C ALENDAR OF Note to readers: This entertainment calendar is a subjective sampling of arts and other events taking place in the Santa Barbara area for the next week. It is by no means comprehensive. Be sure to read feature stories in each issue that complement the calendar. In order to be considered for inclusion in this calendar, information must be submitted no later than noon on the Wednesday eight days prior to publication date. Please send all news releases and digital artwork to slibowitz@yahoo.com)
ENDING THIS WEEK Launch Pad Lite – UCSB’s innovative new play development program, which offers a playwright the opportunity to have a play in progress produced in a safe environment with eager student actors over an extended period – has proven successful and popular over its nine years. Since its inception in 2005, the department has developed and produced nine plays with the playwright in residence. Now comes Launch Pad’s inaugural summer reading series. New Plays in Process invited three professional playwrights to join the UCSB community as artists in residence in a summer course. In collaboration with artistic director Risa Brainin, the program features a team of undergraduate designers, actors, stage managers, dramaturgs, directors, and playwrights, and culminates in open rehearsals or public readings on Thursday evenings. Barbara Lebow’s Gun Play kicked things off last week. July 3 brings a public reading with audience Q&A of Jami Brandli’s ¡Soldadera!, described as part-epic and part-grotesque comedy, is set in the Mexican Revolution during The Day of Dead Feast and features Mexican folks songs in a play about class, sexism, love, tradition, the romanticism of war juxtaposed with its reality, forgotten
women, myths, and fantasy. The series closes Thursday, July 10, with The Velvet Weapon, by Deborah Brevoort, who is a two-time winner of the Frederick Loewe Award for King Island Christmas with David Friedman and Coyote Goes Salmon Fishing with Scott Richards, and might be best known for The Women of Lockerbie, which is performed throughout the United States and internationally. The Velvet Weapon is a backstage farce about a matinee audience rising up in protest over what is being performed on stage, demanding something new and beginning their own impromptu performance of the title work, a play by an unproduced playwright of questionable talent. The work was inspired by Brevoort’s interviews with 43 ringleaders of the Velvet Revolution, which marked the end of Soviet Rule in the former Czechoslovakia. WHEN: 7 pm WHERE: Theater/Dance West, Room 1507, UCSB campus COST: free INFO: www.theaterdance.ucsb.edu THURSDAY, JULY 3 Un-Dead, Not Crow-ing – It’s an intelligent jam band fan’s delight of a double bill tonight at the Santa Barbara Bowl, where Bob Weir, a founding member of the seminal San Francisco
ONGOING Concerts in the Park – The wildly popular program from Santa Barbara Parks & Rec department, has returned to Chase Palm Park across Cabrillo Boulevard from the beach. This is where singles, visitors, families, and music lovers gather each Thursday for the presunset concerts that starts with picnicking and socializing, and almost always gets listeners up and dancing on the lawn in front of the stage. The series kicks off tonight with Sgt. Peppers, the Los Angeles-based Beatles tribute band that was a big hit when they played the same gig a few years ago. The group plays two full sets of Fab Four favorites, dressed up alternately in The Ed Sullivan Show black suits, the Shea Stadium jackets, the Sgt. Peppers outfits, and the Abbey Road attire. To enhance the experience, they also employ the same vintage instruments and amplifiers used by The Beatles to get make the tribute as close as possible to the real thing. Coming July 10: Captain Cardiac & the Coronaries, whose garish costumes and fun-loving approach to 1950s and ‘60s rock ‘n’ roll – which includes frequent forays into the crowd – has made them an annual series favorite. July 17: Savor, the second in a trio of tribute bands in the park this summer. Savor favors Santana, the great Latin-rock band with roots going back to the late 1960s, including an incendiary appearance at the original Woodstock Music Festival. WHEN: 6-8:30 pm WHERE: 323 East Cabrillo Boulevard COST: free INFO: www.santabarbaraca.gov/gov/depts/parksrec/recreation/ events/parkrec/concerts.asp
