Summer Stages: Top Picks for Santa Barbara Theatre

SUMMER THEATRE PICKS - SANTA BARBARA

Santa Barbara brings monsters, murder, and mayhem to the stage this summer. Here are our picks for fun summer performances in the Santa Barbara area!

The Theatre Group at Santa Barbara City College presents ARSENIC AND OLD LACE July 11-July 26.

Nothing says summer like delightful old ladies with murderous intentions. A black comedy that is sure to delight, Joseph Kesselring's play follows Mortimer Brewster as he navigates his own complicated love life while also handling the small issue of his out-of-control, homicidal family-including two old aunts who've made a hobby of poisoning their elderly gentlemen callers with arsenic.

For further information, please click here.

Circle Bar B presents MURDER BY THE BOOK at the Circle Bar B Ranch May 30-July 13.

Circle Bar B presents more mid-summer murder. Duncan Greenwood's play about a thriller novelist who exchanges witty, rancorous banter with his estranged wife until she creates a crime-scene mystery of her own by turning a gun on him will be a sharp, entertaining way to spend an evening out at the Circle Bar B Ranch. Penned with a nod to the style of thrillers the main character writes, MURDER BY THE BOOK provides clever repartee and a maze of plot twists and red herrings. Come for dinner, stay for theatre!

For information, please click here.

E nsemble Theatre presents LOOPED at the New Vic July 10-July 27.

In the last show of their first season at the New Vic, Ensemble takes on LOOPED, a comedy based on an actual recording session in which the inebriated actress Tallulah Bankhead needed 8 hours to redub one line of dialogue for a film. Bankhead's flamboyant personality played against the frustration of Danny Miller, the director of that particular sound session, will provide clever, humorous theatre to satisfy the whims of Santa Barbara's bons vivants.

For information, please click here.

Santa Barbara Performing and Visual Arts Camp presents SHREK: THE MUSICAL July 25-July 26

This one is for the kids. SB Performing and Visual Arts camp is showcasing talent from local youths ages 8-15 in SHREK: THE MUSICAL. Directed by Austin Escamilla, choreographed by Jessica Hambright, music direction by Dauri Kennedy. This will be a boisterous performance for the family. Come support local youth theatre!

For information, please email Jessica Hambright: Jessica@sbsopa.com

The Hollywood Fringe Festival presents THE CAVE: A FOLK OPERA June 14-June 22.

For those of you willing to travel, The Hollywood Fringe Festival is producing THE CAVE: A FOLK OPERA at the Three Clubs Cocktail Lounge in Hollywood. This play, inspired by the Persephone myth, features a number of local Santa Barbara performers. Set in an opium den in the early 20th century and told entirely through folk music, THE CAVE promises to be a dark, beautiful pleasure for the senses.

For more information, please click here.

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