Arts & Culture

After the outbreak of COVID-19 prompted shelter-in-place orders last week, scores of performing arts venues and museums across Santa Cruz County have closed.  Staff and artists are now out of work, and locally-owned venues are currently figuring out their next step. Cabrillo College Box Office Specialist...

WATSONVILLE—Juan Carlos Pozo Block has spent the past two decades teaching in Watsonville, working with students from various backgrounds and levels of education. This year, that experience culminated in a new book in which the author, who goes by the pen name JC Pozo, shares...

The Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos) is a Mexican holiday observed across the globe every year in which families honor their deceased relatives with food, drink and various celebrations. For the past few years, the Watsonville Film Festival (WFF) has organized a...

In celebration of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History’s (MAH) 25th anniversary, the RedBall Project, a global art installation that has been to over 30 cities since 2001, is coming to Santa Cruz County. And now, after a countywide search by MAH staff...

WATSONVILLE—Every year, Pajaro Valley Arts (PVA) hosts an annual exhibit inspired by Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead in English), a traditional holiday in Mexico commemorating family and community members who have died. But this year, after almost two years of the Covid-19...

Wargin Wines’ Assistant Winemaker Brenton Jones says he is ready to shake up the wine industry. “When I look at the industry as a whole… it’s pretty set in its ways,” Jones says. “It gets stuck in a box—especially when you look at what breweries...

CAPITOLA — A new art exhibit at the Jade Street Community Center in Capitola is serving as an appetizer for the upcoming fifth annual Capitola Plein Air Art Festival. Four artists have two works in the show that were winners from previous Plein Air events, said...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—For the past 19 years, the Celebrate Piano Ensemble (CPE) has provided local pianists a way to explore pieces for two pianos (four to eight hands), all the while aiming to benefit school-age music students in Santa Cruz County. CPE’s annual February concert...

Every year, tens of thousands of people from across the globe gather in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert for Burning Man, an experimental festival focused on art, self-expression and community.  The week-long event has participants arrive with their own shelter, food and water, and supplies to...

Five-week event returns tonight to downtown Santa Cruz SANTA CRUZ—Santa Cruz County Actors’ Theatre is celebrating the 25th Anniversary of its acclaimed 8 Tens @ 8 Short Play Festival, which will be held Jan. 10-Feb. 9 at the Center Stage Theater in downtown Santa Cruz. The...