Areas We Cover
Categories
San Francisco
(Bay Area)
-
Recommended Concert: MITSUKO UCHIDA WITH THE MAHLER CHAMBER ORCHESTRA (Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall)
CAL PERFORMANCES AT UC BERKELEY PRESENTSMITSUKO UCHIDA WITH THEMAHLER CHAMBER ORCHESTRASUNDAY, MARCH 27 AT 3PMIN ZELLERBACH HALL Following her all-Schubert recital for last season’s Cal Performances at Home online streaming series Ms. Uchida comes to Zellerbach Hall for an in-person concert with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra that draws a line from Henry Purcell’s uniquely English…
-
Theater Review: HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD (Curran Theatre in San Francisco)
A MAGICAL TREAT Going into San Francisco’s famed, 100-year-old Curran Theater for the opening night of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, theatergoers must have felt like Harry did when he stepped on board the Hogwarts Express in 1997, bound for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was the…
-
Dance: THE VOICE WITHIN — FEATURING SEIBI LEE (Leela Dance Collective in SF, LA & Edmonton)
Leela Dance Collective presents The Voice Within, featuring veteran kathak artist Seibi Lee in an intimate performance exploring the themes of duality and paradox. Lee renders two ancient stories – Houyi and Chang’e, a heart-rending Chinese story about the love between a mortal hero and an immortal beauty, and Yuki no Onna, a Japanese tale evoking the mystery of the…
-
Theater Review: HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING (San Francisco Playhouse)
To be a hero or a heroine, one must give an order to oneself. Simone Weil One of the best new plays to come down the pike in years, Will Arbery’s considered 150-minute one-act may seem to some a level-headed treatise on what it means to be a conservative in the age of Trump. Yet…
-
Theater: HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING (SF Playhouse)
The Bay Area Premiere of Heroes of the Fourth Turning by Will Arbery — the winner of the 2020 Obie Award for Playwriting, Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, and a Pulitzer Finalist — is a riveting and witty play speaks to the heart of a country at war with itself. Now, this amazing play…
-
Opera: THE CENTENNIAL SEASON REVEALED (SF Opera)
The 2022–23 Season FRI, SEP 9, 2022 AT 8PM Don’t miss Opera Ball: The Centennial Celebration, an evening of music and delight that honors San Francisco Opera’s first 100 years and sets the stage for an exciting second century. Please note the Opening Night Concert is sold as part of Opera Ball and is not in any subscription series….
-
Theater: FRAN LEBOWITZ IN CONVERSATION (Berkeley Rep)
CULTURAL ICON FRAN LEBOWITZ RETURNS TO BERKELEY REP Berkeley Repertory Theatre is proud to announce a special presentation of Fran Lebowitz in Conversation. Following her bingeworthy hit Netflix series Pretend It’s a City, Fran Lebowitz returns for six appearances only at Berkeley Rep where she played to sold-out crowds in the Roda Theatre in 2018. In a…
-
Recommended Concert: ECO ENSEMBLE TOSHIO HOSOKAWA PORTRAIT CONCERT (Cal Performances at UC Berkeley)
CAL PERFORMANCES AT UC BERKELEY PRESENTSECO ENSEMBLETOSHIO HOSOKAWA PORTRAIT CONCERTFEATURING STACEY PELINKA, FLUTESSATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5 AT 8PMIN HERTZ HALL Cal Performances at UC Berkeley welcomes back the university’s ensemble-in-residence, Eco Ensemble, in a concert showcasing the music of Toshio Hosokawa, one of Japan’s pre-eminent living composers, on Saturday, February 5 at 8pm at Hertz Hall. The…
-
Theater: DEAR SAN FRANCISCO: A HIGH-FLYING LOVE STORY (New Members Join The 7 Fingers at Club Fugazi)
DEAR SAN FRANCISCO: A HIGH-FLYING LOVE STORYWELCOMES NEW COMPANY MEMBERS New year, new company members! Starting today, Dear San Francisco: A High-Flying Love Story’”the intimate and immersive resident production from The 7 Fingers’”welcomes three new company members to the production. Soaring their way into the production are San Francisco Bay Area natives Dominic Cruz and Maya Kesselman, as well as Shengnan…
-
Music Concert Recommendation: GAUTIER CAPUÇON & YUJA WANG (Michael Tilson Thomas & SF Symphony, Jan. 20-29, 2022)
Music Director Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) returns to conduct the San Francisco Symphony in two weeks of concerts at Davies Symphony Hall featuring two longtime collaborators. January 20–22 concerts include Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5 and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 2 performed by cellist Gautier Capuçon and January 27–29 concerts feature pianist Yuja…
