Tickets on sale now for 2026 line-up including one-night-only tribute bands, comedy, drag and local artistic collaborations

March 25, 2026 — SANTA CRUZ, CA — Santa Cruz Shakespeare (SCS), the nationally recognized professional theatre company with more than 40 years of history in Santa Cruz County, today announced the expansion of its popular “Monday Night Revels” and the introduction of “Community Revels”, a new series of Tuesday-night performances that spotlight local artists and arts organizations alongside nationally recognized performers.

Building on the success of its 2025 inaugural year, the Revels will feature a broad lineup of one-night-only performances at the popular outdoor venue, the Audrey Stanley Grove in Santa Cruz’s DeLaveaga Park. With expanded programming and a mix of national touring acts, beloved tribute bands, comedy, drag and local artistic collaborations, Monday Night Revels and Community Revels promise to make the Audrey Stanley Grove a vibrant hub of entertainment throughout the summer.

“We were delighted by the community’s response to Monday Night Revels last year, and we’re thrilled to expand the series this summer,” said SCS Artistic Director, Charles Pasternak. “The Grove is already a magical place for Shakespeare, and these special events allow us to welcome audiences for a completely different kind of evening—whether that’s live music, comedy, drag or immersive storytelling. Adding Community Revels also allows us to celebrate the incredible artistic
talent right here in Santa Cruz.”

This summer’s Monday Night Revels lineup offers an eclectic mix of performances designed to transform Monday nights in The Grove into unforgettable experiences:

• Pink Ladies of the Sonnets – July 20, a drag extravaganza of Shakespeare proportions
• The SCS Cast Plays Dungeons & Dragons Live – July 27
• Heartless – August 3, the world’s greatest tribute to Heart
• Starman SF – August 10, a dazzling celebration of David Bowie
• Rockapella – August 31, the internationally celebrated a cappella group
• Surf City Allstars – September 14, performing the iconic music of the Beach Boys
• Kristin Key – September 21, the nationally renowned comedian known for her viral stand-up and musical comedy
• Ronstadt Revolution – September 28, honoring the legendary music of Linda Ronstadt

The new Community Revels series will highlight standout local performances, including:

• Smoke Cabaret – September 15, a one-woman cabaret show featuring Lori Rivera
• Santa Cruz Opera Project presents La Bohème – September 29

Tickets are available now at: www.santacruzshakespeare.org/monday-night-revels.

Santa Cruz Shakespeare is expanding into year-round programming, beginning with a special spring production of Vincent by Leonard Nimoy. The season, themed ’Til Death Do Us Part, includes summer productions of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and Macbeth and Fences by August Wilson and fall productions of Private Lives by Noël Coward and The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown. The summer and fall season runs from July 11 through October 4. The 2026 season concludes with the return of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens in December.

Tickets for the summer and fall season will go on sale to SCS members on April 1, and to the general public on May 1. Tickets are currently available for Vincent, on stage at the Veterans Memorial Hall in Downtown Santa Cruz, at http://www.santacruzshakespeare.org/tickets.

About Santa Cruz Shakespeare

Featuring professional actors from around the country and inspired by deep local roots that go back more than 40 years, Santa Cruz Shakespeare stages bold productions of the plays of Shakespeare and other great playwrights that stimulate audiences’ senses and spark their imagination. For more information about SCS, visit santacruzshakespeare.org or check out SCS socials at www.facebook.com/ShakesPlayOn and www.instagram.com/santacruzshakes.

Santa Cruz Shakespeare (SCS) today announced its expansion in year-round programming with a special spring engagement of Vincent, the acclaimed one-person play by Leonard Nimoy. The 90-minute performance, starring SCS Artistic Director Charles Pasternak, will take place at the Veterans Memorial Building, 846 Front Street in Downtown Santa Cruz on select dates from April 24 through May 10, 2026. Tickets for Vincent are on sale Friday, January 9 at 9 a.m.

Vincent is a compelling theatrical portrait of Vincent van Gogh, drawn from a series of imagined letters between the artist and his brother Theo that illuminate the van Gogh’s creative drive, personal struggles and enduring legacy. In this intimate production, Pasternak delivers a singular performance that brings depth and humanity to one of history’s most influential artists.

Specific performance dates and ticketing details are posted at www.santacruzshakespeare.org. Information is also available at www.ticketleap.events/tickets/santa-cruz-shakespeare/vincent or by calling the SCS box office at 831-460-6399, open Tuesday through Friday from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

The production of Vincent is part of Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s expansion into year-round programming, reflecting the organization’s commitment to broadening its artistic offerings beyond the traditional summer and fall festival season. By presenting works such as Vincent in alternative venues and at different times of year, Santa Cruz Shakespeare continues to deepen its engagement with the community and expand access to live, professional theatre.

“Vincent represents both an artistic opportunity and an important step forward for Santa Cruz Shakespeare,” said Pasternak. “As we move toward year-round programming, we are excited to present work that invites reflection, intimacy and connection.”

