Bassist Jeff Denson and guitarist Romain Pilon met 20 years ago as young, hopeful jazz students at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. The two charted their own impressive careers, occasionally joining forces whenever possible. A few years ago Denson toured with drummer Brian Blade and immediately recognized him as a kindred spirit. Denson realized that Blade was the third piece of the puzzle he’d been building with Pilon. The trio recorded an album together, Between Two Worlds, and it’s a behemoth of a jazz record. Now the threesome hits the road and brings this remarkable record to the stage.
7pm, Thursday, Feb. 6, Kuumbwa Jazz Center, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. $26.25/adv, $31.50/door. Information: kuumbwajazz.org.
WANT TO GO?
Go to santacruz.com/giveaways before 11am on Thursday, Jan. 30 to find out how you could win a pair of tickets to the show.
After almost ten years as the wizard of Hollins House restaurant, chef John-Paul Lechtenberg is taking his skills into a bold new arena at the new Venus Spirits Cocktails & Kitchen, scheduled to open in April. I caught up with the 32-year-old chef—and brand-new father—to find out how this new gig came about.
“I’d heard about the plans to open the place, and was interested in the idea of a new restaurant on the Westside where I have a lot of family,” he told me.
Lechtenberg contacted entrepreneur Sean Venus, and got the job—“we met and hit it off.” The chef told me his goal is ultimately to own his own restaurant, and “this was a great opportunity—getting it all started, being involved in the trouble shooting, and being able to add my own expression from the beginning.”
With experience at Spruce, Hayes Street Grill, and Au Midi, Lechtenberg wasn’t interested in joining a group whose ideas were already set in stone.
“Here it’s a collaboration of the whole team,” he says.
Stripe Design Group is orchestrating optics for the 100-seat restaurant, and overseeing the front of the house will be Catreina McGovert, who most recently opened the Jack O’Neill Lounge in the Dream Inn.
Asked about the trickiness of designing a menu to pair with liquor, Lechtenberg says, “that’s the cool thing. Since this is craft spirits, I like to zoom into the underlying ingredients in the liquors, rather than just putting liquor into the foods.” With the celebrated Venus Gin No.2, for instance, the chef was interested in exploring the gin’s spices, florals and berries, and utilizing those in recipe experimentation.
The new Venus restaurant’s culinary story could be called “Americana,” and Lechtenberg points to our melting-pot culture. “Especially here in California,” he says. “We have everything —Spanish, French, Native American. This is an American restaurant. There are no walls as far as where we’ll go, but it will be refined in the sense of using the best of the season. Absolutely no limits to what we’re planning.”
Lechtenberg made it a point to add that he was looking forward to bringing in new cooks to learn and grow—“I want the kitchen to be a learning environment.” From the new Venus dining room, we can expect “cocktails that complement the food and food that complements the cocktails.” The focus will be on shared plates, says the chef. “Meals can begin with bar snacks and then move on to shared entrees. Communal dining will be encouraged. I married into a Greek family where entrees are always shared.”
Slow Food Santa Cruz
If you hurry you can catch an all-star tasting from artisan cheesemakers paired with fine craft beers on Thursday, January 16, from 4:30-7pm at Staff of Life Market, 1266 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. Expect to sample cheeses from France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, the UK, and California and learn tasty details from the producers themselves. Should be a terrific opportunity to expand your palate at one of our natural foods landmarks.
Spicy Fungus
January is Mushroom Month (for obvious meteorological reasons), so check out the mushroom special this month at Barceloneta—grilled mushrooms encircling a Spanish-style fried egg, and dusted with parsley-garlic ajillo with black truffles. Si!
Last summer, local reggae band Dub Congress played their first show in 10 years. It was also the group’s 25th anniversary. In their active years between 1994 and 2009, they packed every club in town, played festivals, and toured up and down the West Coast. They even landed on the cover of Good Times in 2003.
But they weren’t sure if people would come see them play after 10 years absent from the scene. It turns out they packed that show, too.
“We were hoping people would remember us. We had no idea that it would be well-attended. That was a pleasant surprise,” says keyboardist Dan Shafer. “It was like a family reunion. People came out of the woodwork. It was really a magical night.”
The group never intended to stop playing. In 2009, they’d gotten older and were finding adult responsibilities like family and jobs were getting in the way, as well as some members moving out of the city. Playing gigs just felt too challenging.
“We all found that our lives were getting more complicated. That happens to a lot of bands. We just took a breather that ended up being longer than planned,” Shafer says.