-
Dance Review: MORE FOREVER (Conrad Tao, piano/composer; Caleb Teicher, choreographer/dancer)
DANCING ON SAND It was clear within minutes, when a piano emerged from the shadows of the blackened Zellerbach Hall stage and pianist Conrad Tao played the first few delicate bars of a haunting melody that More Forever — the collaboration between Tao and choreographer/tap dancer extraordinaire Caleb Teicher — was going to be much more…
-
Theater Review: GEORGIANA AND KITTY: CHRISTMAS AT PEMBERLEY (Marin Theatre Company)
CHRISTMAS AT PEM-BAH-LEY Let me start off by saying that I belong to that camp that would like to see a moratorium on all things Jane Austen and an edict to return to her novels would be the best way to start to do that. I happen to feel that, good intentions towards one side,…
-
Opera Review: COSÌ FAN TUTTE (San Francisco Opera)
WARM AND COSÌ I am beginning to yearn for a production of Mozart’s Così Fan Tutte which takes place, as originally intended, in its own time. The last three productions I’ve seen took place in a Long Island diner in the 1990s (courtesy Peter Sellars’ highly gestural version) or Coney Island in the 1950s (the most…
-
Theater Review: WINTERTIME (Berkeley Rep)
A SOLITUDE OF ICICLES Where to begin. Wintertime, which brings live theater back to Berkeley Rep, was written by Charles Mee, who has a devoted following among the theatrical cognoscenti, due to his eccentrically witty takes on life, love, and the pursuit of wherever life and love takes the people in his very special and…
-
Music Review: MTT: MOZART, TILSON THOMAS & SCHUMANN (Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony)
WELCOME HOME, MAESTRO THOMAS There are concerts and, then, there are concerts. The first of the two programs marking the return of Michael Tilson Thomas, after serious brain surgery, belongs to the latter category. This was an occasion that might even be counted among the more significant events in the history of the San Francisco…
-
Music Preview: RAVEL, HIGGINS & COPLAND (Michael Tilson Thomas & Ludovic Morlot with the SF Symphony, Nov. 18-20, 2021)
LUDOVIC MORLOT JOINS MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS TO CONDUCT SF SYMPHONY NOVEMBER 18–20 Ludovic Morlot joins Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) to conduct part of the November 18–21 San Francisco Symphony concerts at Davies Symphony Hall. Morlot — recently appointed Music Director of the Barcelona Symphony — will conduct the first half of the program, including Maurice…
-
Theater Review: MY FAIR LADY (National Tour)
MY FAILED LADY Let’s make one thing clear. When a national touring company of a Broadway success comes to your city, proclaiming it is a duplicate of the original production, what is meant by “production” is that it is guaranteed to have the same sets and costumes and sound design. It will look great and…
-
Theater Review: A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC (42nd Street Moon)
A LITTLE LITE MUSIC Any theater company that decides to produce the entire body of work created by a single artist, like, say, aiming to produce every play Shakespeare ever wrote, deserves attention for its bravery and intelligence. The 42nd Street Moon, San Francisco’s home for musical theater, has promised to present every musical written…
-
Music Review: BRONFMAN PLAYS BEETHOVEN (SF Symphony)
OCTOBER SURPRISE The last of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s four October concerts was, to put it as succinctly as possible, quite wonderful. The draw was Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and the audience, there to hear master pianist Yefim Bronfman, wholeheartedly responded — with rapt silence at first and finally cheers — to Bronfman, whose sonorous and…
-
Theater Opening: INDRA’S NET (Meredith Monk World Premiere, Mills College in Oakland)
CAUGHT IN HER NET Meredith Monk’s newest interdisciplinary, evening-length music theater piece is an experiential performance work affirming the interconnectedness of life. Following On Behalf of Nature (2013), a plea for ecological awareness, and Cellular Songs (2018), which turned attention to the fabric of life itself, Indra’s Net is Monk’s third work in a trilogy dedicated to our relationship with the…



