About Santa Cruz Shakespeare 

Featuring professional actors from around the country and inspired by deep local roots that go back more than 40 years, Santa Cruz Shakespeare stages bold productions of the plays of Shakespeare and other great playwrights that stimulate audiences’ senses and spark their imagination. For more information about SCS, visit santacruzshakespeare.org or check out SCS socials at www.facebook.com/ShakesPlayOn and www.instagram.com/santacruzshakes.

CONTACT: Alexandra Baker
831-706-6098
alexandra@millermaxfield.com

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FROM SCS ARTISTIC DIRECTOR CHARLES PASTERNAK: December 24, Christmas Eve, was the closing performance of our 2025 Christmas Carol. All weekend the has been windy and wet, with particularly strong gusts that evening. I stood outside the Vets Hall as I do before every performance — greeting people, wishing them Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. It was a sold out house, so I knew there would be a rush of patrons just before curtain at 7:00 p.m. I hoped the line out the door wouldn’t force anybody into the rain.

At 6:57 p.m. I heard a loud electrical pop somewhere down Front Street and the power went out for blocks. That’s when the first act of magic happened: I didn’t know this at the time, but a moment after the power went out in the auditorium, someone started to sing Silent Night, and the whole audience joined in. Meanwhile, I quickly checked in with our front of house team: no, there was not a generator; yes, most of the audience was already in the theatre. I moved quickly to the stage with my camera flashlight on me, announcing, “Hello all! Clearly, the power’s out. However, one way or another, the show will go on…” Our audience cheered. They were excited.

I dashed upstairs to our dressing rooms to check in with the cast. What do we do? Well, we do it by flashlight. Well, we can’t do all the staging… dozens of costume changes, moving sets, choreography in the dark. Someone could get hurt. Okay… we do it as a reading. To candlelight. Do we sing? We have to do the carols. But they’re multipart harmonies and we’re not getting the notes from anywhere – we’ll play the first notes from a phone. The two child actors can’t believe we’re doing this. But they’re excited. We all are. In a way, this is the best live theatre has to offer.

We head down to the stage. The cast sit in a semi-circle on stage. We set up flashlights as footlights. They all hold the electric candles they normally walk in with during In the Bleak Midwinter. They begin singing that beautiful, haunting carol. A few things are clear immediately: first, they sound gorgeous; second, the Vets Hall around them has never been so quiet – both because the audience is leaning forward, rapt – and because there is no ambient noise with the power out; third, when they stand up, the footlight flashlights don’t light their faces. So I grab one while my amazing co-director Alicia Gibson grabs the other and we lie in our groundling section shining them up at the speakers.

I know right away that this is a perfect show to be read in this manner. It’s already a narrative adaptation of the novella. More poetry has been retained than in most stage productions – more description of Dickens’ vibrant, if less dramatic, world is laced in there. And the actors… they’re bringing it. Our audience is meeting them actively.

I’m an unapologetically sentimental and nostalgic person. I’m getting emotional writing this. But I didn’t shed a tear that night — maybe the first time that has been true when I’ve seen our Carol; the adrenaline was too high and I had too much to do. But that was the best Carol I have ever seen anywhere. Bar none. And one of the most exciting nights of theatre I have ever been a part of…

Christmas Eve. Closing Performance. 3 minutes before showtime. Most of the audience was already sitting down. They sung Silent Night together. And we wouldn’t send them home without a show.

And I haven’t said enough about our amazing cast. But words will fail. I’ll just say that it started as a stand up / sit down reading and grew, as the show went on, into an improvised theatrical event. There were many meta-theatrical reverberations and the company let them play (“Darkness is cheap… *laughter* …and Scrooge liked it.”) But Mike Ryan, our intrepid Scrooge, stayed devotedly in character, leading us as he always does on that stage.

The cast finishes. The audience goes wild. After the cast *carefully* sings their way out of the house with We Wish You a Merry Christmas, I leap up and ask our audience to please be *very careful* as they make their way out of the hall. Our amazing front-of-house team is already there with flashlights to guide the way. As I stand out front, thanking everyone as they depart, I know most of them have just experienced something they’ll never forget.

We couldn’t recreate it… though we may try. Closing with a candlelit reading in future years may be just the way to honor something like this.

Here’s to holiday miracles.

— Charles Pasternak, SCS Artistic Director
— December 26, 2025

Five Summer and Fall Productions Connected by Theme of “’Til Death Do Us Part”; A Christmas Carol Returns for Winter Production

August 26, 2025– SANTA CRUZ, CA— Santa Cruz Shakespeare (SCS), celebrating 12 years as a nationally recognized non-profit professional repertory theater company with history in Santa Cruz County going back more than 40 years, has announced its line-up of six productions for its 2026 season, expanding from its 2025 season to include a second fall show. Performances will take place July 11 to October 4 in the Audrey Stanley Grove (“The Grove”) in Santa Cruz’s DeLaveaga Park, with the holiday production of A Christmas Carol taking place in December at the Veteran’s Memorial Hall in downtown Santa Cruz.

