Nov. 10, 2025– Santa Cruz, CA – Santa Cruz Shakespeare (SCS), a nationally recognized professional repertory theatre company staging imaginative productions for more than a decade, today announced the full cast for its annual adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. The production runs from Wednesday, November 26, through Christmas Eve with 26 opportunities for audiences to experience this festive holiday tradition. The 90-minute performances are scheduled for 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. at the Veterans Memorial Hall at 846 Front St. in Downtown Santa Cruz. Opening night is Sunday, November 30 at 7:00 p.m. 

“I’m deeply grateful for my incredible collaborators in this annual holiday tradition,” said Charles Pasternak, artistic director of Santa Cruz Shakespeare. “I’m thrilled to welcome our amazing production manager, Alicia Gibson, as my co-director and to welcome back cast favorites Julie James, Charlotte Munson and Andrea Sweeney Blanco. And, of course, the great Mike Ryan returns as Ebenezer Scrooge.” 

In addition to Mike Ryan, Julie James, Charlotte Munson and Andrea Sweeney Blanco, Eddie Lopez joins the cast as Bob Cratchit and other characters. Youth actors Lincoln Best, Joseph Pratt, Aria Atkinson and Sigrid Breidenthal round out the cast. Luke Shepherd provides music direction for the production. 

“Whether this is the audience’s first time or their hundredth time seeing A Christmas Carol, I hope they will take away how an act of grace can change a human heart,” said Alicia Gibson, co-director of A Christmas Carol. “The magic of this story is that it keeps us coming back for old reminders and new discoveries. My goal is that audience members feel the warmth and hope that so many of us are searching for this time of year.” 

View the full performance schedule at www.santacruzshakespeare.org/christmascarol.  

Tickets are available at www.santacruzshakespeare.org or through the seasonal Box Office, 831-460-6399, open Tuesday through Friday from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.  

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, Facebook and Instagram.   

Production runs Nov. 26 – Dec. 24 in Downtown Santa Cruz

Oct. 1, 2025– Santa Cruz, CA – Santa Cruz Shakespeare (SCS), a nationally recognized professional repertory theatre company staging imaginative productions for more than a decade, today announced that tickets are on sale for its annual adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. The production opens on Sunday, November 30 and runs through Christmas Eve at the Veterans Memorial Hall at 846 Front St. in Downtown Santa Cruz.

“Following a sold out run in 2024, A Christmas Carol returns as a holiday tradition for the whole family,” said Charles Pasternak, artistic director of Santa Cruz Shakespeare. “Audiences can again expect a theatrical and music-filled adaptation of this classic play in the heart of Santa Cruz. We hope to see new and returning faces during Carol’s run!”

Directed by Charles Pasternak and Alicia Gibson, A Christmas Carol stars Mike Ryan as Ebeneezer Scrooge, with returning favorites Julie James, Charlotte Munson and Andrea Sweeney Blanco. Luke Shepherd provides music direction for the production.

With 26 performances and shows at 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m., A Christmas Carol is a festive holiday tradition for the whole family. Performances begin on November 26. Full performance schedule at www.santacruzshakespeare.org/christmascarol.

Tickets are available at www.santacruzshakespeare.org or through the seasonal Box Office, 831-460-6399, open Tuesday through Friday from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. The show is 90 minutes with no intermission.

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, Facebook and Instagram.  

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 lineup of six productions for its 2026 season, expanding from its 2025 season to include a second fall show. Performances will take place July 12 to Oct. 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 Nov. and Dec. 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 Noel 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 two staged readings and two performances of the apprentice show. Titles and dates to be announced later.

The theme for 2026 summer and fall productions is Till 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 Benedict. 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 Donahue 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: Till 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 Noel Coward

Directed by Laura Gordon

If you think Beatrice and Benedict 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 Noel 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, Till 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://old.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.

Shakespeare Play On (later to be known as Santa Cruz Shakespeare) was forged in 2013 when the University of California, Santa Cruz felt it could no longer host our predecessor organization, Shakespeare Santa Cruz. A small but intrepid group of community members met to determine how to continue the Shakespeare Festival and all its rich traditions while creating something new and exciting. We began our journey by reaching out to our community, far and wide, to understand and share how our festival brought value to the artistic and social fabric of our community. The people responded by seeding us with the financial and community support necessary to get started. With great dedication we produced a well-received three-play festival in 2014. Emboldened by this success, we developed a five-year strategic plan to guide future growth and great theatre.