During their time away, the members noticed how popular reggae has gotten in California, particularly bands associated with the feel-good “Cali-reggae” vibes. In 1994, there weren’t many local Santa Cruz reggae bands.
Many of the newer California reggae bands are influenced by bands like Sublime, Slightly Stoopid and the Expendables. And perhaps Dub Congress factored into the mix, too.
“Our reference point was always straight up Jamaican music. Traditional roots reggae and early dancehall music,” Shafer says. “I’m happy for anything that gets people interested. Maybe Dub Congress had some role in pushing along that Cali-reggae thing when it was a baby. I’d like to think so.”
Santa Cruz has a thriving underground rock scene, but it usually only emerges onstage at the Blue Lagoon. Ryan Avellone hopes his heavy rock band Dreaming Ghosts can give it some more exposure with its Moe’s Alley gig this week, at which they’ll share the bill with fellow local groups BIGRIG and Return to Nagoya.
“I love the Blue Lagoon. It’s awesome. I think a lot of people might like rock music, but wouldn’t necessarily go there,” Avellone says. “Moe’s Alley is a bit more professional—a better sounding room. We’re just trying to give this grungy rock’n’ roll music a better canvas, so to speak.”
The show will celebrate the release of Dreaming Ghosts’ debut album Seven Citadels. The group started five years ago, but up until last year, it was a side project for Avellone, who played mandolin in Brothers Comatose for seven-and-a-half years. He left the band last spring, after a European tour.
Rather than making the show just about him, though, he’s highlighting the local rock scene. He and the other two bands shot some promo videos together, and have planned an encore performance at the end of the night where all three bands will share the stage.
The idea came to him as he was thinking about how his former bluegrass band came to have such a successful indie career.
“A lot of that has to do with [singer] Ben [Morrison]. His strong suit is self-promotion, creating community, and creating a group of people that want to keep seeing you. It’s definitely a weak link for me,” Allevone says.
Allevone joined Brothers Comatose in 2011, about a year and a half after the group formed. They played a Crepe Place show in 2010, opening for Allevone’s bluegrass band the Family Hogwash. He loved his time in the group, but he came to realize that his true passion was rock ’n’ roll.
“Deep in my heart of hearts, heavier rock music is more engrained in me. I grew up in Los Angeles listening to KROQ radio in the ’90s. Nirvana and Soundgarden, also classic Zeppelin and Sabbath. I found bluegrass later,” Allevone says.
One of the things that Allevone wanted to do before taking Dreaming Ghosts to the next level was record a proper album. This record, Seven Citadels, took him and his group a year to record. They tracked the drums and bass at the Compound in Ben Lomond in 2018, with Henry Chadwick engineering. They did the rest at Allevone’s home studio over most of 2019. It was finished and released digitally during the summer. He wanted to wait to give it a proper physical release.
It’s a heavy and loud album with meaty riffs, influenced by Sabbath and Queens of the Stones Age, and with sometime nerdy dramatic lyrics. The record follows the theme questioning what freewill is through abstract lyrics and stories. One song takes the extreme case of the Golden State Killer and asks if a serial killer ever has a choice in who they are.
“Free will is something I’m enamored with,” Allevone says. “From somebody being born as a little baby to eventually becoming a killer—what causes that? Is that ever in our control or not? Some part of their biology and their upbringing?”
Now that the album is out, and Allevone is no longer in Brothers, he wants to make 2020 all about Dreaming Ghosts.
“We all want to give this year a real 100% try. We’re not young kids just getting out. You almost have to be delusional to think that you can make it as a musician. In some sense, I’m delusional,” Allevone says. “The chances of succeeding with a large audience is slim. So this is a kickoff for us devoting a lot of time and energy, and seeing what happens in 2020.”
Dreaming Ghosts perform at 9 pm on Friday, Jan. 17, at Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. $10 advance, $15 at the door. 479-1854.
It’s one of the most extraordinary uses of the medium since the movies began to talk. In 1963, Michael Apted was a young researcher with the British TV documentary series World In Action, working on an episode called 7 Up, in which some dozen 7-year-old grammar schoolchildren from various backgrounds were interviewed about their lives and dreams. Seven years later, Apted, now a director in his own right, decided to revisit the kids as teenagers to see how their lives were shaping up.
He has filmed them every seven years since, producing a series of ever more galvanizing documentaries about real life as lived by real people. Now, at age 63, the original group of “kids” are back in the ninth installment, 63 Up.
