Quick Take
Summer is the time for big splashy theater in Santa Cruz County, and this summer it all opens this weekend with two big openings Friday and another one on Sunday from Santa Cruz Shakespeare and Cabrillo Stage.
What you could call Santa Cruz County’s “Sondheim season” is set to begin in earnest this weekend. The summer theater season lands with no less than three big openings, two of them musicals from Stephen Sondheim.
Here’s what’s coming: On Friday, Santa Cruz Shakespeare and Cabrillo Stage go head to head with competing opening nights on big tent-pole productions. At the Audrey Stanley Grove at DeLaveaga Park, SCS will open William Shakespeare’s immortal comedy “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at 8 p.m. Meanwhile, at the Crocker Theater on the campus of Cabrillo College, Cabrillo Stage unleashes its new version of Sondheim’s lurid but popular musical “Sweeney Todd” at 7:30 p.m.
On Saturday, SCS debuts its own Sondheim musical, the enchanting “Into the Woods” at the Grove at 8 p.m.
Those are only the official opening nights of those respective productions. (SCS opens its third show of the season, Shakespeare’s “Pericles,” July 31.) Each of the productions has preview performances to allow casts and crew to get the bugs out before opening night – “Into the Woods” on Tuesday and Thursday, “Midsummer” on Wednesday and “Sweeney Todd” on Thursday.
And all of the productions are slated for weekslong runs through the summer. Check out the full SCS calendar and the Cabrillo Stage calendar for the full run of each play.
Next week, Lookout’s theater critic, Jana Marcus, will have reviews on “Into the Woods” (July 22) and “Sweeney Todd” (July 23). Her review of “Midsummer” follows on July 29.
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