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EVENTS by Steven Libowitz
FRIDAY, JULY 4 Patriotic Concert – The West Coast Symphony Orchestra has taken over the Fourth of July slot once occupied by the pop portion of the Santa Barbara Symphony for a patriotic concert full of fun and cheer, perfect as a prelude to the fireworks. American music classics to be performed by the orchestra include “Summertime” from George Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess; “Hoe-Down” from Aaron Copland’s ballet Rodeo; highlights from Camelot; Morton Gould’s “American Salute”; American pride songs including “America The Beautiful”, “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, and “God Bless America”; and traditional 4th of July marches by John Phillips Sousa including, of course, “Stars and Stripes Forever”. The concert will also feature The Channel City Barbershop Chorus in a medley of other popular favorites. The concert will be conducted by Christopher Story VI – who founded the Cielo Foundation for the Performing Arts in 1969 and produced a Fiesta Concert by the West Coast Symphony at the Santa Barbara County Courthouse Sunken Gardens that August and every subsequent year, and Dr. Michael Shasberger, professor of music and worship at Westmont College. Remember to bring blankets and/or lawn chairs, and fixins for picnicking on the lovely lawn in the Sunken Gardens. WHEN: 5 pm WHERE: 1100 Anacapa Street COST: free INFO: www. CieloPerformingArts.org band The Grateful Dead (he contributed “Truckin’” and “Sugar Magnolia” to the catalog of classics, among others), and his band RatDog share the stage with Chris Robinson Brotherhood, led by the Black Crowes singer-guitarist. RatDog was Weir’s sideband even during his Dead days, beginning life back in the 1980s as his project with string bassist Rob Wasserman and percussionist Jay Lane. These days, the trio is accompanied by keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, guitarist Steve Kimock, and bassist Robin Sylvester. CRB, as the Brotherhood is known, performed a memorable residency at SOhO back in spring 2011, when the band – featuring Neal Casal (guitar, vocals), Adam Macdougall (keys, vocals), George Sluppick (drums), and Mark Dutton (bass, vocals) – was just getting together and had yet to release any recordings. There have been three CDs since those heady, formative days, including Phosphorescent Harvest, released this past April. Note the early start time, giving the two bands a collective five hours to get their ya-ya’s (and wah-wahs) out. WHEN: 5 pm WHERE: 1122 North Milpas Street COST: $48.50-$68.50 INFO: 962-7411 or www.sbbowl.com 1st Thursday of Summer – The sounds of the Summer Solstice celebration return – or at least some of them. More than 100 performers participated in Panzumo’s entry in the parade; there won’t be quite as
• The Voice of the Village •
many doing the Afro-Brazilian thing this evening on the patio in front of Marshall’s but expect plenty of rhythm, song & dance, which is also the title of the ensemble’s popular workshop.... Over at Sojourner Cafe, it’s the Debra Farris Band unplugged, a quieter version of the group that played midday last Sunday led by Farris, who coordinated the entire entertainment lineup at Alameda Park. Special Solstice bonus: Kevin Steele’s photography from parade’s past hangs on the walls of the ever-popular eatery, which will also offer wine tasting.... Scott Topper is one of the city’s top DJs, but he’s also a guitarist and singer who forms one half of Mon-e-luv with Mitch Karno on ukulele, keyboards and vocals. The dynamic duo play fun, lively, danceable originals and cover songs from “Margaritaville” and “Brown Eyed Girl” to “Twist & Shout” and “Sweet Home Alabama.” Hmm. Just like you might hear when Topper spins the discs, too. Get down to the live sounds over at Paseo Nuevo Center Court.... In the visual arts side, CASA Magazine’s downtown offices takes note of summer vacation with the exhibition “Teachers Break to Create”, comprised of figure drawings, paintings, sketches, and prints by local art educators.... With Solstice in the rear-view mirror, the Santa Barbara Historical Museum is gearing up for Old Spanish Days, which turns 90 with this year’s Fiesta, starting at the end of the month. The exhibition
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