Apted himself is now 78, and while his prolific film directing career includes Coal Miner’s Daughter, Gorillas In the Mist, and Chasing Mavericks (filmed in Santa Cruz), the nine films in what’s now called the “Up Series” are a major part of his legacy. Watching these exuberant kids grow up onscreen, unscripted, as their ideas about life and themselves do or do not pan out over the years has become a unique testament to time, regret, resilience, and the profound courage required to get through everyday life.
And increasingly, as the subjects age, it’s not for the faint-hearted. There’s an elegiac undercurrent in 63 Up. Several of the interviewees are coping with the death of a parent, and trying to reconcile those feeling with how they interact with their own children or grandchildren. Some are facing health issues themselves. One of the original interview subjects has died.
Understandably, at this point in their lives, many of their remarks are more reflective. “I want my life to have meant something,” muses Peter Davies. Lambasted in film reviews as a radical troublemaker for anti-Thatcher remarks at age 21, he pulled out of the series from age 28 until 56, but returned to promote his folk trio and display a newfound mellowness.
Gregarious East-Ender Tony Walker is philosophical about having to give up his childhood dream of becoming a jockey to drive a cab for a living. But he gets a kick out of the modicum of fame the series has brought him—including a tiny movie role. Andrew Brackfield opines that the class system is as rigid as ever in Britain, but now it’s based on “fame and achievement,” not wealth and blood.
Jackie Bassett doubles down on issues she raised with Apted in the last installment, about the way women are represented in the series. The girls, she says, were only ever asked what she calls “domestic questions” about boys and marriage, while the boys were asked their opinions on politics and careers. Apted has since expressed regret that more girls were not included in the film at the outset (he didn’t direct the first movie, but he did select the children to be interviewed), saying that, back then, no one ever thought about women having careers. (Tellingly, however, it’s only the male subjects he quizzes about Brexit this time around.)
Many interviewees find ways to repay their good fortune: teachers, at home and abroad; the barrister who heads up the charity for Bulgaria; the beloved children’s librarian in an underserved and diverse neighborhood who sees her job threatened by budget cuts; the formerly homeless wanderer who’s clawed his way onto a town council as a Liberal Democrat. With so many backstories to fill in, the movie runs to nearly three hours, yet it’s an invaluable portrait of humanity in transition.
63 UP
*** (out of four)
Directed by Michael Apted. A BritBox release. Not rated. 150 minutes.
It was nine days ’til Christmas when Timothy Starkey traveled to his last job.
The 66-year-old Santa Cruz resident had gone to a friend’s house in Los Gatos to hang lights on her Blossom Hill Road home. Friends say it was the kind of deed that he was known for. A retiree from the Silicon Valley bubble, Starkey was living out his second act as a handyman.
“He was always wanting to help and do something for others,” Carrie Coffee Ziemer says of her best friend’s father. “No ask was too small.”
But Starkey never got the chance to adorn the Los Gatos home with Christmas lights that day. While he was retrieving something from his car trunk, an SUV traveling down the 900 block of Blossom Hill Road struck him from behind. Authorities pronounced him dead at the scene. The driver was later identified as San Jose City Council candidate Jenny Higgins Bradanini.
“I am heartbroken and deeply saddened by this tragic death,” Higgins Bradanini wrote in a Dec. 19 email about the fatal collision. “My heart goes out to the man’s family and loved ones as they are suffering this tragic loss. Words cannot adequately express my sorrow, and I ask for your support in sending your thoughts and condolences to the devastated family.”
In the weeks since the crash, Starkey’s family and friends have grappled with the loss of a man they described as generous, humble and larger than life. Coffee Ziemer launched a GoFundMe campaign four days after his death to help cover expenses as the family learns how to live without its beloved patriarch.
Though the Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Department has released few details about the crash, Starkey’s death comes as another reminder that city streets are becoming increasingly fatal for pedestrians.
Since 2009, pedestrian fatalities have skyrocketed by 46%, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Dozens of posts on the GoFundMe page paint Starkey as a loving father and devoted family man. He had two children—Bridget Starkey, 36, and Joe Starkey, 32—and was married to his wife, Kathleen, for 37 years.
They describe him as the type of dad who befriended his children’s friends, Coffee Ziemer explains. “Tim’s the kind of dad that wanted Bridget and all her friends to come to Santa Cruz,” she recalls. “His favorite thing in the world was just to have people in his home. … It was kind of the Starkey way.”
