with non-actors and make it accessible to audiences? My work has always been about giving voice to those who are under-represented. This series creates a space for people to speak for themselves about how it is to be a member of a marginalized community... We don’t have to bring in actors, which would just muddy the water. What you see on stage are the actual people whose experiences are being conveyed – there’s power in being with the people who these things have happened to. So, I managed to find a way of doing this that allows them to be who they are but within the structure that keeps it musical, keeps the rhythm of the show entertaining. The art of storytelling is the oldest form of theater. But this goes beyond oral history because the cast not only tells their own stories but they also become the characters in each others stories, giving voice to the people in each other’s lives – it’s interwoven. Do you think it’s made much of a difference? We’ve been doing it for 25 years, so it clearly is a successful process. People engage with it. What happens is you see the other. And by the end of the show you realize that the other has the same humanity that you do. That’s the goal of this project. At first they seem different; by the end they’re human beings. You move beyond your prejudices, past the stereotyping, and just see the people.
Shakespeare @400.SantaBarbara
Santa Barbara is celebrating the life and work of Shakespeare on the 400th anniversary of his death by hosting a series of performances, including three plays and a screening of short films, by an international coalition of theaters and arts organizations from Thursday to Sunday, November 17-20. The festival opens with a new work titled Pop-Up Shakespeare, co-produced by Lit Moon and the Bitola National Theatre of Macedonia, from 5 to 7:45
pm on Thursday when events will be held both in the interior and exterior of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, including the galleries and front steps as well as Mary Craig Auditorium. The short plays and performance pieces were inspired by Shakespeare’s sonnets interpreted by the Santa Bitola Theatre Company, a combined group of artists from Lit Moon and Bitola. Selected films will be screened from The Complete Walk, a project presented by Shakespeare’s Globe in London earlier this year that included 37 films, each 10 minutes long, that explore one of Shakespeare’s plays. They were first shown on screens spanning the iconic 2.5-mile stretch from Westminster Bridge to Tower Bridge over the Thames River during two days in April. Admission is free. Next on the festival program is Westmont College Festival Theatre’s production of As You Like It, staged at 7:30 pm Friday in Westmont’s Porter Theatre. Tickets cost $12 for general admission, $7 for students, seniors, and children. Julius Caesar, staged by Lit Moon, hits the Porter stage on Saturday at 7:30 pm. Tickets cost $20 for general admission, $15 for students, seniors, and children. Bitola’s Anthony and Cleopatra, featuring actors from Europe speaking Macedonian, rounds out the live performances on Sunday at 5 pm in the Santa Barbara Courthouse Sunken Gardens. Admission is free. Westmont will also screen all 37 films in The Complete Walk between 10 am and 5 pm on Saturday, projecting the 10-minute shorts starring some of England’s finest actors in multiple spaces and locations on the college campus in Montecito, the only U.S. site to do so as yet. The films will be shown in six separate venues grouped in chronological order relative to Shakespeare’s creation of the plays. Audiences can watch the plays in chronological order or choose their own adventure, dropping in and out of screenings and watching in any order they wish. Free admission. For more information, call 565-6051 or visit
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The Power of Piano
Nir Kabaretti is a big fan of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No 1, calling the famed work “probably the most perfect piano piece imaginable, because it has everything virtuosic, including heroic piano writing, but at the same time is extremely accessible” – so much so that some of the passages “you can hear on cells phones as ring tones.” “Tchaikovsky captured pretty much everything audiences love: incredibly difficult and fast passages for the pianist, beautiful lines and melodies for the orchestra,” said the music director of the Santa Barbara Symphony, which will perform the piece on this weekend’s program. “There are extremely romantic and warm phrases combined with breathtaking portions for pianist, where he has to play octaves and even more difficult passages.” It’s that last part that engenders something in Kabaretti that conductors aren’t normally known for – empathy. “Whether I’m on the podium or in the audience, I always feel for the pianist,” Kabaretti admitted. “Can he or she make it through this part? It’s like watching the Olympic games – can they beat the clock and establish a new record? I always feel that suspense.” Kabaretti has a strong sense of security in the choice of soloists for the demanding work, however, as Markus Groh comes with an impressive pedigree. Groh, who will be making his Santa Barbara Symphony debut, rose to prominence when he became the first German to win Belgium’s prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition in 1995 and has since performed with some of the world’s leading orchestras, including the London Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, and the San Francisco Symphony. “He’s one of the most sought-after soloists,” Kabaretti noted. “We’re real-
ly thrilled to have someone on that kind of level, popular on the international map. He’s considered a very deep and serious artist. It’s a privilege to collaborate with this caliber of pianist.” But tackling the Tchaikovsky will be only part of Groh’s duties in the concerts Saturday night and Sunday afternoon at the Granada Theatre. Prior to playing that piece, Groh will join symphony principal pianist Natasha Kislenko for Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos in the work’s debut with the orchestra. The work represents a rare presentation of a concerto for multiple soloists for the Santa Barbara ensemble, which is something of an anomaly in the classical repertoire on its own. What also sets the Mozart apart is that the composer wrote it to play with his sister, which made for an usual approach. “The orchestra part is more in the background,” Kabaretti explained. “The soloists have a dialogue between them, rather than with the orchestra. They divide the solos between them, and the individual parts are not that individually difficult as with a typical concerto.” Opening the concerts is Manuel de Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain, featuring Kislenko in the solo piano. Only it’s not really a typical solo, Kabaretti said. “The pianist is featured within the orchestral environment,” he explained. “It’s treated as an equal in the orchestra rather than in dialogue with the ensemble. The piano emerges within the orchestra, mostly as just another color playing some beautiful parts within the piece. There are some impressionist moments amid the Spanish elements and brilliant orchestrations. It’s very interesting and different.” As is the whole program, peppered throughout with piano. “People love piano, so we thought it would be nice to turn the whole program into a piano showcase, and the instrument in these different variations,” said Kabaretti. “I’ve never done a program like this before, so I’m really looking forward to it.” •MJ
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17 – 24 November 2016
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