Shortly after finishing our strategic plan in March 2015, we learned we needed to find a new performance venue for the 2016 season. This meant we had to find a space and create a new outdoor theatre in little more than a year! All while producing our second summer festival, which we had committed to expand from three to four productions. Again, we asked our community for help.  

The City of Santa Cruz became a new member of our growing family and it has become a critical partner to Santa Cruz Shakespeare. Together we identified land in DeLaveaga Park owned by the City of Santa Cruz and, in just a few short months, agreement was reached to allow SCS to construct an outdoor theatre on that property. With the land secured, our faithful and generous community rallied behind SCS and provided the resources that would create the Audrey Stanley Grove in DeLaveaga Park.

The result? We proudly opened the 2016 Summer Festival in our new home, complete with a new stage, theatre, tech booth, box office, and audience amenities!

Going forward we will focus on strengthening our artistic work, enhancing the audience experience, and deepening our roots in the community.  We are already working towards achieving this vision. We are deeply grateful to everyone who has fueled and shared the journey of Santa Cruz Shakespeare thus far. We invite you to become part of our next adventure, our artistic endeavors, and the burgeoning community that awaits us all.

April 15, 2025 – SANTA CRUZ, CA—Santa Cruz Shakespeare (SCS), a nationally recognized professional theatre company in Santa Cruz County with deep local roots that go back more than 40 years, today announced tickets will go on sale May 1 for its 2025 Summer and Fall Festival.

Performances will take place July 13 through September 20 in the Audrey Stanley Grove (The Grove) in Santa Cruz’s DeLaveaga Park. Tickets will be available at santacruzshakespeare.org.

Following two years of record-breaking ticket sales, the 2025 festival will include four plays running in rotating repertory: A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, the musical Into the Woods, by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, Pericles by William Shakespeare and George Wilkins, and “Master Harold” …and the boys by Athol Fugard. The 2025 season theme is “No One is Alone”.

“The four masterpieces we’re producing this season all examine the threads that tie us together,” said Charles Pasternak, Artistic Director of Santa Cruz Shakespeare. “In each of these plays, the world is torn apart – sometimes quite literally – but knitted anew by recognition. Recognition of ourselves in each other, in our need for each other. None of us is an island. We need each other – now more than ever – and through both laughter and heartbreak, this season looks to bring our incredible community closer together.”

ABOUT THE PRODUCTIONS:

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

Director: Paul Mullins

Opening Night: July 18, 2025, 8 p.m.

One of Shakespeare’s most famous and beloved works, Midsummer is a perfect evening of theatre, filled with magic, love, wild laughter and…an ass. In the mystical forest of Arden, the world is pulled apart and woven back together over the course of a single miraculous night. Fleeing lovers and earnest workingmen stumble into the magic of a fairy kingdom at war with itself. Hijinks and heartbreak ensue. Most famously, the amateur actor Nick Bottom is transformed into an ass before becoming the lover of the Fairy Queen, Titania. But by morning, all is set aright, and we return to Athens for a trio of marriages and an amateur performance for the ages. One of the funniest plays ever written, Midsummer celebrates our deep need to gather together, sacrifice and celebrate.

Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine

Director: Jerry Lee

Opening Night: July 19, 2025, 8 p.m.

The first summer musical produced by Santa Cruz Shakespeare and Shakespeare Santa Cruz in 32 years and a brilliant pairing with Midsummer, Sondheim’s masterpiece sees another disparate group journeying into the forest, pursuing a wide range of desires, from a simple visit to grandmother’s house, a decent price for a cow or the magical ingredients to cure a curse of childlessness. Woods honors the various fairy tales it is drawn from and turns them on their head. It subverts expectations, surprising at every music-filled turn with pathos and humor. SCS’s season theme is drawn directly from the gorgeous Act II song of the same name, “No One is Alone.” Woods is Sondheim’s incredible meditation on just that – messy, painful or beautiful, as it may be.

Pericles by William Shakespeare and George Wilkins

Director: Charles Pasternak

Opening Night: July 31, 2025, 8 p.m.

Shakespeare’s brilliant late romance continues the 2025 festival’s sweep into the mythic. The first half of this rarely performed play follows Prince Pericles’ incredible journey through multiple kingdoms, wild adventures, desperate escapes; a magnificent love affair, a pair of storms at sea and a single shipwreck. And that’s just part one. The second half shifts some fourteen years later to Pericles’ daughter, Marina, who must survive her own trials: an assassination attempt, an abduction by pirates, the violence of a brothel. By the power of her kindness, wit and virtue, she rises above each of these dangers, finally meeting her father. The reunion of Pericles and Marina is one of the most beautiful scenes Shakespeare ever wrote. We cannot survive alone; the coming together of father and daughter is the rebirth of a world. The play ends, indeed, with another incredible rebirth; in love and unity, miracles are possible.