Four days after Starkey’s death, Coffee Ziemer started the GoFundMe campaign with the goal of raising $10,000 to “help ease the stress of the financial burden that lies ahead.” As of press time, the effort has raised $24,280 from 162 donors—friends and strangers alike. The campaign goal was upped to $50,000 Tuesday morning.
“This was such a tragedy, and it really hit the family hard,” Coffee Ziemer says. “There’s no real rule book for what to do next. As the family tries to put things back together, there’s a lot of costs.”
Those costs include striking Starkey’s name from the legal title to his car and making changes to accounts, like the cell phone bill. Funds will also go toward helping the family cover the cost of a rental car while they work to replace the car that was damaged in the crash, as well as insurance and legal fees, Starkey’s memorial and travel for family members.
“Our family is beyond devastated by the gravity of this tremendous loss of our beloved Tim,” his survivors wrote in a statement to this news organization. “Our entire community of family and friends has been affected by the gaping hole this leaves in our lives. We appreciate the respect of our privacy during this unimaginably difficult time as we grieve the loss of such a wonderful man.”
Tim Lundell, one of the many friends who donated to the online fundraiser, says his late wife worked with Kathleen Starkey more than three decades ago and that he worked as Starkey’s attorney around the time he first met his future wife. He says he fondly remembers his friend’s laugh and they way he liked to play practical jokes on people. The last time Lundell recalls seeing him was sometime last fall at a celebration of life for Lundell’s late wife.
“We were talking about getting together after New Year’s,” Lundell reflects. “It hit him with a big impact when my wife died. He and Kathleen became aware of the value of every day they had together. [He] said he would be particularly sweet, thoughtful and tender to her.”
In the Culinary Institute of America hangs a bronze sculpture of Randall Grahm. The Vintners Hall of Fame in the CIA, located in Napa Valley, recognizes Grahm and several others for their accomplishments in making California one of the most legendary places in the world for fine wine.
As I strolled through last year, I was thrilled to see Grahm honored in this way. The longtime innovative winemaker and owner of Bonny Doon Vineyard, Grahm deserves every accolade bestowed upon him.
Bonny Doon’s 2018 Vin Gris De Cigare ($18) is an intricate blend of Grenache, Grenache Blanc, Carignane, Cinsaut, Mourvedre, Picpoul, and Vermentino—a touch of something for everybody, one might say!
“Vin Gris De Cigare is the pink analogue of Le Cigare Volant, our flagship wine named in honor of the cigar-shaped alien craft banned from landing in the vineyards of Châteauneuf-du-Pape by decree of the village council in 1954,” says Grahm, tongue in cheek. He calls it “Pink Wine of the Earth.” With its light-bodied structure, soft texture and mélange of flavors, it’s as voluptuous as a French kiss.
I’m sad to say that Bonny Doon closed its tasting room in Davenport on Dec. 23. But Grahm has quite a spread in San Juan Bautista called Popelouchum, and he hopes to open it up for wine tasting in the near future. Meantime, his wines can be found all over in supermarkets and liquor stores.
bonnydoonvineyard.com.
Carmel Honey Company
Jake Reisdorf opened his second Carmel Honey Company store on the famous Cannery Row in Monterey on Dec. 3. His interest in honey and beekeeping bloomed when he was just 11. Now 17 and a junior at Carmel High School, he is as busy as a bee making honey and taking care of his hives. Jake’s grandmother Judy Reisdorf, who lives in Aptos, told me about Jake several years ago, but it was hard to imagine then that Jake’s flair for beekeeping and honey-making would become such a successful business.
It used to be that when we’d all shuffle back into the office after the holidays—probably with the remnants of some super-annoying cold that’s been holding on for two weeks, or the faint, sniffle-y rumblings of a new one—there wasn’t a whole lot going on in January. Man, that has changed.
For example, this week is the 25th anniversary of what may very well be Santa Cruz County’s most venerable non-Shakespeare theater tradition: 8 Tens @ 8. In this week’s cover story, Wallace Baine relates how the 10-minute play festival became a tradition here, and inspired others around the country.
Also, my jaw is sore from dropping every time I checked the Santa Cruz Gives leaderboard over the holidays. We’ll have a story on the complete results next week, but let me just say what readers contributed to our local nonprofits through Gives this year absolutely crushed any and all of our expectations. It even surpassed our $400,000 “OMG” goal, which was the “crazy dream” level of what we hoped to raise for this year’s participants. And then, at the last minute, the Applewood Fund at Community Foundation Santa Cruz County gave an unexpected $10,000. We are looking at something like 75% growth over last year, which is just … well, I can’t even think of a way to describe it. I’m so proud of our whole community for this phenomenal showing of heart and values—and of our nonprofits for taking this fundraising effort and absolutely running away with it.
