Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre Company begins their 2024/25 season with A Cowboy Lullaby, a fun, family affair from award-winning theater artists James O’Neil and Dan Wheetman. It’s a singalong on the range, an original arrangement of medleys composed of country-western favorites that paint a picture of the American west. Well-loved songs from throughout the 20th century — from artists like Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash, Gordon Lightfoot, and Gene Autry, along with original songs by Wheetman — take audiences through the deserts of Texas and Arizona, through the badlands of New Mexico, up through the prairies and the farmlands of middle America, and out to the golden hills of California. The five-person band consists of Wheetman, his son and daughter-in-law, Trevor Wheetman and Sylvie Davidson, and old friends (and longtime professional musicians) Bill Flores and David P. Jackson. A Cowboy Lullaby is an intimate and comforting show that feels like an evening with friends.
From the hundreds of songs that O’Neil and Wheetman chose from to shape into the final cut of A Cowboy Lullaby, these tunes tell the tales of cowboy mythology. From the ill-fated gun fights of “El Paso” and “Rocky Racoon” to the reverence of the natural world in “They Call the Wind Mariah”; from the jaunty “Back in the Saddle Again” to the brooding “Ghost Riders in the Sky”; and from the greed of “Diamond Joe” to the generosity of “Desert Pete,” the world of the range riders is richly illustrated with these campfire melodies.
If you remember these songs from your youth or know them from hearing your parents or grandparents playing them, feel free to sing along. Ventura may be a sleepy beach town today, but it used to be acres of ranchland — get in touch with the wild-west history of the central coast with A Cowboy Lullaby, running at the Rubicon Theatre through December 22. See bit.ly/4gtqBQQ for tickets and details.