The productions of the 2026 season include:

• Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
• Macbeth by William Shakespeare
• Fences by August Wilson
• Private Lives by Noël Coward
• The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

“Hot on the heels of our most successful season ever, I am excited to build on our incredible accomplishments and continue the expansion that has made them possible,” said Charles Pasternak, SCS artistic director. “In 2026, we will further expand the fall into with a rotating repertory of two shows, which extends our summer and fall season to five shows. Add to that our production of A Christmas Carol, which will return for a third year in 2026, and we have doubled the number of shows we produce in only three years. It is a miraculous accomplishment, made possible by the enthusiasm and generous support of this incredible community.”

The 2026 Season will also include SCS’s Fringe Series, including a staged reading and a performance by the season’s SCS apprentices. Titles and dates to be announced later.

The theme for 2026 summer and fall productions is Til Death Do Us Part, in which all productions take a deeper and more intimate look at partnerships and marriage.

About the Summer 2026 Productions:

Much Ado About Nothing
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Charles Pasternak

One of Shakespeare’s wittiest and most beloved comedies, the 2026 season will open with Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Of all the couples in Shakespeare, perhaps none is more widely loved than Beatrice and Benedick. Their battle of wits; their antagonism turned to eroticism; their history. Before the play begins, they already seem to define each other. The audience, like the other characters in the play, wait with excitement as their wits clash, and eventually, as their love blossoms.

Macbeth
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Paul Mullins

Dark, bloody, brutal, and magnificent, Shakespeare’s Macbeth is one of the greatest plays ever written. Its central couple, ironically, is one of Shakespeare’s happiest. At least at the beginning. Where Much Ado shows us the coming together of antagonists, Macbeth explores what we become when our second half is ripped away. A powerful unit, wildly in love with each other, the Macbeths follow the insinuations of the witches – the famous weird sisters – and commit murder in the name of their shared ambition: the throne of Scotland. But even with their goal achieved, Macbeth’s paranoia and guilt lead him further down the road of blood. The central unit tears apart under the shadow of its deeds. Who are these two without each other? Slowly and surely, the play shows us society’s ruin in the form of its leading pair.

Macbeth will star Dan Donohue in the title role and Paige Lindsey White as Lady Macbeth.

Fences
By August Wilson
Directed by Susan Dalian

August Wilson joins the Santa Cruz Shakespeare stage for the first time in 45 years. Fences is the perfect offering, wonderfully in line with the season’s theme: ‘Til Death Do Us Part. Troy Maxson is one of Wilson’s great creations; Shakespearean in scope; a wordsmith and brilliant storyteller. He has survived the terrible trauma of his past and built himself a good life. But the backbone of that life, the spine that keeps it standing strong, is his wife Rose. Like all of Wilson’s best work, Fences is both mythic and intimate; the questions it asks both human and eternal.

Private Lives
By Noël Coward
Directed by Laura Gordon

If you think Beatrice and Benedick go at it in Much Ado, wait until you see Amanda and Elyot. Both on honeymoons with new spouses, having violently divorced years before, Amanda and Elyot discover each other sharing adjoining balconies in the same hotel. Well, one thing leads to another, and… sometimes the line between love and hate is so thin. In Noël Coward’s masterpiece, we witness two selfish, passionate, egotistical, madly in love people drive each other absolutely crazy. How can they possibly survive together? But more importantly, perhaps, how can they survive apart? With Coward’s searing wit, you’ll laugh until you cry while they scream until they kiss. And vice versa.

Private Lives will star Charles Pasternak as Elyot and Paige Lindsey White as Amanda.

The Last Five Years
By Jason Robert Brown
Directed by Laura Gordon
Music Direction by Luke Shepherd

Coming full circle on the theme, ‘Til Death Do Us Part, Brown’s gorgeous musical looks at the beginning and ending of a relationship through the eyes of Cathy and Jamie. In rotating songs, Cathy’s journey moves backward through the relationship, while Jamie’s moves forward. Through beautiful music and clever, moving lyrics, Brown looks deeply at the sacrifices we make, how we come to define each other, and what it costs to let it go.

Tickets go on sale to members in April 2026 and the public on May 1, 2026.

For more information, visit santacruzshakespeare.org.

About Santa Cruz Shakespeare Membership

Become an annual member of SCS to support the entire 2025 season and ShakesEDU. SCS memberships range from $50-$10,000 with tiered benefits including pre-sales, ticket discounts, early admission, free parking, free food and drink, cushioned seats, and other benefits. For those under 25 years old, join the Hathaway Club and receive one half price regular ticket to any three shows. Learn more: https://santacruzshakespeare.org/member/.

About Santa Cruz Shakespeare

Featuring professional actors from around the country and inspired by deep local roots that go back more than 40 years, Santa Cruz Shakespeare stages bold productions of the plays of Shakespeare and other great playwrights that stimulate audiences’ senses and spark their imagination. Learn more at santacruzshakespeare.org, Facebook and Instagram.