Lastly, it’s Best of Santa Cruz time! Time to vote is getting short, so hurry and go to goodtimes.sc to find the ballot and make your favorite local people, places and things winners this year!
Steve Homan’s “No to Fire Tax Increase” (GT, 12/25) was excellent. Many rural property owners question why the county is asking for an additional tax, on top of what is already assessed, for vague uses that may not necessarily improve response times or quality of service.
County officials already admit there are errors in proposed assessments, and have only recently added information to the County Fire Department website to justify calculation of the assessment amounts. At the close of the January 14, 2020, public hearing before the Board of Supervisors, local election staff will be given a mere three hours to open thousands of ballots, tabulate responses, and report back to the board by 2pm.
Since votes of large landowners will be given more weight, this portion of the ballot tabulation will be handed to the consultants the county hired to make sure the measure gets approved with a 51% rate rather than the standard 2/3 majority. According to Public Records Act request materials, the County has paid them $158,408 so far to do so, and took the money from the County Fire Department account. Asking the consultants to handle the weighted ballot tabulation likely violates [California] Government Code 53753(e)(1) and (2).
The Board of Supervisors should instead vote to allocate just 10% annually of the Prop. 172 public safety money from a permanent half-cent statewide sales tax that is supposed to be used for funding fire and law enforcement. Currently, fire protection gets zero dollars. Last year, the County received $18 million in Prop. 172 revenue, but zero dollars funded County Fire Department. This is unacceptable.
Just say no to yet another new tax on rural property and demand the supervisors allocate at least 10% of the Prop. 172 millions that will forever roll in to county coffers for public safety funding. Those who have already voted and want to change your vote may do so by calling 454-3416 and ask for a replacement ballot.
Becky Steinbruner | Aptos
Renaissance Man
The Chip you described in the “Year in Review” (GT, 12/18) is not the Chip I know. He is a Renaissance man who, as Executive Director of the Downtown Association, can be credited for making Downtown Santa Cruz the most lively, interesting, diverse and exciting place to be in Santa Cruz County. What were you thinking when you described him as the weird guy who “aimlessly wandered the downtown streets every day?” Boulder is lucky to have him as its Downtown Executive Director.
Alan Savat | Santa Cruz
We heard from several readers about this, Alan. While he was here, one of the things that made my friendship with Chip fun was our constant teasing and attempts to elevate sarcasm to an art form. However, many readers felt that was way too in-jokey and came off a bit mean without any context, and that’s a fair criticism. Rest assured that GT has always loved Chip, and so do I. — Editor
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
At least one local photographer has been doing research in the field. Photograph by Ross Levoy.
Submit to ph****@go*******.sc. Include information (location, etc.) and your name. Photos may be cropped. Preferably, photos should be 4 inches by 4 inches and minimum 250dpi.
GOOD IDEA
THRIFT GIFTS
Over the past eight years, Caroline’s Non-Profit Thrift Store has donated $1.29 million to Santa Cruz nonprofits. This year, Caroline’s CEO Christy Licker will be giving a minimum of $500,000, her biggest total yet, to 20 groups working with special-needs children and their families. The gifting ceremony will be Sunday, Jan. 19. In an email to GT, Licker’s husband Bill says the success wouldn’t be possible without the support of those who donate used goods, as well as the store’s 80 volunteers.
GOOD WORK
SAFE PLAYS
It’s a moment years in the making. On Saturday, Jan. 18, at 11am, Santa Cruz County Parks will celebrate the grand opening of LEO’s Haven and Chanticleer Park—which includes the county’s first all-inclusive playground—after the largest community park fundraising effort in county history. The celebration’s speakers include Patricia Potts, whose children were the inspiration for LEO’s Haven, and accessibility advocate Haben Girma, the first deafblind person to graduate from Harvard Law School.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.”
Santa Cruz might just be the fungi-est place on the Central Coast, and some wait all year for this shroomy event. The annual Santa Cruz Fungus Fair boasts speakers and specialists, cooking workshops and of course, hundreds of prime fungus specimens. Don’t go eating any old side-of-the-road mushrooms—the fair’s taxonomy panel will help you classify different types of fungi and pick the prime specimens. This year’s theme is “mushrooms and medicine,” and the event list includes lectures about psilocybin mushrooms, the medicinal properties of ancient and exotic fungi, and how hallucinogens can make the world a better place.
