Arts

Martinez will be skillfully represented at tonight’s live telecast of the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards when homegrown stage star Alysha Umphress performs with the famed rock band Green Day in Los Angeles.

Umphress, 27, is currently Broadway-bound as a cast member of the successful musical American Idiot, a rock opera created by the multi-Grammy-winning, three-member band Green Day and Tony-award winning director Michael Mayer. more...

WEDNESDAY — The comedian Bill Cosby is credited with the quote, “The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague.”

At last week’s City Council meeting, as members deliberated continuing the City’s history of subsidizing the Willows Theater Company, this time by agreeing to pay the $4000 monthly rent on the Campbell Theater for the next five years, Council member Lara DeLaney and a few residents expressed incredulity at the lack of solid financial documentation to support such a large grant. more...

Citing “financial problems compounded by the recession,” Richard Elliott, the Willows Theatre’s artistic director, announced Tuesday the theater company had not raised the $350,000 necessary to keep both  locations in business, as he indicated was needed in early September.more...

For some, performing in the limelight is an all-consuming desire, provoking  singing, dancing or acting at an early age and a single-minded pursuit of marquee dreams into adulthood.

Martinez native Alysha Umpress, 26, was decidedly born with that drive, and on Friday night, when the curtain rises at the Berkeley Repertory Theater, she will tap 20 years of hard work and dedication as a cast member of “the most exciting project I’ve ever worked on,” said Umpress yesterday.more...

Whether you are already an avid opera fan or you have yet to experience the genre, Festival Opera’s current production of Puccini’s “Turandot” at Walnut Creek’s Lesher Center for the Arts is an excellent choice for an evening of music and culture. The story is timeless, the players are professional and passionate, the theater’s design and acoustics are exceptional, and the set, costumes and choreography are masterfully done.more...

In 2001, a driver talking on his cell phone crossed over a center divide and hit Roberta Steele’s car head-on. As a result of complications from the accident, Steele lost her right leg, then the left one, and spent more than a year in rehabilitation.

Although she had made herself a career as a graphic artist, it was after the accident that Steele, now the Director of the Martinez Arts Association’s mARTinez Gallery, “started dabbling in art.”more...

Ernest Thompson’s much-acclaimed drama, “On Golden Pond,” is the latest offering from the popular Willows Theatre Company in Concord. The play has won numerous awards since its debut off Broadway in 1978, including several Tonys for the stage version, and Oscars and Golden Globes for Thompson’s own 1981 screen adaptation.more...

The Willows Theatre Company’s cabaret venue, the Campbell Theatre in Martinez, is now hosting a fun-filled musical comedy, “Forever Plaid,” directed by veteran Ricardo Rust, that is sure to delight audiences now through its closing on March 15.

This is a don’t-miss for any fan of community theater.

The Campbell provides a gemutlich atmosphere and a quaint but artfully designed stage for this funny and talented cast of characters.more...

On this ninth day of the Chinese New Year, it is customary to offer prayers and sugarcane to the Jade Emperor, a paramount figure in the Taoist mythology.

Bringing the festivities to Martinez, a celebrated Lion Dancer will give a performance at 6:30 p.m. at the Martinez Library, and traditional snacks and arts and crafts will round out the party intended for all ages.more...