In April 2014, when the City of Santa Barbara leased 631 Garden Street to an organization known as the Santa Barbara Arts Collaborative, the only certain tenant for the former motor pool’s rugged, raw space was the Solstice Parade, which had been using the site to build and stage floats for a number of years. Three years later, the Community Arts Workshop (CAW) has acquired a long list of happy users that includes Santa Barbara High’s Visual Arts & Design Academy, the Lit Moon Theatre Company, and the Pacific Pride Foundation. Yet one organization stands apart from the others, including even the Solstice Parade, as having realized what is referred to in the legalese of real estate transactions as the “highest and best use” of the space, and that’s On the Verge, a three-year-old summer theater project started by a group of young directors and theater teachers that promotes plays intended to “spark conversations about important topics” and bring together talented Santa Barbara residents with top writers and performers from across the country. By setting up camp at the CAW for a full month in the middle of the summer and rehearsing on-site for what has grown into a 10-day event featuring five separate full productions, On the Verge has brought cutting-edge repertory theater to the heart of downtown Santa Barbara. Founded on principles of equity, diversity, and inclusion, On the Verge consistently raises the bar for responsive dramatic art in an era when audiences are hungrier than ever for political, emotional, and spiritual engagement.
Beginning on Thursday, August 3, with Michael Perlman’s award-winning play At the Table, On the Verge will present some of the most exciting theater on the West Coast in a format and at a price that encourages audiences to watch two shows in one night and keep coming back for more. The On the Verge team includes artistic director Kate Bergstrom, executive artistic associates Riley Berris and Jessica Ballonoff, along with Casey Caldwell, founding artistic director of Ratatat Theater and CAW partnership leader, and associate artistic director Josiah Davis, a recent graduate of UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television who has already compiled an impressive résumé as both an actor and a director.
And that’s not nearly all. Out of the Box Theatre Company founder and Santa Barbara audience favorite Samantha Eve will direct Julia Izumi’s surreal and provocative three-hander A Likely Pair; the Indy Theater Award–winning team of Danielle Draper and Lindsey Twigg will present their latest, a play called peanutbutterjellybagelcreamcheese; Katie Williams will direct Maggie Yates's Talkback, a satirical take on contemporary political discourse; and UCSB professor Risa Brainin will bring Meanwhile There Are Letters, the final installment of this season’s Launch Pad Summer Reading Series, to the CAW on Friday, August 11.