INFO: 2-9pm on Friday, Jan. 10; 10am-5pm on Sunday, Jan. 12. Louden Nelson Community Center, 301 Center St., Santa Cruz. ffsc.us. $10 general/$5 students or seniors.
Art Seen 1/11
Pine-Needle Basket-Making
Join docent Cheryl VanDeVeer in learning how to make a woven basket from local Ponderosa pine needles. No experience is necessary, though expert pine-needle basket weavers are welcome to join. Children 10 and older may attend if accompanied by an adult. Get there early; the class capacity is 20 and may fill up. Meet at the visitor center.
INFO: 10am-noon. Saturday, Jan. 11. Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, 101 N Big Trees Park Rd., Felton. 335-7077. Free/vehicle day-use fee $10.
Sunday 1/12
15th Annual Harp Festival
Known as the world’s most ancient stringed instrument, the harp has inspired audiences all over the globe for thousands of years. Santa Cruz Harp Festival celebrates the many forms of the harp and its musical traditions, with a matinee concert featuring soloists Jennifer Cass and a Harp Quartet of her pedal harp students. There will also be an instrument “petting zoo” at intermission for the harp-curious.
INFO: 2pm. St. Philips Episcopal Church, 5271 Scotts Valley Drive, Scotts Valley.
Saturday 1/11
Westside-Minster Dog Show
Calling all pet parents! Think your pup has what it takes to take home the gold? Humble Sea’s annual “Westside Minster Dog Show” brings Westminster across the country and lets all of Santa Cruz’s paw-fect pets strut their stuff on the runway. There will be prizes, and please make sure all dogs are on a leash and are friendly to other dogs and people.
INFO: Sign-up at 5pm, show at 5:30pm. Humble Sea Brewery, 820 Swift St., Santa Cruz. Free.
In the winter of 2015, I sat in a darkened theater in Santa Cruz between my wife and daughter and had what was, in retrospect, one of the peak experiences of my life. I had written a short play about the death of Oscar Wilde (it was actually a comedy), and now I was watching actors with appropriate sets and costumes in front of a paying audience bring to life the product of my imagination.
I am not a playwright. This was the first and only time I had done something like that. But it was, I don’t mind saying, a heady and intoxicating moment.
People laughed, sending a jolt of dopamine through my system. In my seat, I was keeping my cool. But inside, I felt like Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein—hair flying, screaming into the thunderstorm, “Give my creation life!”
This month, local actor and writer Gail Borkowski will be slipping into the same shoes I tried on five years ago, at the same event, 8 Tens @ 8. The acclaimed 10-minute play festival produced by Santa Cruz Actors’ Theatre is now celebrating its 25th year as it opens a five-week run Jan. 10 at Center Stage theater.
A week before opening night, Borkowski, a first-time playwright, is breathless in anticipation.
“I’m trying hard not to think about it too much,” she says. “It’s going to be so exciting.” Her play, titled Waking Up, is about a married couple who go to bed as white people and wake up black. Their maid has the same experience, only in reverse.
She wrote the play in an afternoon a couple of years ago after overhearing someone commenting about a “white man in a black man’s body.” The play asks its actors—and, by extension, audiences—to engage with the idea of skin color beyond the obvious gags.
“There’s some humor in it, certainly,” said Borkowski, who herself is African-American. “But the challenge for the actor is, really, can you put yourself in someone else’s skin, to take what you think you know about that, and what you feel, and really be present in it, be awed by it, even be afraid of it?”
That’s a lot to ask for in just 10 minutes, but that’s exactly the point of 8 Tens, and the other short-play festivals that have sprouted up around the world. In fact, we are living in the golden age of the 10-minute play, with festivals taking place across the country and in far-flung sites like Australia, South Korea and Great Britain.
But at 25, Santa Cruz’s festival may rank as the grandmother of them all. It wasn’t the first of its kind; founder and artistic director Wilma Marcus Chandler got the idea back in the mid-1990s from a similar festival in Louisville, Kentucky, which is now defunct. So, it appears, 8 Tens is the longest-running 10-minute play festival in America.
Personnel-wise, the 25th anniversary season could rival a production of Les Miserables. Counting the actors, playwrights, directors and crew, there are about 85 people involved in staging the festival. At the top of the pyramid is artistic director Chandler and the show’s longtime producer Bonnie Ronzio, who is in charge of making sure that eight separate plays—with eight separate sets and casts—coheres into something other than chaos. (The changing of the sets between each 10-minute play is part of the show. The switchover takes places in full lighting for the audience’s benefit and is crisply choreographed to last no more than one minute.)
