Calendar of Events

27 February – 5 March 2020 MONTECITO JOURNAL50 “Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.” – Confucius THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27

Molière’s Masterpiece – Molière’s Tartuffe is one of the most famous pieces of literature from France and also one of the funniest farces. The 350-year-old classic is a hilarious, satiric romp, exposing hypocrisy and greed that remains not only a timeless comedy but also terrifically timely in that we’re in the thicket of a major election year. The play examines ideas of hypocrisy and virtue, while confronting issues of authority and totalitarianism. The character Tartuffe tricked a wealthy homeowner, Orgon, into trusting him and believing his every word. Orgon’s family recognizes Tartuffe’s manipulating manner, and hilarity ensues as they attempt to convince Orgon otherwise. In UCSB Theatre’s production of Moliere’s work adapted by David Ball, and directed by Julie Fishell – who is helming stage movement and choreography that are being designed using images and manners from the time of the play “with a soupçon of screwball comedy techniques” – advanced acting students will portray the players, including Tartuffe, Elmire and Orgon, all of which are considered among the greatest classical theatre roles in history. WHEN: 8 pm tonight and February 21-26, plus 2 pm tomorrow and February 25-26 WHERE: UCSB Performing Arts Theater COST: $17 general, $13 children & seniors in advance; $19/$15 day of INFO: (805) 893-2064 or www.theaterdance.ucsb.edu SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 29

Half-century of Eco-study – Bill McKibben wrote the first book about global warming for a general audience with 1989’s The End of Nature before going on to found 350.org, the world’s largest grassroots climate campaign, and writing a dozen more books, including his latest New York Times bestseller, Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? More than 30 years after he fired the first salvo, McKibben continues to serve among the leaders of the movement against human-induced climate change, and now sounds an even more urgent call to arms. “Falter” offers a piercing look at our environmental challenges, but also at the existential questions that come with new technologies. In talks, McKibben shares examples of “the right kind of pressure” to make change, such as inducing college campuses to divest from fossil fuels, and encouraging the use of solar panels across Africa. McKibben offers a dual approach to saving our planet, arguing that we must make informed choices as individuals, but also think as members of a mobilized group. McKibben was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the alternative Nobel, and has lectured and organized on every continent including Antarctica and was asked by Bernie Sanders, who is currently the favorite for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, to help write the DNC climate platform of 2016. His talk tonight, titled “Our Changing Climate: A Global Movement of Reform,” co-presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures, the UCSB Environmental Studies Program and the Community Environmental Council, comes in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the UCSB program. WHEN: 7:30 pm WHERE: Campbell Hall, UCSB campus COST: $10 general, $5 UCSB students & youth 18 & under INFO: (805) 893-3535 www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27 Who can Hay be Now? – It was just shy of 40 years ago that the Scottish-Australian singer-songwriter Colin Hay won early international success as the lead singer/guitarist of Men At Work. By 1983, they’d become the first Australian artists to have a simultaneous No. 1 album and No. 1 single on the U.S. Billboard charts with Business as Usual, which had been originally released 14 months earlier, and “Down Under,” and went on to win the Grammy Award for Best New Artist later that year. When totaled, their three studio albums sold over 30 million albums worldwide. The record sales slacked off after Men At Work disbanded in 1985, and frontman Hay spent the better part of a decade stumbling around unfocused, in his own words, before transforming himself, as the Washington Post put it, into a thoughtful and sophisticated contemporary songwriter. Things turned completely around when actor Zach Braff put his solo song “I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You” onto the Garden State soundtrack, leading to appearances and soundtrack songs on such shows at The Larry Sanders Show, JAG, The Mick Molloy Show, A Million Little Things, and Scrubs. Hay now counts more than a dozen albums in his solo studio output, a very worthy catalog that he’s likely to extensively explore in tonight’s show at the Lobero. WHEN: 8 pm WHERE: Lobero Theatre, 33 E. Canon Perdido St. COST: $46-$56 INFO: (805) 963-0761 or www.lobero.com Smiley Speaks – The Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s Parallel Stories series takes a close look at the life-long passions, prodigious productivity and well-honed writing practice of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jane Smiley as she engages in a far-ranging conversation with Andrew Winer, her longtime friend, fellow author, and colleague in the Creative Writing program at UC Riverside. Smiley, a novelist and essayist whose 1992 novel A Thousand Acres won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, has also written several works of nonfiction, including Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel, a history and anatomy of the novel

