This edition of ON Culture was originally emailed to subscribers on April 21, 2023. To receive Leslie Dinaberg’s arts newsletter in your inbox on Fridays, sign up at independent.com/newsletters.
ON the Web
We launched a new video storytelling series with filmmaker Kevin Tran last week that I’m very excited about. The first episode features Lighthouse Skate Shop and its owners Naren Porter-Kasbati and Spencer Navarro, as well as music from Dante Elephante. This series — titled Transmissions (get it?) — will come out online every month to showcase people, places, and ideas of interest in the 805, and we are thrilled to be collaborating with Kevin. Not only is he a fellow San Marcos High School alumni, but a search on our website revealed that he’s also a graduate of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s 10-10-10 program, as well as NYU Film School.
ON the Stage (Theater and Dance)
The legends of the Romanov family have been fodder for lots of great entertainment, including The Romanoffs series from Matthew Weiner of Mad Men fame, and next week’s Broadway in Santa Barbara musical series at the Granada offering Anastasia (April 25-26) looks like a particularly fun one, full of romance, adventure, and comedy for the whole family. Along those same lines, I’m also excited for State Street Ballet’s production of The Jungle Book at the Lobero (April 29). There are also a few more performances of Out of the Box Theatre Company’s excellent production of Once this weekend at Center Stage Theater. My review is here. And on the non-musical front, our reviewer Maggie Yates had good things to say about Ensemble Theatre Company’s production of The Children (through April 23 at the New Vic) and SBCC Theater Group’s George and Emily Get Married (through April 29 at SBCC), both of which are still running a bit longer.