Chandler was already a longtime theater faculty member at Cabrillo College when she first flashed on the 10-minute play format as an excellent exercise for the students in her stage-directing class, after which she founded the festival. Ronzio was the stage manager at the very first 8 Tens, before anyone had established a routine for the logistics of presenting such a show. She kept a steady hand on the festival even when Chandler stepped away as artistic director for a few years (Novelist Clifford Henderson and playwright Brian Spencer have also both served as the festival’s artistic director).
After 25 years, says Ronzio, “we have perfected the wheel. Everything falls together. I know exactly what my budget is going to be every year. I know where I can rob Peter to pay Paul. And we are so blessed to pay everyone who works on the show.”
As practiced by 8 Tens and its many imitators, the 10-minute play marks a radical democratization of live theater. Getting a full-length play produced by an established theater company, especially for a first-time or unknown playwright, is a heavy lift. For most, it’s little more than an unattainable dream. Getting a job as a director in such a production, or even to get cast as an actor, is a long shot, too. Festivals like 8 Tens give many aspiring theater professionals opportunities they simply wouldn’t have otherwise.
The festival’s name is a bit misleading. In fact, 8 Tens is actually offering up 16 distinct 10-minute plays in two separate programs, giving audiences a chance to double-dip over the course of its five-weekend run. In all, 8 Tens has presented roughly 250 short plays or staged readings to Santa Cruz audiences, offerings a rare opportunity every year for playwrights, directors and actors.
A GOOD 10 MINUTES
My experience as a playwright was a one-off. I had a great time, and then I moved on. But getting produced at 8 Tens can also serve as a springboard to bigger things. For example, Mike McGeever was an accountant from Chicago with a master’s degree in computer science and exactly zero experience in theater when he submitted his 10-minute play Frameworks to Santa Cruz. His positive experiences at 8 Tens—he flew in from Chicago to see his play and work with director Bill Peters—inspired him to expand the play to full length, and to write a second full-length play that next fall will be produced by Freshwater Theater in Minneapolis.
McGeever’s experience as a playwright in Santa Cruz opened his eyes to a new vocation. “My experience with Bill and Wilma really did help give me the confidence to push forward and keep writing,” he says.
There are now playwrights across the country who regularly submit to 10-minute play festivals, and many consider Santa Cruz one of the plums on the circuit. Mary Caroline Rogers of Tucson, Arizona has had four plays produced at 8 Tens, dating back to 2011. Her play The Memory of Us is part of this year’s festival.
“I have a lot of respect for Wilma,” says Rogers of the festival’s artistic director. “She’s not going to put anything on stage that is silly or meaningless. The material I’ve seen in Santa Cruz is always thought-provoking work, topical, life-affirming. You’re not just sitting there. You get lost in the material. It’s moving.”
Seth Freeman is a veteran writer and producer whose career in Hollywood goes back 40 years. Among his prominent television credits is producer and lead writer for the 1970s newspaper drama Lou Grant. Freeman was a late convert to the 10-minute format.
“It’s a very busy universe,” he says, “which came as a complete shock to me when I first heard about it maybe 10 years ago. Frankly, my first thought was, ‘Really? What a bad idea. Who wants to see that?’”
But Freeman moved quickly from skeptic to evangelist. Over the last decade, he has written scores of 10-minute plays, about 160 of which have been produced by festivals around the world. Freeman has two plays in this year’s 8 Tens.
“Now that I’ve gotten into it and figured it out,” he says, “what I like about [this format] is that my 10-minute plays are plays that should be 10 minutes long—not 35 minutes, not two hours.”
Freeman usually makes the trip up from Los Angeles every time one of his plays is staged in Santa Cruz. “I really respect what they do at Actors’ Theatre,” he says. “They have good people. They put a lot into it. They’re very professional. And that’s not always the case [with other 10-minute festivals].”
Still, Freeman can’t get into 8 Tens on the strength of his name and credits. The 8 Tens season begins with the judging of the more than 200 submissions by a panel of five writers. The plays are all judged blindly; i.e., without the author’s name attached.
Ronzio and Chandler give simple instructions to the judges: Choose the best plays.
“We tell them not to reject something just because you don’t think we can build it,” says Ronzio.
“If it’s on a boat or an airplane,” says Chandler, “don’t worry about it. We can make that happen.”
The judges don’t factor in balance between dramas and comedies, or how shows fit together. “It’s a literary contest,” says Chandler. “If the best plays are 16 Greek tragedies, well, so be it.”
