ENTERTAINMENT (Continued from page 33) Lizzie Borden takes an axe to Center Stage
cellist Joanne de Mars for Marcel Dupré’s Sonata for cello and organ in a minor, Op. 60 and then teams with pianist Christopher Davis in Alexandre Guilmant’s Pastorale, Op. 26 (1870). Joyce will also perform Enrico Bossi’s Étude Symphonique, Op. 78 for solo organ. De Mars also performs her own piece, “For the Sea”, for solo cello. Rounding out the program is a performance of Paul Hindemith’s Kleine Kammermusik, Op. 24 for woodwind quintet, with Jane Hahn, flute; Louis Grace, oboe; Per Elmfors, clarinet; Paul Mori, bassoon; and Johann Trujillo, horn. Visit www.sbmusicclub.org for more information about the 3 pm concert on Saturday, November 5.
ridiculous,” Eve said. “The entire cast got equally interested – we read trial records and had debates in rehearsal about who might be involved in the murders. It’s been pretty intense, because the entire story is condensed into these four characters.” The gruesome act and the trial in its aftermath, with the insights both real and invented, are delivered nearly entirely via songs and music, most of it quite adventurous and buoyed by unusual chord progressions and layered harmonies. “It’s not like any other musical I know,” Eve agreed. “These are songs that stand on their own. And it’s great these girls (the cast) can do the songs justice.”
Music Behind the Murders
(Lizzie run November 3-13 at Center Stage Theater in Paseo Nuevo Mall. Tickets cost $28 general, $18 student and seniors. Call 963-0408 or visit www.centerstagetheater.org.)
The saga of likely axe-wielding double-murderess has been turned into a punk rock-fueled musical that makes its local debut kicking off Out of the Box Theatre Company’s seventh season beginning Thursday. The late 19th-century murders in Massachusetts became the fodder for a children’s rhyming couple (“Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother forty whacks / When she saw what she had done, gave her father forty-one”), but the infamous story has been given a more complex modern-day twist of empowered women. “The story is a hypothetical,” said director Samantha Eve. “The (writers) used the facts as a jumping-off point to come up with what might have happened, a story behind real problems that led to the murders, which were so compelling kids are jumping rope to it all these years later.” It wouldn’t be inaccurate to suggest the parallel that the case also captured Eve’s attention as well as the cast of four actresses, including Katie Moya, Amy Soriano-Palagi, Samantha Corbett, and Sydney Wesson who portray Lizzie, her sister Emma, the family maid, and Lizzie’s gal pal Alice Russell. “I did so much research, it’s actually 3 – 10 November 2016
Student Theater
Elsewhere in theater, it’s all about the youngsters, as three different educational institutions offer student productions. Montecito-raised actress-educator Riley Berris directs as San Marcos High School presents its fall production of You Can’t Take It With You this weekend. The Pulitzer-prize winning play by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman is a heart-warming and humorous tale of love and acceptance about an eccentric family that welcomes any and visitors to their household. Nineteen student actors make up the cast for this complex comedy in three acts with numerous roles and plot twists and turns. Performances are at 7 pm on Thursday-Saturday, November 3-5, and 2 pm Sunday at San Marcos High School Theater. Tickets cost $6 to $12. Call 967- 4581 or visit www.shopsm royals.org. UCS’s LAUNCH PAD project is workshopping Bernhard, a new play by Lynn Rosen inspired by the current refugee crisis and political trends across the globe, as well as the compelling life of Austrian author