“Master Harold” …and the boys by Athol Fugard

Director: Rebecca Haley Clark

Opening Night: September 5, 2025, 7 p.m.

Following the epic sweep of the summer season, “Master Harold” snaps us into the deeply intimate and intense. Set in the apartheid era of South Africa, we find ourselves in the tea shop of Harold’s family. Young Hally, who is white, spends the afternoon after school in the shop with two of the family’s servants, Sam and Willie, who are black. Over the course of 90 minutes, we bear witness to the shifting relationship between all of them; a relationship built both on love and respect, as well as one built on bigotry and institutionalized racism. Fugard’s autobiographical masterpiece is both joyous and brutal, with an ending that will leave you both stunned and inspired. It brings home SCS’s 2025 festival theme “No One is Alone” with a beautiful recognition – one that would lead Fugard to becoming one of the great playwrights of the 20th century.

Playwright Fugard’s death in March of this year was a loss to Santa Cruz Shakespeare and the larger theatre community. SCS is especially grateful to produce Fugard’s work this year and honor his legacy.

The 2025 Festival will also include SCS’s Fringe Series, including two staged readings and two performances of its apprentice show happening Tuesday nights in August at 7 p.m. Price is pay-what-you-will.

The seasonal box office opens for phone orders beginning May 1. Box office hours will be Tuesday through Friday from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. Call 831-460-6399.

SCS’s performance calendar can be found here: https://old.santacruzshakespeare.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Calendar-for-Brochure.jpg

Learn more at: https://old.santacruzshakespeare.org/season-2025/

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://old.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.

April 1, 2025 – SANTA CRUZ, CA – Santa Cruz Shakespeare announced today that it has launched Shakes On The Move, its traveling troupe that features a 45-minute adaptation of Shakespeare’s timeless comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Currently running now through May 3 as an innovative component of the ShakesEDU education program, this high-energy, adaptation brings music, humor and heart of Shakespeare’s beloved comedy directly into schools, libraries, retirement communities and other venues. Bookings are open until April 15. A fall schedule will also be offered, which will add a bilingual version of Romeo and Juliet.

“We are thrilled to launch Shakes on the Move, enabling us to bring Shakespeare out into our community,” said Charles Pasternak, artistic director of Santa Cruz Shakespeare. “Shakes on the Move includes a raucous performance, followed by a Q&A or post-show workshop. We cannot wait for the community to get to enjoy the magic of Shakespeare at their own venues and help us inspire our future generation of storytellers and dreamers.”

Shakes on the Move returns in the fall beginning Sept. 1 with productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and a bilingual Romeo and Juliet. The dynamic, 45-minute adaptation of Romeo and Juliet infuses Shakespeare’s original language with a multicultural twist, celebrating the beauty of diverse storytelling. By blending languages and cultural influences, this production makes Shakespeare accessible, relevant and deeply engaging for modern audiences.

Bookings are open for spring and fall. Learn more about booking Shakes on the Move visit https://old.santacruzshakespeare.org/tour/ or email education@santacruzshakespeare.org.

About “ShakesEDU”

Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s “ShakesEDU” education program is dedicated to educating the community about Shakespeare and the art of theatre. The education program offers a variety of programs for learned of all ages, from touring productions, classes and in-school workshops to Book Clubs, professional development workshops and Weekend with Shakespeare. Learn more: https://old.santacruzshakespeare.org/educators/.

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.

Nov. 12, 2024– Santa Cruz, CA – Santa Cruz Shakespeare (SCS), a nationally recognized professional repertory theatre company staging imaginative productions for more than a decade, today announced the cast and production team for Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. A new Santa Cruz holiday tradition for the whole family, audiences can expect a theatrical and music-filled adaptation of this classic play.

“This play is ultimately a story about generosity above all else. This beautiful, theatrical, thrilling little story is more necessary today than ever,” said SCS Artistic Director, Charles Pasternak, who also will direct the production. “A Christmas Carol reminds us what is best in all of us.”

The production will run from November 23 through December 24, 2024, at the Veterans Memorial Hall at 846 Front St in Downtown Santa Cruz. There will be 28 performances, with shows at 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Tickets are now on sale.

Cast

Production Team

Ticket prices range from $20 to $60 and are available at www.santacruzshakespeare.org or through the seasonal Box Office, 831-460-6399, open Tuesday through Friday from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. The show is 90 minutes with no intermission.

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, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.