Lobero Stage, a brand new theatre company in Santa Barbara, CA, is getting its inaugural season off to a high-profile start.
Artistic director Peter Hunt is currently staging Alberto Casella's Death Takes A Holiday, March 21-April 6. Holiday follows Death as he takes on human form -- in the guise of dashing Prince Sirki -- and gets caught up in romance at an Italian villa. Hunt, artistic director of the Williamstown Festival from 1989-95, is best known for directing Broadway's 1776 (for which he won a Tony).
Starring in the show, which opened March 22, are Duncan Regehr (as Sirki), Peter Michael Goetz (Sex And Longing), Caroline Lagerfelt (Betrayal, Quartermaine's Terms) and George Gaynes (1949's The Consul, Wonderful Town, Out Of This World) and Jana Robbins I Love My Wife. Also appearing will be Bill Brochtrup, Fritzi Burr (Funny Girl), Elizabeth Anne Dickinson, Sue Ann Gilfillan, Merrilee McCommas, James McDonnell and David Mitchell. Designing the show are Hugh Landwehr (sets) and Noel Taylor (costumes).
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Hunt won't be taking a holiday after Holiday; he'll then stage Bertolt Brecht's dark satire, The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui (April 18-May 4), about the rise of a ruthless Chicago gangster. The last New York production, at Off-Broadway's CSC, featured John Turturro as the crazed, Hitlerian protagonist. George Tabori's 1963 adaptation will be used for the Lobero mounting. John Tillinger, associate artistic director of CT's Long Wharf Theatre, has directed steadily on and off Broadway, including Manhattan Theatre Club's Sylvia. At Lobero he'll stage Fallen Angels (May 9-May 25), a lesser-known Noel Coward comedy concerning married friends, Julia and Jane, whose husbands are away golfing. Enter Maurice, the grand passion that each has tried desperately to forget...
Finishing the season will be Peter Hunt's production of Cyrano De Bergerac (June 6-June 22), Edmond Rostand's romantic classic of 1898. Brian Hooker has translated this version of the story of the long nosed, swashbuckling poet who helps a handsome young fool win the lovely Roxanne.
For subscriptions ($54-$124) and other information about the Lobero Stage Company in Santa Barbara, CA, call (805) 966-4946.
--By David Lefkowitz