Thomas Bernhard. The dark comedy about one young man’s unpredictable and harrowing journey to find his mother during war time delves into his challenges not only to survive but also retain the qualities that make us human: faith, hope, and an ability to love. The cast of 11 are all a part of UCSB’s BFA acting program and not only act but also utilize their various musical talents, singing, dancing, and playing live instruments to music composed by James Connolly. The LAUNCH PAD program allows the playwright to develop the work during the rehearsal process and during the workshop run itself, as both Rosen – a resident playwright at New Dramatists in New York City who also co-writes and co-created the award-winning comedic web series Darwin – and director Anne Torsiglieri have the ability to change the piece at any point. Bernhard plays 8 pm November 4-5 and 8-12, plus 2 pm November 6 and 12-13 at UCSB Performing Arts Theater. General admission is $17, or $13 for students, seniors, and children. Call 893-7221 or visit www. theaterdance.ucsb.edu. College students are also the stars when SBCC Theatre Arts revisits a choice slate of one-acts by the great and prolific playwright David Ives. A selection of hilarious comedies from Ives, who was last represented in town two years ago when Ensemble Theater closed out its 2014-15 season with his provocative and incisive two-character play Venus in Fur. Now we’ll get quicker versions of his wit in the one-acts including Arabian Nights; Universal Language; Time Flies; Foreplay; Words, Words, Words and A Singular Guy. Burak Atsan, Blake Benlan, Paul Brooks, Paisley ForsterSaunders, J. Dean Garcia, Linnea Gustafsson, Austin Hall, Malena McKaba, Benjamin McSherry, Shay Munroe, Eric Naiff, Kerstin Nguyen, Lovisa Samuelsson, Kendrick Surrell, and Johnny Waaler are the players who will bring the laughter engendered by some of the cleverest lines in mostly, regular situations, presented in the close-up intimacy of the Jurkowitz Theatre on SBCC’s West Campus. Show times are 7:30 pm Wednesday through Saturday and 2 pm Saturdays and Sundays, November 9-19. Tickets cost $18 for general admission ($15 seniors; $10 students). Call 965-5935 or visit www.theatregroupsbcc.com.
5 Questions: Props for Proops
Greg Proops was 19 when he first saw an improv show in college in San Francisco in 1978, and thought “I can do that!” Now, nearly four decades later, the style of comedy where it all gets made up on the spot via sugges-
A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight but won’t cross the street to vote in a national election. ~ Bill Vaughan
tions from the audience and volleying with your scene partners still drives his career that has been anchored by performing with the long-running improvised comedy TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway? since the original version for the BBC in England. Proops joins fellow show regular Ryan Stiles and recurring player Jeff B. Davis along with comedian Joel Murray for the latest touring version of Whose Line, which makes another stop at the Granada Theater on Wednesday night, November 9. You’ll see spontaneous versions of some of the favorite games from the TV show, including, most likely, at least three that involve volunteers from the audience assisting the cast – Moving People, Sound Effects, Song Styles, and even Story Story. “We like to mix it up and goof around. So it could be anything,” Proops said over the phone recently. “But no hoedown. We all hate it.” Q. What was it about improv that first appealed to you, and does it still have the same pull? A. It was amazing that it’s made up right there in the moment. The freedom really appealed to me and I wasn’t afraid at all. And I still love it, absolutely. You have to want to do it to the exclusion of everything else because desire is about 90 percent of it. I still want to get out there and murderize every night. Fortunately, those periods where I can’t write or don’t think I’m funny are very short, and I just push through them. The sheer luck of being able to make a living doing this isn’t lost on me at all. Do you have personal favorites among the Whose Line games? Oh, I don’t care. I like them all. Film and Theater Styles is a favorite because I like working in various genres. But it really doesn’t matter to me. We’re all supposed to be able to improvise to everything. Being selective about what you’re good at only makes you be not-so-good at other things. So, we’re always throwing curveballs at each other to make sure we don’t get too safe. Sometimes we spend more time making fun of each other than we do in the actual games. In that moment when a scene first starts and you’re not sure where it’s going, what goes through your mind? I just keep my mind blank so I don’t get ahead of the game. Just be receptive and channel what’s going on. And don’t edit yourself too much. Just say what you’re thinking. What I learned from Ryan over the years is the importance of listening. You don’t have to rush through but can slow down
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