as a form. Within those pages, Smiley posits that “A novelist has two lives – a reading and writing life, and a lived life. He or she cannot be understood at all apart from this.” Perhaps the two will merge in this evening’s presentation, titled “Love Comes First Beauty Follows.” WHEN: 5:30 pm WHERE: Mary Craig Auditorium at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1130 State Street (entrance in the rear) COST: $10 general/$6 seniors, $5 museum members INFO: (805) 963-4364 or www.sbma.net SUNDAY, MARCH 1 Here’s to you, Mr. Robinson – There’s a lot of hyperbole in the world of acoustic guitarists, but the accolades affixed to Australia native Joe Robinson all seem to apply. A largely self-taught musician, picked up the guitar at age 10 and promptly outgrew his guitar teacher in less than a year, and started to teach himself from the internet. At age 11, he began touring with older Australian artists, including the legendary fingerpicker Tommy Emmanuel, who became his mentor. At 13, he won the Australian National Songwriting Competition, recorded his debut album two years later, and won Australia’s Got Talent at 17 in 2008, when he performed a fingerstyle cover of “Classical Gas” – not coincidentally a favorite of Emmanuel’s. Robinson’s one-man solo acoustic/electric show is an energetic display of virtuosity and witty, finely-crafted lyrics delivered with his fine voice accompanied by his Aussie charisma, and cover songs that were inspired by George Carlin, Al Capone, and a person he once picked up hitchhiking, to name just a few. After more than 2,000 shows across the world, Robinson’s debut for the Santa Barbara Acoustic Music Association at the Alhecama Theatre was a sellout; tonight he returns for SBAMA’s new Listening Room series at SOhO for another adventure in exploring undertones of harmony, rhythm, melody, rhyme and narrative. WHEN: 7:30 pm WHERE: SOhO, 1221 State Street, upstairs in Victoria Court COST: $20 general, $60 VIP (includes pre-show dinner and seating in first six rows) INFO: (805) 962-7776 or www.sohosb.com Travel a Stone’s Throw Away – Although things are shifting once again with the gig economy, it’s still informative to take a look back and when American supermarkets were not as abundant and diverse as they are today. Our favorite foods came to America in the hands of food explorers who circled the world for the USDA in search of novel plants that transformed the American diet.

Bryson’s Bodywork – Best-selling American-British author Bill Bryson has become one of the world’s most beloved and prolific writers, one who is capable of winningly communicating delight in the minutiae of travel, the subtleties of culture, and the world of science. Bryson shot to prominence in the United Kingdom with Notes from a Small Island, a humorous travel book that takes readers on an exploration of Great Britain, which was also adapted for a popular British TV series. A Walk in the Woods, his chronicle of hiking the Appalachian Trail, also proved immensely popular and was adapted into a film starring Robert Redford and Nick Nolte, while he also captured the zeitgeist of the Roaring ‘20s in One Summer: America 1927. Bryson’s wryly titled A Short History of Nearly Everything was widely acclaimed for its approachable communication of science, exploring not only the histories and current statuses of the sciences, but also revealing their humble and often humorous beginnings. His new book, The Body: A Guide for Occupants – which is the basis for his talk tonight of the same title – takes readers on a head-to-toe tour of the marvel that is the human body. Full of extraordinary facts (your body made a million red blood cells since you started reading this) and typically buoyant Bryson-esque anecdotes, the book offers a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general and each of us in particular. No wonder a Chicago Sun Times critic opined “Bryson could write an essay about dryer lint or fever reducers and still make us laugh out loud.” Live, the Iowa-born Bryson is said to be even more accessible, charming audiences with the same warmth, goofy wit and dry, self-effacing humor that has made his work so universally appealing. WHEN: 7:30 pm WHERE: Granada Theatre, 1214 State Street COST: $25-$40 INFO: (805) 899-2222/www.granadasb.org or (805) 893-3535/www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu

GranadaSB.org 805.899.2222

Goldenvoice presents HERB ALPERT & LANI HALL Fri FEB 28 7:30 pm

UCSB Arts & Lectures presents BILL BRYSON THE BODY: A GUIDE FOR OCCUPANTS Mon MAR 2 7:30pm

National Geographic writer Daniel Stone’s The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats chronicles the excursions of David Fairchild, a late-nineteenth-century botanist who traveled the globe, and his team – including their stops in Indonesia, Japan, Iraq, Egypt, Chile, and New Guinea – to introduce diverse crops like avocados, mangoes, seedless grapes, and thousands more, to the American plate. Stone, a new Santa Barbara

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4

resident, invites readers to let your mouth water with stories of the big and small ways food innovators and chefs are still working to keep us satisfied and well-fed in the coming decades in today’s Armchair Travel Lecture at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art titled “The Mysterious Origins of Our Favorite Foods.” WHEN: 3 pm WHERE: Mary Craig Auditorium, 1130 State Street (entrance in the rear) COST: $10 general, $5 museum members INFO: (805) 963- 4364 or www.sbma.net •MJ

Cash-ing In – Rosanne Cash’s 14th album seemed like something of a career-crowning achievement, as 2014’s The River & the Thread not only received widespread received critical acclaim and fan support, but also took home three Grammy Awards, sweeping every nomination category including “Best Americana Album” and “Best American Roots Song” and “Best American Roots Performance” for “A Feather’s Not a Bird.” But the eldest daughter of late country icon Johnny Cash was nowhere near ready to retire, as indicated by the new album co-created with her producer-husband John Leventhal, She Remembers Everything, which is replete with her iconic sound that encompasses country, pop, rock, blues and her own take on Americana. Released in 2018, the record is rich with history, heartache, strength and humanity as Cash reckons with a flawed and fragile world, the songs reflecting a return to more personal style of writing after a trio of albums that explored her southern roots and family heritage. The singer-songwriter, who turns 65 in May, returns to town with Leventhal – also known for his body of work with Shawn Colvin, Rodney Crowell, Joan Osborne, Loudon Wainwright III and many others – once again by her side. WHEN: 8 pm WHERE: Campbell Hall, UCSB campus COST: $45-$65 INFO: (805) 893-3535 www. ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu

The Broadway In Santa Barbara Series presents BUDDY THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY Tue MAR 3 7:30pm Wed MAR 4 7:30pm

CAMA presents LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC Fri MAR 6 7 pm (Early Start Time)

UCSB Arts & Lectures presents BRIAN GREENE UNTIL THE END OF TIME Mon MAR 9 7:30 pm

State Street Ballet presents SLEEPING BEAUTY Sat MAR 14 7:30 pm

Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story takes the Granada stage on Tuesday, March 3 and Wednesday, March 4

Buddy Holly Story – which features 20 of Holly’s greatest hits including “That’ll Be The Day,” “Peggy Sue,” “Oh Boy,” and “Rave On,” and won Tony Awards in 1991 and 2000 and many others around the globe – arrives on the same stage for two performances.

We caught up with Keaton Eckhoff, the actor who portrays Holly, to have him rave on about the rock star’s enduring appeal.

Q. Playing a well-known real person in a jukebox musical can be a challenge. Do you try to completely impersonate him, or bring some of yourself to the role? A. Oh, man, I did so much research, listened to his recordings so I could imitate his voice as well as possible. I’ve heard every single song multiple times just trying to get his style down, duplicate how he does his vowels, which is really different. I want it so that people can close their eyes and hear Buddy, the records they know and love… I’ve tried to put as many dimensions and layers to the character as I can within the story that we’re telling, which doesn’t capture all of it, obviously, because there was so much more to his life. But I try to bring my knowledge of who he was to my performances… But it’s not about me at all. I am a songwriter myself, so it’s easy to empathize with the hardships he went through from the beginning of his career. But mostly I just love getting to bring all my theatrical training, acting, musical abilities, motivations, and the tools in my toolbox.

