BWW Interview: Playwright Jane Anderson Discusses the Relevance of THE BABY DANCE: MIXED a the Rubicon
by Don Grigware
- May 7, 2018
Playwright Jane Anderson was revered for the Baby Dance and is currently represented at the Rubicon Theatre in Ventura with the Baby Dance: Mixed. In our conversation she tells us about the urgency of the updated, practically new play.
Will you talk at length about the play and why the update at this time?
I wrote the original Baby Dance in 1989 and the main theme of the play was about the class divide in America - white America, that is. The adopting couple from Los Angles were affluent, educated and liberal. The birth couple were desperately poor, uneducated and living in a trailer park in the south. Both couples were white and the conflict between them was cultural and economic.
Many years later, Jenny Sullivan, who directed the or
Photo Flash: First Look at Rubicon Theatre Company's THE BABY DANCE: MIXED
by Stephi Wild
- May 6, 2018
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."
Rubicon Theatre Co Continues 20th Anniversary Season with THE BABY DANCE: MIXED
by Julie Musbach
- Apr 19, 2018
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 Company Presents Brian McDonald Starring in BUYER & CELLAR
by Julie Musbach
- Jan 16, 2018
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 Reaches Out for Thomas Fire Relief
by BWW News Desk
- Dec 13, 2017
A week ago, the artists of Rubicon Theatre of Ventura were in final dress rehearsals for the first show of the company's 20th Anniversary Season - an original adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol by Producing Artistic Director Karyl Lynn Burns. The next day, rehearsals came to a halt when the electricity went out in the building; staff, cast and crew were evacuated, and fires throughout the area came within blocks of the theatre. The Thomas Fire, as it has come to be called, has since engulfed more than 230,000 acres and destroyed more than 500 homes and structures in the area (135 in the City of Ventura). At this time, the fire is 15% contained. Recognizing that the whole community is affected and that local support must go to basic needs in Ventura, Rubicon is reaching out across the nation to ask for support from other theatre communities.
Rubicon Theatre Company presents CHARLES DICKENS' A CHRISTMAS CAROL
by BWW
News Desk
- Dec 13, 2017
Rubicon Theatre Company kicks off its 20th Anniversary Season with the return of the critically-acclaimed holiday hit CHARLES DICKENS' A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Broadway, TV and film veterans Peter Van Norden (RTC's Taking Sides, Copenhagen) and Emmy Award-winner Joe Spano ( NCIS, RTC's Bucky) reprise their roles as Scrooge and Marley, respectively, in this innovative telling of Dickens' timeless tale of transformation and redemption. Adapted by Producing Artistic Director Karyl Lynn Burns and directed by Brian McDonald, the 27-member cast features many of the same actors from the original production that earned a Critic's Pick in the Los Angeles Times and rave reviews from Ventura County Star, CASA Magazine, VIDA Magazine and the Ventura Breeze. This imaginative version of Dickens' novella offers a revealing portrait of the yearning, lost child inside the cold-hearted miserly man. Actors perform in the storytelling style of the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Nicholas Nickleby, playing characters, animals even dressing gowns and doors! CHARLES DICKENS' A CHRISTMAS CAROL opens in Ventura on Saturday, December 9at 7:00 p.m. followed by an after-party at Rhumb Line Restaurant. Low-priced previews are December 6-8. The show runs Todays through Sundays through December 23.
Rubicon Theatre Company presents CHARLES DICKENS' A CHRISTMAS CAROL
by A.A. Cristi
- Nov 22, 2017
Rubicon Theatre Company kicks off its 20th Anniversary Season with the return of the critically-acclaimed holiday hit CHARLES DICKENS' A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Broadway, TV and film veterans Peter Van Norden (RTC's Taking Sides, Copenhagen) and Emmy Award-winner Joe Spano ( NCIS, RTC's Bucky) reprise their roles as Scrooge and Marley, respectively, in this innovative telling of Dickens' timeless tale of transformation and redemption. Adapted by Producing Artistic Director Karyl Lynn Burns and directed by Brian McDonald, the 27-member cast features many of the same actors from the original production that earned a Critic's Pick in the Los Angeles Times and rave reviews from Ventura County Star, CASA Magazine, VIDA Magazine and the Ventura Breeze. This imaginative version of Dickens' novella offers a revealing portrait of the yearning, lost child inside the cold-hearted miserly man. Actors perform in the storytelling style of the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Nicholas Nickleby, playing characters, animals even dressing gowns and doors! CHARLES DICKENS' A CHRISTMAS CAROL opens in Ventura on Saturday, December 9at 7:00 p.m. followed by an after-party at Rhumb Line Restaurant. Low-priced previews are December 6-8. The show runs Wednesdays through Sundays through December 23.
Art and Politics Will Collide in Rubicon's TAKING SIDES
by Julie Musbach
- Oct 13, 2017
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 presents Southern California Premiere of INCOGNITO
by A.A. Cristi
- Jul 20, 2017
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),
Rubicon Theatre Company Presents THE OTHER MOZART
by Julie Musbach
- May 20, 2017
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."
Photo Flash: The Dog Days of Summer Arrive Early in SYLVIA
by Julie Musbach
- Apr 22, 2017
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.
The Dog Days of Summer Arrive Early with A.R. Gurney's Comedy SYLVIA
by A.A. Cristi
- Apr 3, 2017
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.
Photo Flash: Rubicon Theatre Company Celebrates Black History Month with THE DEVIL'S MUSIC: THE LIFE AND BLUES OF BESSIE SMITH
by Julie Musbach
- Feb 26, 2017
Rubicon Theatre Company celebrates Black History Month with THE DEVIL'S MUSIC: THE LIFE AND BLUES OF BESSIE SMITH, starring singer and actress Miche Braden of the original Off-Broadway production (named one of the 10 Best Off-Broadway productions of the year by the N.Y. Daily Times). Described by CBC as a, "bawdy, bluesy, boozy rollicking night out at the theatre," the show follows the life, loves and career of blues and jazz singer Bessie Smith, called the "Empress of the Blues."
Rubicon Theatre Company Presents THE DEVIL'S MUSIC: THE LIFE AND BLUES OF BESSIE SMITH
by A.A. Cristi
- Feb 9, 2017
Rubicon Theatre Company celebrates Black History Month with THE DEVIL'S MUSIC: THE LIFE AND BLUES OF BESSIE SMITH, starring singer and actress Miche Braden of the original Off-Broadway production (named one of the 10 Best Off-Broadway productions of the year by the N.Y. Daily Times). Described by CBC as a, "bawdy, bluesy, boozy rollicking night out at the theatre," the show follows the life, loves and career of blues and jazz singer Bessie Smith, called the "Empress of the Blues."
Rubicon Theatre Company Presents Free Reading of THE THREE SISTERS BRONTE
by A.A. Cristi
- Jan 30, 2017
Award-winning playwright Arlene Hutton's newest play THE THREE SISTERS BRONTË receives a FREE staged reading at Rubicon Theatre Company on February 6 at 7:00 p.m. Interweaving the famous trio of literary sisters and Anton Chekhov's masterpiece Three Sisters, the play examines the complexities of feminism, art, love and family. Set against the bleak and windy Yorkshire moors in the mid-1800s, Arlene Hutton's THE THREE SISTERS BRONTË follows the lives of the sisters as they struggle to find creative prosperity while navigating the harsh realities of a male society. Faced with limited opportunities for educated women, Charlotte, Emily and Anne live in the rich worlds of their imaginations, until they are forced to face the truth that nothing is certain, and their destinies are best served when held firmly in their own hands.
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