Unconventional methods work for this new play
We all know the drill: the ushers seat the audience, the lights dim, the curtain goes up, and the play begins.

But what happens when all theatrical boundaries are removed, blurring the separation between the on-stage drama and reality, with no clear start or finish? Santa Cruz producer Alan Fox is determined to find out. Last week, Fox debuted his second career production, an original musical called “The Street”—think “Cabaret” meets Amsterdam’s Red Light District.

The second annual Ethnic Dance Festival brings rhythms from around the globe to Santa Cruz
Other than American Indians, the United States really doesn’t have much of a history in the world of ethnic dancing. Immigrants from abroad brought the rhythm and music from their native lands to our shores and created myriad hybrids that Americans claim as their own—but truth be told, they are merely the coalescence of ethnic dances from across the globe. For this reason, many people choose to adopt the dance of an ethnicity other than their own in a fervid attempt to gain connection to a movement larger than themselves.

FashionART Santa Cruz Runway Show may be the most enchanting fashion spectacle in town
The style conscious among us have just spent the last few days reveling in the razzle-dazzle of the New York Fashion Week runway shows that stream oh so glamorously across the Internet. We have been accosted with everything from Derek Lam’s ’60s-inspired minimalism to Charlotte Ronson’s ladylike grunge, the likes of which have been touted as the new staples we simply must possess in our closets come spring 2011. But as the ostentatious hullabaloo of New York Fashion Week dies down, what is a fashion-minded girl to do without the prospect of another runway show until the London Fashion Week commences in mid-October? Local fashionistas need not resort to a three-week period of melancholy because Santa Cruz has a chic extravaganza of its own to fill the gap.

Lively cast makes the most of Cuba-set comedy 'Clouds'
Four men, one woman, a vintage Cadillac, and miles and miles of hot, dusty roads on the island of Cuba, 10 years after the Revolution. Are they in Paradise or Hell, on the road to destiny or disaster? The answer is all of the above as the opinions of these characters—and the audience—shift like errant trade winds from moment to moment, in Michael Frayn's comedy, “Clouds,” the lively inaugural production of the sixth season of Santa Cruz's own Jewel Theatre Company.

Director Susan Myer Silton returns with a new—and funny—endeavor
She’s back. After a year-long sabbatical, revered local theater director Susan Myer Silton is back in the director’s chair, and this time around, she’s ratcheting everything up several notches. And that’s a hard feat, considering that Myer Silton is the co-founder and artistic director of the popular and edgy Pisces Moon theater company that for years has been turning out stellar dramatic work. But with her new play, “Clouds,” produced by Jewel Theatre of San Jose, Myer Silton is indeed upping the ante. This time around, she’s working with an equity company, and staging a play that’s using some equity actors, and in addition, she’ll play only the role of director this time. No longer does she have to write the grants, hire the lighting guy and so on. Her skills are purely focused on one thing—directing “Clouds,” which opens on Sept. 16 at the Broadway Playhouse in Santa Cruz.

Our obsessions with cell phones becomes evident in new play
Gerry Gerringer, artistic director of Actors’ Theatre, is kicking off the company’s 26th season with a play you’ve probably never heard of. “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” may not have the theatrical history of a Shakespeare comedy, but it’s the perfect example of what’s hot right now in contemporary playwriting.

Sarah Ruhl, who was nominated for a 2010 Tony award for her play “In the Next Room,” wrote this new dark comedy, which revolves around Jean (Julia Cunningham), a woman who answers a stranger’s phone when it won’t stop ringing, only to find out that the man is dead. Rather than seek medical assistance for him, Jean gets herself entangled in his dysfunctional relationships with his alienated widow, his commanding mother and his mysterious mistress, and even falls in love with his lonely brother.