Hi friends,
After five years of hard work, one of the most ambitious art projects in Santa Cruz County’s history is done. And now it’s time to celebrate. The incredible mosaic public-art piece known as “Watsonville Brillante” (the tiles covering the massive downtown parking garage on Rodriguez Street) is throwing a party with live music, dancing, and I’m guessing lots of high-fives. And you and I are invited. Come down and be amazed at what dedicated artists are capable of.
Now, on with the show.
THIS JUST IN
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Marilynne Robinson, known equally for her achievements as a novelist and an essayist, comes to the Rio Theatre on Dec. 3 as part of the Noel Q. King Memorial Lecture, presented by the Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz and Bookshop Santa Cruz. And the fun FashionTeens fashion show, which has become a Santa Cruz tradition, is all set to return next spring, April 18 at the Rio.
Be sure to check out Lookout’s carefully curated and constantly updated planning guide, Down the Line, for the staggering riches and amazing choices awaiting Santa Cruz audiences. It’s our look ahead at the best shows, concerts and events through the rest of the year at clubs, stages and venues all over the county.
Here they are, nine necessary know-abouts for the week ahead. It’s the mad-dash-to-the-Halloween-store B9:
Seasonal theater
Congratulations go out to Santa Cruz playwright John Chandler and director Wilma Marcus Chandler for a chilling and absorbing original play now playing at Actors’ Theatre in downtown Santa Cruz.
The play is called “Lucky Time,” and it’s a psycho-thriller with a ghostly air to it. The setup is familiar — a stranger coming into a small community that’s holding a lot of secrets and where you don’t know where the real menace is coming from.
Big props to the two actors at the play’s center. Martin Sampad Kachuck is a jittery, beleaguered claims assessor who has a flat tire in a tiny community where he has been called to quantify the value of an estate of a couple who had been murdered. Andrew Davids is the friendly but no-nonsense man’s-man who rescues the bedraggled assessor and invites him into his home. The psychological chess game between the two men is at the heart of this play, made all the more disturbing by the wanderings of several ghostly figures who appear on stage, though not acknowledged by either character.
Kachuck, with his constant nervous energy, and Davids, with his pronounced clenched jaw, do fine jobs as actors, but it’s more than that. They really embody these characters in a way that feels way too convincing.
“Lucky Time” plays one more weekend at the Actors’ Theatre playhouse in downtown Santa Cruz. Actors Steve Capasso, Helene Simkin Jara, Ann McCormick and Evan Hunt are also on hand for a chilling and penetrating peak into the psychic darkness. Catch it before it’s gone.
Shrooms with a view
There’s a show at the Rio on Saturday titled “Music for Mushrooms,” and — well, let’s just say it’s not about chanterelles. The event is actually a film screening, and “Music for Mushrooms” is a documentary by and about the musician known as East Forest, and his specific career arc, creating music for personal transformation through psychedelics.
East Forest, also known as Trevor Oswalt, has been a commanding figure in ambient music for almost two decades. The music, as you might imagine, is ethereal and otherworldly, but it’s composed with a nod toward metaphysical experiences. When he titled an album “Music to Be Born To/Music to Die To,” he meant it.
East Forest will, in fact, be on hand Saturday at the Rio at the screening of his film to engage in a post-film discussion with scholar and psychedelics researcher Allison Feduccia. As if he needed it, Oswalt has also earned big street cred with older-generation psychonauts for his collaboration with the late Ram Dass. East Forest’s album, titled “Ram Dass,” was released just weeks before the fabled spiritual teacher’s death in 2019. If you’re curious about psychedelics, their intersection with art and creativity, or with Santa Cruz’s role in the emerging culture of psychedelics for healing and spirituality, this is a big moment.
That’s all I got, friends. Come at me with comments, ideas, complaints, or thundering insights. Thanks to all Lookout members for your faith and support, and please, spread the word on what we’re doing.