Barbara Meister News

Rubicon Theatre Company has announced the launch of its new special event series, “VENTURA LIVE! Music, Laughter and Magic,” featuring one-night and short-run concerts, jam sessions, new play readings, magic nights, comedy, and much more.

RUBICON THEATRE, Ventura County’s leading not-for-profit theatrical organization committed to entertaining, engaging and enriching the lives of the region’s residents and visitors through innovative live performances, has unveiled the company’s highly anticipated 25th Anniversary “Silver” Season, entitled TRULY YOURS. 

Rubicon Theatre, Ventura County's leading not-for-profit professional theatre company, committed to entertaining, engaging and enriching the community through live performance, has announced the eagerly anticipated Kids for Kids Benefit Concert, “WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW…” an enchanting evening of music and entertainment featuring the timeless melodies of Burt Bacharach and Friends, Saturday, August 19th at 7:00 PM.

Rubicon Theatre Company, Ventura County's leading not-for-profit theatrical organization committed to entertaining, engaging and enriching the community through live performance, has unveiled its highly anticipated 2023 Summer Education Season, this year entitled “Love Conquers All.”

Rubicon Theatre Company of Ventura begins the new year with the West Coast Premiere of NEVER NOT ONCE, a powerful, compelling and timely new drama by CAREY CRIM. The production premiered earlier this season at JEFF DANIELS' Purple Rose Theatre. NEVER NOT ONCE previews February 5-7 and opens February 8 at Rubicon's home, 1006 E. Main Street in Ventura's Downtown Cultural District, continuing Wednesdays through Sundays through February 23. A thought-provoking response to the #MeToo movement, NEVER NOT ONCE is about the families we choose, and the secrets that can pull them apart. The production is helmed by Brit KATHARINE FARMER, who has directed acclaimed Rubicon productions of Gulf View Drive (Ovation Award, Best Production of a Play, Larger Theatre), Incognito (West Coast Premiere), Heisenberg with Faline England and Joe Spano, and South Pacific (all Critic's Choices in the L.A. Times). For tickets, call 805.667.2900 or go to www.rubicontheatre.org. 

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.

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 Company closes the 2019 Jackie Oakie Summer Youth Program with the Tony Award-winning musical Into the Woods. Twenty-seven young performers tell the story of how to get your a?oehappily ever aftera?? -- and what happens once you have it. Into the Woods is one of Sondheim's most highly regarded shows with a remarkable score.

Casting has been announced for the World Premiere of THE BABY DANCE: MIXED, a new adaptation by Emmy Award-winner JANE ANDERSON ("Olive Kitteridge") of her acclaimed 2004 play The Baby Dance. A drama delicately laced with comic overtones, THE BABY DANCE: MIXED is a compelling and urgent play about race, class, and wanting the perfect child. In the story, Regina and Richard, an affluent mixed-race couple in Los Angeles, have everything except a baby. Wanda and Al, an African-American couple living in an overcrowded trailer in modern-day Louisiana, are too poor to keep their soon-to-be-born child. Through an adoption attorney, the two couples broker a deal. However, circumstances arise that affect their decision and the situation spins out of control. The Wall Street Journal described The Baby Dance as "filled with emotional power and nimble humor." The L.A. Times called it "a stunner…funny as well as perceptive."

Casting has been announced for the World Premiere of THE BABY DANCE: MIXED, a new adaptation by Emmy Award-winner JANE ANDERSON ('Olive Kitteridge') of her acclaimed 2004 play The Baby Dance. A drama delicately laced with comic overtones, THE BABY DANCE: MIXED is a compelling and urgent play about race, class, and wanting the perfect child.

Rubicon Theatre presents a timely and trenchant production of Shakespeare's tragedy KING LEAR as the centerpiece of the company's 20th Anniversary Season. Directed by Co-Founder James O'Neil, the production features a 20-member cast led by acclaimed actor and company member George Ball, who has starred in previous Rubicon productions of All My Sons, Man of La Mancha, and Jacques Brel… (New York, L.A., and international companies of the latter).

