Brilliant flashes of scarlet punctuated the misty redwood glen last Friday as the third drama in this season’s Shakespeare Santa Cruz opened to a rapt full house. The first of the three central histories tracing the rise of royal rogues, Henry IV, Part I reverberates with one part kingly remorse, another part power grab and a third part Sir John Falstaff. In this masterpiece of language and intrigue, Shakespeare interwove the imagined back story behind the takeover of the English throne by Henry Bolingbroke and the tale of ribald Falstaff, the carousing buddy of the king’s son, Prince Hal. One of the best-known and best-loved characters in the canon, Falstaff is a larger-than-life lout whose hard-drinking lifestyle has lowered the standing of the Prince of Wales in the eyes of his father.
Man Arrested in Cold Case in Santa Cruz Jail
Back in April 1984, Tina Faelz, 14, of Pleasanton was walking home from school at about 2:30pm. She had been having problems with some of her classmates, and decided not to take the school bus that day. She never made it home. An hour later her body was found in a drainage ditch near Interstate 680. She had been stabbed multiple times and was covered in blood.
Two Moons Better Than One
It’s only in the past 50 years that scientists have had a peek at the whole of the moon. Because the moon doesn’t spin on its axis, the harvest moon that we saw and sang about (or barked about, in some cases), was the exact same moon, showing the exact same face and the exact same features. Then the space program began orbiting the moon, and researchers discovered that the terrain on dark side was very different from what human have seen for hundreds of thousands of years.
National Night Out Deemed A Success
There was a SWAT vehicle parked outside the Shoreline Middle School in Live Oak last night, but that was no cause for alarm. Kids (and parents) were exploring the urban tank and learning about the local police force, part of National Night Out.
Santa Cruz Council Orders Water Swap Study
First proposed in the 1980s, the notion of a cross-county water swap lost traction soon after going public as both parties agreed there was “little potential” for a share. Now it’s back.
Mighty Marin Alsop
In 1930, a pioneering American, Antonia Brico, conducted the Berlin Philharmonic, and to critical acclaim. It was a fluke. No woman musician played in that famous orchestra until 1982. Of virtually equal stature, the Vienna Philharmonic opened the door to a female musician, a harpist, only in 1997. This was the world Swiss-born orchestra conductor Gustav Meier grew up in.
SSC’s ‘Comedy of Errors:’ Corn and Wry
Readers who, like me, find the first few minutes of most Shakespearean plays baffling as the ear sorts out the language and the brain grapples with plot should take the spotty stage bulbs on the set of Shakespeare Santa Cruz’s The Comedy of Errors as fair warning: this production is not chiefly concerned with keeping the audience out of the dark.
Disc Golf Gets Its Closeup
In 2006 an Emmy-winning sports producer got the disc golf bug on a Santa Cruz course. The result premieres this Tuesday at the Rio, just in time for the Professional Disc Golf Association World Championships right here on the Monterey Bay.
New Local TV Show Highlights Art And Tech
A new TV series shines a light on locals whose creative work blends art and technology—from UCSC astrophysicists who use 3D graphics to show simulations of outer space to choreographers like Tandy Beal and musicians such as Mambo Tropical.
PLATED: The Exotic & The Familiar
Food trucks, Iveta scones, and Grazing on the Green in this week’s PLATED.