Nor do they worry about plays that might offend audiences. Explicit language, political material, sexuality—it’s all fair game. “We’re not candy cane people,” says Ronzio.
Chandler said that the festival has received scripts that she classifies as “porn.” “We rejected them only because the writing was so poor,” she says. “It’s really all about the writing. I don’t give a darn if the audience is upset. I want them to see that this is well-written and well-directed.”
BACKSTAGE SECRETS
Once the 16 plays are chosen, Chandler begins the delicate dance of matching each play to a director. In many communities, finding 16 willing and qualified people to direct a play is a tough task. Not in Santa Cruz. “They’re banging the doors down,” says Chandler.
The decision to do two separate programs of eight plays each grew out of the tradition of doing a “Best of the Rest” evening of staged readings, featuring the best runner-up scripts. Soon, Ronzio ventured out to the next logical step.
“I decided, why not just do 16?” she says. “Everybody thought I was bonkers. But once I figured out the schedule, I knew we could do it. I sold it to the board and they went for it. Financially, it kicked us into a whole new bracket.”
The make-up of the programs and how the plays fit together are determined by just a couple of simple rules. “I always want to start each program with the most complicated play, set-wise,” says Chandler. “And I always want to end the evening with something uplifting or funny. Those are really the only rules. In between, I try to balance who’s in which play, figure out what the set shift is going to be, and make sure any actors doing two roles will be in plays before and after intermission.”
Auditions for the roles begin in September, and the machinery for another 8 Tens again grinds into gear. “Rehearsals start at the end of September,” says Chandler, “and these actors are with it until February. I’m just so grateful to the talent base here and the willingness and loyalty they show, working in garages and living rooms, wherever they can find a space.”
MarNae Taylor teaches theater at Kirby School in Santa Cruz, and she has also been an 8 Tens true believer for more than a decade. She served on the Actors’ Theatre board for eight years and has been an actor or director (or more commonly both) at the festival. This year, she is acting in two plays and directing another.
She says that the festival creates a unique kind of backstage vibe, a mix of newbies and veterans, all in different plays but committed to the same show. “People hang out quite a while with each other and it makes for a different kind of camaraderie,” she says. “You get to know a lot more people in different ways in a short period of time.”
“We have one actor who has three lines.” says Chandler. “But he’s there every night. He’s thrilled to be there, and he’s a wonderful actor. His heart and soul are completely in it.”
As a director, Taylor enjoys working with the playwrights in a collaboration. She has, in fact, become close friends with Arizona playwright Mary Caroline Rogers through their work together at 8 Tens. “And there are a lot of other directors around. I learn something from each and every one of them.”
Chad Davies was another long-standing member of the 8 Tens family of actors and directors until 2017, when he moved to Tucson, a city well more than 10 times the size of Santa Cruz. “When we made the decision to move to Tucson, I went to see what kind of theater was here,” says Davies by phone from his Arizona home. “And there was nobody doing 10-minute plays. That’s when the light bulb went off.”
The result is yet another festival, Eight 10s in Tucson, which will present its second annual festival in April. “It’s going much better now,” says Davies. “I’m going on an accelerated curve, and it’s due in no small part to all the advice and the heads-up and the little tricks and tips that I got from Wilma and Bonnie.”
It makes sense that the 10-minute play would find fertile cultural ground now rather than in, say, the golden age of Arthur Miller and Eugene O’Neill. The YouTube-ification of popular culture has destroyed the time structures of drama and comedy imposed by television, allowing generations to grow accustomed to smaller and smaller fragments of entertainment.
“The idea that short blasts of theater would appeal to younger people is fine by me,” says Davies. “Because it gets their butts in the seats of a live performance. That’s progress. And once they’re there, there’s no screens, no fast-forward, no pause button.”
Screenwriter Seth Freeman says that the digital age makes the 10-minute festival possible. “That’s how a playwright in Southern California or Wales or wherever can see opportunities around the world and send their stuff off instantly, and at no cost.”
But the format still allows for the magic of live performance. “Once you’re in the theater,” says Freeman, “you are engaged in an ancient form of entertainment that goes back to when we were living in tribes around the campfire.”
8 Tens @ 8
Presented by Actors’ Theatre, 8 Tens @ 8 runs Jan. 10-Feb. 8, with two programs of eight 10-minute plays. $32 general; $29 senior/student. Center Stage Theater, 1001 Center St., Santa Cruz. For a schedule of programs, go to sccat.org.
