of production with the available student population, whether that be an overabundance or dearth of performers. Beyond that, program directors are also educators, thus beholden to the cultural regulations of the school's environment. Finding a quality play that meets these requirements can be challenging, and often the options are 'experienced' classics that have little situational relateability to a cast born in the new millennia.