Magazine Spring 2024 Creative Arts Score Praise

HAVING A BALL WITH ‘ROMEO AND JULIET’

Imagine participating in a dance and witnessing the moment Romeo and Juliet first meet. This scene opens “The Capulet Black- and-White Ball,” a play by John Blondell, Westmont’s longtime professor of theater arts, who has put his own contemporary, site- specific spin on Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.”

“For our production, the audience moves in and about the space — between the Capulet house, Friar Laurence’s cell and the street — to involve them directly in the action and to bring them close to the unfolding love story between the two young people and how it affects those around them,” Blondell said about the performances staged at the downtown Santa Barbara Community Arts Workshop in March.

He cut and refashioned Shakespeare’s play with a contemporary lens and modern staging. He brought audiences into the beating heart of the play to enter a tomb and experience a street brawl. Previously, Blondell staged the award-winning “King Richard II” at Santa Barbara’s Trinity Episcopal Church and later in a derelict cathedral in Gdansk; a Macedonian novel in a small village; and a pop chamber musical created for an abandoned discotheque in Poland.

“In each case, the site fused with the material in unforgettable ways,” Blondell says. “The audience becomes immersed and participates in the action.”

‘POOR CLARE’ OFFERS THEATER FOR THE SOUL

Saint Clare of Assisi spoke like a modern Beverly Hills teenager in the theater’s reimagining of the 13th century life of Chiara Offreducio in “Poor Clare” in December. “It’s fun and funny, relatable and relevant for our community,” said director Madeline Fanton, artist-scholar in residence at Westmont. “The play asks us to consider our own privilege and how to use the blessings we’ve been given to help those in need around us.”

Through Saint Clare’s encounters with the man who becomes Saint Francis and with the homeless in her community, Clare grows in knowledge and compassion, ultimately leaving her family and wealth behind to live humbly.

Fanton hopes the award-winning play by Chiara Atik opened eyes, like Clare’s, so we can no longer look away from those in need in our midst. “Maybe Clare’s willingness to sacrifice everything will give us the courage to at least sacrifice something,” says Fanton, who is finishing her doctorate in theater and performance studies at UC Santa Barbara.

‘GODSPELL’ CAPTIVATES AUDIENCES

Director Mitchell Thomas, the cast, musicians and creative team put together a wonderfully successful “Godspell” in October. Audiences in five sold-out shows appreciated the enthusiasm and energy emanating from the tight-knit group of actors. Westmont music and theater students joined forces for the production.

Maggie Yates of the Santa Barbara Independent said, “Westmont’s show has a wonderful quality of authenticity and magic as we witness regular people transformed into jubilant beings basking in divine light.”

Thomas created a chamber musical with a smaller cast replete with strong roles for theater and music students. “It’s such a pleasure to work on ‘Godspell’ — great music, wonderful characters and a profound and playful story,” Thomas said. Ruth Lin, Westmont director of music, oversaw the “Godspell” band of four, while Christina Ramsey directed vocals.

“‘Godspell’ aims to show how it takes a thoughtful, graceful and messy community to chase the peace, love and justice that God invites us to nurture,” says dramaturge Diana Small ’09.

CHOIR AND ORCHESTRA HIT THE ROAD

The Westmont Orchestra and College Choir join forces in May for a combined tour. Traveling from Los Angeles to Northern California, about 120 students will perform scenes from “Elijah” by Felix Mendelssohn as well as other pieces.

“It’s a big undertaking and will show the breadth of music at Westmont,” says Daniel Gee ’13, assistant professor of music and director of choral activities. “It’s good for musicians as choir and orchestra members will get to know each other better. They’ll develop new skill sets and sharpen each other musically.”

Students will present concerts at various churches and develop community with these congregations. They’ll also perform at Christian schools. Stops include Solvang, Stockton, the Bay Area and Grenada Hills. See a full itinerary at westmont.edu/concerts.

MUSICIANS SHINE IN ORCHESTRA CONCERTO

The stars shined at the Orchestra Concerto Concert that featured the winners of the concerto/aria competition, Nathan Carlin, Karla Munoz, Tasha Loh and Leah Nieman, in February.

The concert featured “See the Raging Flames Arise!” from Handel’s “Joshua,” featuring baritone Carlin; the third movement, “Rondo,” from Bassoon Concerto in F major, op. 75, by Carl Maria von Weber, featuring Loh on bassoon; Concertino for Clarinet and Orchestra by Ferruccio Busoni, featuring Munoz on clarinet; and the allegro moderato movement of Violin Concerto no. 2, op. 22 by Henryk Wieniawski, featuring Nieman on violin.

