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Based on the Broadway musical that continues to touch audiences, the Woodland Opera House’s “Godspell JR” boasts a timeless tale of friendship, loyalty and love.

The show follows a group of disciples as they help Jesus Christ tell different parables by using a wide variety of games, storytelling techniques and a hefty dose of comedic timing, according to a press release from the Woodland Opera House. With chart-topping songs ranging in style from pop to vaudeville, Jesus’s life and messages of kindness and tolerance dance across the stage.

This production is performed by an all-youth cast, ranging in ages 11 to 18. “Godspell JR” is set to open at the Woodland Opera House, located at 340 Second St., on Aug. 13 and run through Aug. 27.

All seats are reserved. Tickets include: adults $16, seniors (62+) $14, children under 17 $8, balcony adults $10 and balcony children $6.

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit https://www.etix.com/…/godspell2022-woodland-woodland…. Tickets are also available at the box office or by calling (530) 666-9617.

A new show will be on display at Gallery 625 in Woodland from a retired university professor who has curated his love of Cuba and its art and artists.

“Retro Cuba,” which offers a view of life and its meaning in the island nation, is set to open Friday Aug. 6 with a 5:30 p.m. reception.

Artists featured in the show include Francisco J. Rivero and Roberto Salas who reside in Cuba and Jose R. Ramirez and Jorge A. Santana, California artists.

Santana, the show’s curator, is a retired professor from Sacramento State where he taught Hispanic language and culture for forty years. He says he retired to begin his “creative phase” and has been pursuing a lifelong passion for photography. Having led over fifty travel-study groups abroad, Santana always travels with a camera in hand. His photographs in this show were taken during Sacramento State travel-study trips to Cuba in 2012, and a recent trip in April 2022.

“This is not a fine art photography approach but more of a social documentary view of present-day Cuba and Cubans in their struggle to survive in a country faced with many limitations and restrictions,” Santana stated. “Perhaps the series of photographs can be considered an ethnographic exhibit of life on the verge of dramatic change.”

Santana became acquainted with artists Rivero and Salas on his trips to Cuba.

Over the past 50 years, Salas has worked with many photographic forms including photojournalism, commercial, documentary and war correspondence. The twelve images exhibited in Retro Cuba from Salas are a tribute to animal husbandry and farming in a country where food is scarce, in large part due to the Blockade. They are part of a larger series “Such Are the Cubans” forming a quest towards a visual study of the Cuban identity.

Rivero was born in 1955 in Cardenas, Cuba and it was there that show curator Santana first met the painter after seeing his work in an art gallery. Rivero’s initial works were murals utilized by the revolution to help beautify public buildings such as hospitals and schools as well as murals that exalted some of the social and educational achievements of the revolution. With the easing up of restrictions, Cuban artists were enabled to venture into their own creation and selling of artworks.

Ramirez resides in the Bay Area and Jalisco, Mexico. He started photography at the age of 16 when he traded landscape work for a camera. He says his photography has gone through many stages – having tried travel, wedding, landscape and manipulation or composite photography, he has now “found my true passion in street photography.”

Ramirez has traveled to Cuba many times since the late 1980s and enjoys the culture, people, music and history, and has many friends and family members there. The urban photos in the show capture moments in Cuba.

Santana will attend the opening reception from 5:30 to 8 p.m. on Aug. 5, coinciding with the downtown Woodland First Friday event. At 6:30 pm Santana will host a talk about his friendship with Rivero and Ramirez, and his academic and artistic ties to these artists. Rick Swig, a friend of photographer Salas, will talk about his friendship with Salas and the significance of his photography.

Tropical Latino music will be played courtesy of guitarist Emanual Pailes and light refreshments will also be available.

The artwork can also be viewed (and purchased) online at yoloarts.org/online-galleries.

“Retro Cuba” continues at Gallery 625, located at 625 Court St. in Woodland in Yolo County’s Erwin Meier Administration building, through Oct. 4.

The Manetti Shrem Museum of Art in UC Davis has a new exhibit titled “Young, Gifted and Black” from the Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection of Contemporary Art.

Nearly 50 artists of African descent are featured in this traveling exhibition as they explore identity, politics and art history through a variety of media. The show is on view until Dec. 19 at the museum, located at 254 Old Davis Rd.

Center Stage is a column exploring the arts in and around Yolo County.

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