MONTECITO JOURNAL52 Do you connect internally to Holly’s songs, his music, and life? Does it speak to you?

Buddy Holly was a real renegade of his time and it’s a pleasure to play him. He pushed the form forward, so much so that most pop music we have today just wouldn’t exist otherwise because he opened the door for everything that followed. But he also had so many different sounds, wonderful quiet songs, and real rockers. His versatility is something I have to respect. And he was a very driven dude, very cocky. There are moments of that in the show, the cocky 19-year-old boy who is a guy clawing his way to the top, hungry to make it. I can see that grit. I’m bringing that life to the role, bringing the truth of who he was and I am… And I’m also 100 percent driven. I’m always writing songs, figuring out my way into the music game, even though it’s completely changed. I’m trying to find my voice in the chaos. But I’m cocky and I want it too.

Why do you think Buddy has been such a success, the show itself, and the fact that all those songs are 50 years old?

Back in those days, when radio and record players were the only sources of music. We didn’t have cell phones and streaming. Stardom was a completely different thing. All of the people of that generation, who danced to and knew every word of his songs – they still come to the show over and over. That was the first generation of rock ‘n’ roll and they still want to see it. But we have a good younger demographic that comes to the show. It’s great to look out there and see that.

Buddy is one of the rare musicals where the actors are playing instruments live on stage. How is that for you?

That’s the best part of the show. Everything you hear is live, and I get to play my own guitar. I had to watch even more videos to learn the guitar parts on his songs, and how he played them. There’s a lot of tricky stuff; they’re so simple, but also powerful and very lyrical. Artists both emerging and established present more than 30 different pieces over the course of the three performances, which include appearance, by non-local companies and choreographers Kelly O’Connor, Elizabeth Reyes, CaZo Dance, Nadine Tran, Elicia Kraus, Marcos Duran, Errant Movement, and many others. Full festival passes, patron passes, which include early entry and a complimentary beverage, and individual tickets are all available, while special events include the annual Apogee Awards highlighting Arts Education & Youth performances, and a special Mix & Mingle event with pre- and post-show receptions. Call (805) 963- 0408 or visit www.centerstagetheater. org.

Offbeat Outings to Ojai After 10 years at other area locations, the Ojai Mardi Gras celebration marks its 30th anniversary back at the Ojai Valley Woman’s Club fittingly on Leap Day, February 29, as the venue hosted the first public event on Leap Day in 1992. This year’s Masquerade Ball carries the theme “Naughty Gras... Leap into your Fantasy,” featuring hundreds of costumed revelers dancing to the R&B, funk, Cajun, and Zydeco rhythms performed by The Ojai Mardi Gras Band, featuring a veritable Who’s Who of local luminaries, plus witnessing such annual traditions as the Coronation of the King & Queen, Tossing of the Beads, and a Costume Contest along with art installations and festive decorations by the Mardi Gras Art Fools directed by Lucy Roadarmel. Admission is $25 in advance, or $30 at the door. Call (805) 646-7843 or visit www.ojaicon certseries.com.

Ojai Valley Improv welcomes Ventura Improv Company in both ensembles’ first-ever improv comedy mash-up/meet-up. Expect wacky games, groan-inducing puns, sticky situations, musical mayhem, and much more when the two experienced companies compete against one another in a ComedySportz-style extravaganza where everything is made up on the spot via suggestions from the audience. All proceeds from the 7 pm show on Saturday, February 29, benefit The Ojai Art Center Theater Branch. Get the $10 tickets at the door or online at www.ojaiact.org/store/ p192/improvshow. •MJ

I’m told that 25 actors have played the role in this show before you. How do you differentiate yourself?

I don’t think about that. I think about how I can do my best. As long as I’m doing that, I can let all the other wonderful people fade into the past because it’s now in my hands. I take that seriously and I practice every day. But it’s just so fun and a wonderful role. Playing Buddy Holly is a complete joy.

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Nothing Nebulus about Dance Festival

Dozen of local, national, and international dance artists are set to come together under one roof in Nebula Dance Lab’s sixth annual HH11 Dance Festival at Center Stage Theater this weekend (February 27-March 2).

Design/Production Trent Watanabe

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