It was a collection of empty whiskey bottles that led to the creation of the physical theater piece You Don’t Know Jack, appearing at The 418 Project. No, not because members of The Carpetbag Brigade were drinking while putting together this fractured fairy tale combining “Jack in the Beanstalk” with an alcoholic ghost, post-traumatic stress disorder and a dysfunctional family.

During an improv exercise, five Carpetbag Brigaders went out in the New Mexico sun looking for objects that inspire. The year was 2007 and the Bay Area group was doing a retreat with Wise Fool, a New Mexico arts organization with roots in puppetry. When all five members came back with empty whiskey bottles, inspiration struck Carpetbag Brigade founder and artistic director Jay Ruby….
(Photo by Jesse Olsen)

Robert Frost once said that “Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” Students from Georgiana Bruce Kirby Preparatory School will be bringing their thoughts to life with emotion the first week in March, when they perform as part of Willing Suspension Armchair Theatre.

The students have been working on the show with poet Gary Young, who was recently named the first Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County. A Pushcart Prize-winning poet, Young teaches at UC Santa Cruz. In 2009, he received the Shelley Memorial Award. Though busy teaching, writing and running Greenhouse Review Press, Young agreed to answer five questions for Weekend Santa Cruz….

For current events, see the complete listings at The Week, The Weekend and Everything Else.

For the Weekend of February 12-14, 2010.

Friday /// Saturday /// Sunday

Friday
What is Erotic? at The 418 Project. It starts with a pre-show erotic bazaar. Then the fun really begins. Aerialists defy gravity, dancers writhe in delight, singers breathe life into [...]

For current events, see the complete listings at The Week, The Weekend and Everything Else.

For the Week of February 8 – 11, 2010.
Monday /// Tuesday /// Wednesday /// Thursday

Monday
Charisma!: The Music of Lee Morgan at Kuumbwa. Though he passed away at 33, bandleader Lee Morgan made seminal contributions to hard bop, free jazz and [...]

How strange the change from major to minor. It casts dark shadows on brightly colored tunes. Passions rise. Hearts yearn. “Some songs just get incredibly beautiful,” said Rhan Wilson, the brain behind the first-ever An Altared Valentine’s, February 14 at Kuumbwa.

Wilson, creator of Altared Christmas, brings his gift of reinterpretation to odes of love, transforming them into new works with the change of a key. “When we put it against this darker, passionate music, sometimes it increases the beauty and sometimes it brings out the lyrics and gets kind of funny…”

For current events, see the complete listings at The Week, The Weekend and Everything Else.

For the Weekend of February 5-7, 2010.

Friday /// Saturday /// Sunday

Friday
First Friday in Santa Cruz. It’s First Friday time again and that means artistic goings-on in Santa Cruz. A full listing can be seen here, however here are some highlights: [...]

For current events, see the complete listings at The Week, The Weekend and Everything Else.

For the Week of February 1 – 4, 2010.
Monday /// Tuesday /// Wednesday /// Thursday

Monday
Sophie Milman at Kuumbwa. Jazz Times calls her “the next great jazz vocal gust to cross the 49th parallel.” Vocalist Sophie Milman has transformed herself [...]

For the Weekend of January 22-24, 2010.

Friday /// Saturday /// Sunday

Friday
Lil Pea and the 3rd Degree at Seabright Brewery. Lil Pea and the 3rd Degree makes sweet music at Seabright Brewery. 6 p.m.

For the Week of January 18 – 21, 2010.
Monday /// Tuesday /// Wednesday /// Thursday

Monday
Mose Allison Trio at Kuumbwa. Soulful melodies and razor sharp witticisms are stock in trade for Mose Allison. The piano man, grew up playing piano in a small town on the Mississippi delta, brings his trio to Kuumbwa Jazz Center. 7 [...]

Just outside Bookshop Santa Cruz, the man in the bowler sits frozen in time and space, his hands stilled as he plays a saw. Marghe McMahon’s 1978 sculpture of local legend Tom Scribner is a landmark of Pacific Avenue. It’s also the inspiration for Richard Bennett’s “The Saw Player,” one of the 10-minute plays being performed as part of Actors’ Theatre’s 8 Tens @ Eight through February 14.

The play takes the form of an imagined conversation between a sculptress, Lee played by Anna Hinde, and her subject, Sam played by Rick Kuhn. The two connect through the process of creating an artwork.