SBT: The Santa Barbara Theatre is...

...a team of seasoned theatre artists and managers. The founders of SBT have over 140 years of professional theatre experience between them. SBT believes that Santa Barbara deserves to have a theatre company in the same league as South Coast Rep in Costa Mesa, or the Geffen in Los Angeles. The mission of SBT is to become a major regional theatre between Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

Albert Ihde, SBT Producing Director

In December 2008, Albert directed his adaptation of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. This production was a major American revival, as it was accompanied by a live orchestra in the first production of Leonard Bernstein’s complete songs and music from the “lost” 1950 hit Broadway production.

In December 2007, Albert staged SBT’s original revue A Magical Musical Tour: 103 Years of the Songs of Peter Pan at the Lobero Theatre. Prior to co-founding SBT in February of 2005, he was the Executive Director of the Ensemble Theatre Company, where he was instrumental in negotiating a stabilization grant that wiped out $450,000 of that company’s accumulated deficit.

Albert was the Producing Director of StageWest in Springfield, MA, a 476-seat LORT C regional theatre where he produced 23 productions. At StageWest, Albert directed Some Enchanted Evening, Angel Street, Nora (Ingmar Bergman’s adaptation of A Doll’s House) and Camping with Henry and Tom.

In Woodstock, NY, Albert was the Producing Director of River Arts Repertory where he directed The Voice of the Prairie and The Second Shepherds Play, and produced the American Premiere of Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women, starring Marian Seldes, Myra Carter and Jordan Baker.

In Los Angeles, Albert received a Drama-Logue Award for his direction of the Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill musical Happy End. In Washington, D.C., he adapted and directed the World Premiere theatrical production of Tom Stoppard’s Albert’s Bridge.

Albert has worked in the film industry in addition to this work in theatre. Bluegrass Country Soul, which he produced and directed, starred Earl Scruggs, Ralph Stanley, Roy Acuff and many others. It was released on DVD by Time/Life Music in 2007. Albert directed The Sun Dagger, narrated by Robert Redford, which has appeared on PBS, Arts & Entertainment and Bravo. He also produced five one-hour specials for A&E titled Reno’s Cabaret Reunion, starring Peter Allen, Barbara Cook, Andrea Marcovicci, Karen Akers, Janis Ian, and many others. He also produced the bonus extras on the DVDs of such films as Cast Away, Dancer in the Dark, Gettysburg, State and Main, Rocky (25th Anniversary), and a slew of John Waters’ films.

Ellen Pasternack, SBT Managing Director

Ellen has over twenty years of experience in arts administration and production. Previously, she served as the Director of Communication and General Manager for the Ensemble Theatre Company of Santa Barbara (ETC), where she oversaw marketing and publicity, financial, benefit, facility and front-of-house administration. Ellen was the Managing Director for the Santa Barbara Festival Ballet, where she retired a multi-year debt in her first year. She also inspired and created successful group sales departments for both ETC and the Santa Barbara Civic Light Opera. Ellen has worked as a Box Office Manager, House Manager, Company Manager, Marketing Director and Equity Production Stage Manager. She was the Administrator of the Santa Barbara Performing Arts League for five years, and has served on the Board of Directors and Advisory Board for various performing arts organizations in Santa Barbara. Ellen has also worked in corporate sales, publishing, and retail management.

John Blondell, OUR TOWN Director

John Blondell is a Full Professor in the Westmont College Theatre Arts Department. Since coming to Westmont in 1988, John has taught a wide variety of classes, including all levels of acting, directing, theatre history, and dramatic literature and criticism. His stagings of classical and contemporary plays have received both popular and critical acclaim, and cemented his reputation as one of Santa Barbara’s most progressive, adventurous directors. He has won numerous awards including Independent Theatre Awards for directing Westmont productions of The Critic (1999) and Much Ado About Nothing (2000), and “Best Production?” of the year citations for Peter Pan and The Critic in area press.

John is founder and director of the Lit Moon Theatre Company, an award-winning international theatre ensemble, and is founder of the Lit Moon World Theater Festival, an international theatre festival produced yearly in Santa Barbara. In 2006, he founded the Lit Moon World Shakespeare Festival, the first of its kind in the United States, and one of only five in the world. For Lit Moon, he has directed thirteen productions, including Metamorphoses, Through the Looking Glass, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, Peer Gynt, The Diary of a Madman, The Master and Margarita, The Visions of Aksenty Ivanovich, and Hamlet; and received Independent Theatre Awards for Alice in Wonderland (1992), Henry V (2000), and King Richard II (2006). With Lit Moon, John has programmed seven World Theatre Festivals, receiving an Independent Theatre Award in 1999. He has presented companies and artists from Bulgaria, Poland, France, Germany, Russia, Hungary, South Africa, China, and the Czech Republic, and has developed numerous collaborations, whereby visiting international artists create new work with the Lit Moon company. In addition, the company has been seen at the European Month of Culture Festival in Plovdiv, Bulgaria (2000); at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (2001); the Montreal Fringe Festival (2003), where Hamlet received the Centaur Award for Best Drama; the Montreal Wildside Festival (2004); the 8th Shakespearean Festival in Gdansk (2004); the Fireman’s Theatre in Prague (2004); and the 10th Shakespearean Festival in Gdansk (2006).

John received the 2003 Westmont College Faculty Research Award for his work as a director with both Westmont and Lit Moon. John holds a Ph. D. in Dramatic Art from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and lives in Santa Barbara with his wife Vicki and their sons Nicholas, William, and Simon.