26
winter
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spring
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
THE BROADWAY CONNECTION
R
od Lathim has been a fixture on Santa Barbara’s art circuit for most of his life, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to
anyone who knows him, as Rod was not only born in Santa Barbara, but his family goes back five generations. Mr.
Lathim founded Access Theatre back in 1979, when he – a music/dance therapist with the Santa Barbara Recreation
Department at the time – created
Circus Of Life
and staged it with a large group of “disabled” performers at the historic
Lobero Theatre.
Since then (and even before), he has been involved in many productions inside and outside Access Theatre. Rod has worked
with a literal “cast of thousands” and has seen many of his fellow performers move on to larger venues and even fame. That list
includes Tony-award-winning Cady Huffman,
Saturday Night Live
’s Brad Hall, and
ER
’s Anthony Edwards, among many others
who got their start and seminal training alongside Rod.
In a bid to “reignite” his creative muse, he traveled to New York City earlier this year and immersed himself in an intense round
of visual art and theater. And that, he says, is when “Santa Barbara’s outsized influence on the Great White Way smacked me in the
face.” He outlines some of those influences in these pages.
Along the way, you’ll discover: the comfort of Bernardus Lodge & Spa in Carmel Valley and the downtown joy of Doris Day’s
pet-friendly Cypress Inn in nearby Carmel; you’ll learn that Santa Ynez Valley vintner Fred Brander spent the first 12 years of his
life in Argentina; that Bryant & Sons has been in business for 50 – count ‘em, 50 – years; that designer Shannon Scott was a “hippy
flower child” who was born in Big Sur; that Wendy Foster has been selling clothes in Montecito’s upper village for more than a
half-century; that Mary and Clarence Black’s home – El Cerrito – was a location in D.W. Griffith’s
Don Quixote.
You’ll learn, too,
of Montecito’s connection to the new Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, and that some Africans start their campfires by
lighting up $5-billion Zimbabwean notes.
Welcome to our neighborhood.
Tim Buckley
Publisher