OPERA DOUBLE BILL FEATURES ‘TELEPHONE’ AND ‘GALLANTRY’

A double feature operatic performance opened the spring concert season with productions of Gian Carlo Menotti’s “The Telephone” and Douglas Moore’s “Gallantry” in January.

“These musically challenging and more modern shows expose our students to a different type of singing, acting and stage movement,” says Christina Farris Jensen ’09, stage director of the production. “The Telephone” tells the story of repeated interruptions to an attempted marriage proposal, and “Gallantry” parodies a television soap opera set in an operating room.

“The students worked hard and did a wonderful job bringing out the comedy and the drama of these two operas in the modern context of our interactions with technology and how they may have quietly but indisputably taken over our lives,” says Ruth Lin, music director of the operas. “These wonderful works aren’t as widely known or performed, but should be because they’re musically well written for both vocalists and instrumentalists and full of dramatic possibilities.”

CHRISTMAS FESTIVAL OFFERS ‘FULLNESS OF JOY’

The 19th annual Westmont Christmas Festival sold out two performances of “The Fullness of Joy” at the Granada Theatre in December.

For nearly two decades, the festive event, featuring the Westmont Orchestra, College Choir and Chamber Singers, has deepened understanding of this holy season.

Ruth Lin, who chairs the college’s music department, conducted the Westmont Orchestra, and Daniel Gee ’13 led the Westmont College Choir and Chamber Singers. Paul Mori ’77, conductor of the Santa Barbara Prime Time Band, led the congregational hymns.

COROT EXHIBITION HONORS RIDLEY-TREE

The Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art displayed the late Lady Leslie Ridley-Tree’s entire collection of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot January through March. “Camille Corot to Orthodox Icons: Lady Leslie Ridley- Tree’s Gifts to the Collection” included seven Barbizon artworks she also donated by. Artists included Charles Francois Daubigny, Narcisse Virgilio Díaz de la Peña, Theodore Rousseau, Jules Dupre and Hippolyte Camille Delpy. The exhibition also featured Bo Bartlett’s portrait of Leslie and her husband, Lord Paul Ridley-Tree.

Judy L. Larson, Askew professor of art history and museum director, says the exhibition paid tribute to Leslie, who died in October 2022 at 98. “When Leslie and Paul visited St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum during their honeymoon, she was fatigued and asked to sit in a gallery hung salon-style with Corot’s paintings,” Larson says. “She had always loved the artist. Paul suggested that they collect his landscapes, and Leslie said: ‘My strategy worked!’”

Ridley-Tree also collected orthodox icons, hung in a small, royal blue room, where she meditated every day. “Leslie was a deeply spiritual woman; her collection of icons was well-loved,” Larson says. “The museum displayed them in a small room painted bright blue to evoke her personal prayer room.”

SMALL ARTWORKS A BIG DRAW

The exhibition and auction of 683 small pieces succeeded in raising more than $41,000 for the Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art in December. The “5x5: Westmont College Celebrating 85 Years” fundraiser sold 617 unique art pieces. Always one of the most popular exhibitions at the museum, the exhibition featured small, 5-inch-square works by regional, national and international artists available for purchase through a silent, online auction.

Chris Rupp started the 5x5 exhibition in 2011 as a friend-raiser and fundraiser held every three to five years. “It’s a great opportunity to see the creativity of hundreds of artists from across the country all in the gallery at once,” he says. “It’s a visual feast for the eyes!”

EXHIBITION STRADDLES THE INTELLECTUAL AND SPIRITUAL

Celebrated Santa Barbara artist Linda Ekstrom offered a wide range of poetic, imaginative and spiritual works of transformed fabric, paper, books and gloves in an exhibition last fall at the museum. “Straddling Circumference...The Art of Linda Ekstrom” featured recent work and a retrospective.

“Ekstrom creates transcendent art works often inspired by the words of female poets, mystics, saints and women of the Bible,” Judy Larson says. “Ever present in Ekstrom’s art is her intellectual and spiritual discernment.”

The artist places Bibles into beehives, preserves objects in jars and shapes the words of poets and writers into imaginative “new-reads,” drawing on her experience “as a woman, as an artist, and as a Catholic.”