Rubicon Theatre presents a timely and trenchant production of Shakespeare's tragedy KING LEAR as the centerpiece of the company's 20th Anniversary Season. Directed by Co-Founder James O'Neil, the production features a 20-member cast led by acclaimed actor and company memberGeorge Ball, who has starred in previous Rubicon productions of All My Sons, Man of La Mancha, and Jacques Brel… (New York, L.A., and international companies of the latter).

Rubicon Theatre today announced casting for KING LEAR, the centerpiece of the company's 20th Anniversary Season. Timely and trenchant,LEAR is the story of a narcissistic ruler who craves adulation, casts out those who doubt his decisions, and neglects those on the fringes of society. Considered by many to be Shakespeare's greatest masterpiece, KING LEAR is a haunting and epic saga of love, greed, family strife, and civil war.

Rubicon Theatre Company presents the outrageously funny, critically-acclaimed comedy Buyer & Cellar by Jonathan Tolins. The production is directed by Ovation Award-winner Stephanie A. Coltrin and stars award-winning actor and Rubicon's Associate Artistic Director Brian McDonald. Inspired by Barbra Streisand's book My Passion for Design, Tolins' one-man, tour-de-force is described by the N.Y. Times as a seriously funny slice of absurdist whimsy about the price of fame, the cost of things, and the oddest of odd jobs. Winner of the 2013 Drama Desk Award for Best Play, this Off-Broadway sensation follows a struggling actor named Alex who winds up working for an unnamed show-business legend in her Malibu basement mall. An unlikely friendship develops between the two from which Alex learns profound lessons about himself.

Rubicon Theatre Company (RTC) opens the company's 2017-2018 20th Anniversary Season with a provocative and gripping drama based on the story of German conductor and composer Wilhelm Furtw ngler, who remained in Germany after Hitler's rise to power and was later accused of being a Nazi sympathizer.

Rubicon Theatre Company (RTC) is pleased to announce the cast for the West Coast premiere of NICK PAYNE'S profoundly moving play INCOGNITO, directed by Ovation nominee and Indy Award-winner KATHARINE FARMER. This dazzling new drama explores what it means to be human and how memory and imagination shape our identities.

How much of our identity is created by our minds and our memories? Award-winning playwright Nick Payne (Constellations) explores this question in the Southern California Premiere of his dazzling new play about what it means to be human. Four actors play 21 characters in interwoven stories (some based on true events) that examine the extent to which our identities and our choices are governed by the complex and delicate mechanisms of the brain. Payne's moving and deeply profound play seeks to make sense of the relationship between the physical and metaphysical. Directed by Indy Award-winning director Katharine Farmer (The Nibroc Trilogy),

'A Whole New World' kicks off the summer youth program with Aladdin JR., based on the iconic animated film and featuring an Academy Award-winning score by Alan Menken, Howard Ashman and Tim Rice. Soar to new heights on a magical, flying carpet ride filled with romance, adventure and hilarious hijinks. When street urchin Aladdin vies for the attention of the beautiful princess, Jasmine, he uses a genie's magic power to become a prince in order to marry her. Iago, Jafar, the Genie and more beloved characters come to life in this fantastical musical that celebrates the power of love and friendship. Aladdin JR. is directed and choreographed by Carolanne Marano, with Musical Direction by Miriam Arichea. The production opens July 7 and runs for 5 performances only through July 9.

The name Nannerl Mozart has been a footnote in classical music history, but Sylvia Milo's award-winning play THE OTHER MOZART reveals the extraordinary talents and rich inner life of Amadeus Wolfgang Mozart's sister, whose artistry was stifled and whose compositions were ultimately lost to the world because of her gender. Previews begin May 31 for Rubicon Theatre Company presentation of the acclaimed Off-Broadway drama the N.Y. Times describes as "strikingly beautiful."

The dog days of summer arrive early this year, as Rubicon Theatre Company presents a spring production of A.R. Gurney's howlingly funny canine comedy SYLVIA, a love story about empty nesters Greg and Kate, and an irrepressible mutt named Sylvia. Written by Drama Desk, Obie and Lortel Award-winning playwright A.R. Gurney (also known for Love Letters and The Dining Room), the plot follows what happens after a man going through a midlife crisis finds a dog in Central Park and brings her home without consulting his wife.