MIGHTY APHRODITE

Isn't there enough hate in the world today?

Santa Cruz Shakespeare strikes back this season with a 2018 program entirely devoted to love and all its complications — romantic, comic, and carnal.


Taking centerstage in this season-long homage to Aphrodite is the enduring combination of youthful roistering and tragic romance that is Romeo and Juliet.


The second Shakespearean production is Love's Labour's Lost, the comic misadventures of four young scholars foolishly trying to live without love — until four beauteous young women invade their studies.

Venus In Fur, by contemporary playwright David Ives (The Liar), is a sly debate on sex and sexism between a touchy director and a provocative young actress coming late to an audition.

This year's Fringe production is a play based on Dorothy Parker's droll prose piece, Men I Am Not Married To, adapted and directed by Kayla Minton Kaufman.

Celebrating its fifth season as an independent company, and its third year in the Audrey Stanley Grove at Delaveaga Park, the SCS presents its 2018 season from July 10 through September 2.

SCS Member discount tickets go on pre-sale next week, starting May 1st, at noon, available online or by calling 831 460-6399. (Tues-Fri 12 noon - 5 pm.) Have your member code number handy to get a $5 discount. (Look for your member code number on your membership thank-you card receipt.) Tickets go on sale to the general public starting May 15.

Meanwhile, there's still time to join the SCS team and become a member, or renew your current membership, and get your discount!

July is just around the corner. I'll see you in the Grove!

(That's Romeo and Juliet, by Bulgarian illustrator Svetlin Vassilev. Watercolor, 2003. See more of his gorgeous work here!)