Performance, Play & Design
-
UC Santa Cruz celebrates ’60s soul scene with ‘Dreamgirls’
The African American Theater Arts Troupe brings the glitter and grit of the 1960s soul scene to UC Santa Cruz with an electrifying production of Dreamgirls. Witness the rise of the Dreamettes in this high-energy musical celebrating Black excellence and the power of student performance.
-
How the Grinch went from a Yuletide bit player to a Christmas A-lister
“The economy is in big trouble, our political situation is chaotic, there’s a lot of hate — it’s no wonder that we would seek to express that through the embodiment of a monster like the Grinch,” said Michael M. Chemers, director of the Center for Monster Studies at UC Santa Cruz.
-
UC Santa Cruz takes audiences under the sea with ‘SpongeBob Musical’
Professor Rebecca Wear said the idea to perform “The SpongeBob Musical” came from conversations she had with fellow professor Pamela Rodriguez-Montero about doing an intergenerational production she could bring her son to. Additional coverage in Good Times.
-
Explore the history behind monsters and what scares us and why
Some scholars at UC Santa Cruz are exploring what scares us and why. The center for Monster Studies is dedicated to looking at monsters all throughout history. Michael Chemers joined us in studio to explain.
-
2025 Festival of Monsters features horror panel, roleplaying game
A feature story in the Santa Cruz Sentinel highlighted the Festival of Monsters, including an event with Literature Professor Kimberly Lau, who will discuss her book Specters Of The Marvelous: Race and Development of the European Fairy Tale on Thursday.
-
UC Santa Cruz arts division hires new faculty for 2025-26 academic year
Assistant professor Clementine Bordeaux will be teaching the history of art and visual culture class. Jonaya Kemper, assistant professor, will be teaching performance, play and design, and creative technologies.
-
UC Santa Cruz’s ‘Festival of Monsters’ blends scholarship and scares this October
The Festival of Monsters returns to Santa Cruz in October. It’s a celebration of horror and theory hosted by UC Santa Cruz’s Center for Monster Studies. This season also marks the arrival on campus of two new philosophy professors in the Humanities Division, Sara Bernstein and Daniel Nolan, whose collaborated on a project about what…
-
Bikini Bottom meets redwoods: SpongeBob musical hits stage at UCSC this fall
Lookout Santa Cruz announced a forthcoming production of SpongeBob square pants at UC Santa Cruz, led by Assistant Professor of Performance, Play & Design Rebecca Wear.
-
UC Santa Cruz’s New Play Festival features experimental work by students
The New Play Festival, curated by Lisa Marie Rollins, a professor of Performance, Play and Design, featured stage readings of new and innovative works from students. These one of a kind performances will be running through June 1.
-
UC Santa Cruz’s Theater Arts gives a heartfelt performance of ‘Just Like Us’
“UC Santa Cruz’s Mainstage production of Just Like Us offers an opportunity to reflect on the importance of community and education, especially to vulnerable groups of people in this country,” says Jake Thomas in his rave review of the recent performance. He praises the cast and creative team for putting together a heartfelt performance.
-
Video games are spotty at getting Black hair right. Black artists are forging ahead to fix that
Normalizing Black hair fosters ‘a better ecosystem,’ says game designer