Festival Archives — Page 16 of 135 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Year in Film: Jesse Hawthorne Ficks’ Eclectic 2013 Countdown

Erica Hanna

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December 24, 2013

Year in Film: Jesse Hawthorne Ficks’ Eclectic 2013 Countdown

16. Oldboy (Spike Lee, US) and Drug War (Johnnie To, China/Hong Kong) Two films from two of the hardest-working filmmakers in the biz. Though close to an hour and 20 minutes were butchered from Lee’s reimagining of Park Chan-wook’s 2003 film, it still offered an audacious look at entitlement in America. And To delivered yet another taut gangsters vs. cops drama that ranks up there with The Mission (1999) and PTU (2003).

15. Computer Chess (Andrew Bujalski, US) and Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland, UK) The best psychedelic mindfucks of 2013.

14. Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski, Poland/Denmark) and Walker and Stray Dogs (Tsai Ming-liang, France/Taiwan) Both filmmakers embody the importance of taking one’s time to do it right. And whoever said transcendental cinema is just for the Dardenne brothers?

13. Like Father, Like Son (Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan) and Mud (Jeff Nichols, US) Masterful, and medicine for my daddy issues.

12. Bastards (Claire Denis, France/Germany) and Moebius (Kim Ki-duk, South Korea) Jonas Mekas should be proud … Baudelairean cinema is alive and well. And I can’t get the faces of actors Vincent Lindon and Lee Eun-woo out of my head.

11. The Dirties (Matt Johnson, Canada) and Magic Magic (Sebastián Silva, Chile/US) I’m not sure which was nastier: Johnson’s bravado, Dawson’s Creek-meets-Man Bites Dog debut, or Michael Cera’s treatment of a losing-her-marbles Juno Temple in Silva’s Chilean tale.

10. Beijing Flickers (Zhang Yuan, China) and A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhang-ke, China/Japan) “Sixth Generation” Chinese cinema is vibrantly alive and well. Do yourself a favor and get wrapped up in these explosive films.

9. Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen, US) and Before Midnight (Richard Linklater, US) As John Waters says, “Woody Allen makes straight relationships seem interesting.” Not only should both Cate Blanchett and Sally Hawkins get Oscar nods for Blue Jasmine, but Andrew Dice Clay should actually win. Add to that Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke, and Richard Linklater’s most profound film of their trilogy — I can’t wait for the next three.

8. The World’s End (Edgar Wright, UK) and Sion Sono’s The Land of Hope (Sion Sono, Japan/Taiwan/UK/Germany) Both of these cult directors recognize that the loss of personal relationships are as serious as the end of the world. Multiple viewings are recommended.

7. Miss Lovely (Ashim Ahluwalia, India) and The Canyons (Paul Schrader, US) Exploitation cinema that practices what it preaches seems to always be misunderstood or disrespected upon its initial release. The fact that India even allowed Miss Lovely to be made is as exciting as Paul Schrader’s decision to cast troubled starlet Lindsay Lohan.

6. Manakamana (Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez, Nepal/US) and Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, France/UK/US) Be patient and rewards will come in these minimalist, deeply moving journeys.

5. Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine, US) and Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain (Michael Bay, US) Don’t stop with Korine’s ode to the ultimate American neon fever dream. I dare you to experience Bay’s pumped-up screwball satire. Added bonus: Dwayne Johnson turns in one of the funniest performances of the year.

4. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, US/UK) and Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón, US), plus Aningaaq (Jonás Cuarón, US) Mainstream cinema got it right this year and these Oscar-baiting films deserve more credit than just some awards. They might be changing a whole generation. If you haven’t watched the younger Cuarón’s Greenland-set Gravity companion short, go online ASAP. It’s as good as any feature this year.

3. Ulrich Seidl’s Paradise trilogy: Love, Faith, and Hope (Austria/France/Germany) Hands down, the best political-art-porn trilogy of the decade. I can’t choose which one is my favorite.

2. Norte, the End of History (Lav Diaz, Philippines) Diaz’s four-hour masterpiece about a group of existentialist 20-somethings encapsulates why I fell in love with cinema in the first place.

1. The Lone Ranger (Gore Verbinski, US) I will say it, and I will say it loudly: The Lone Ranger is the most subversive Hollywood film since Starship Troopers (1997). This uncompromising, revisionist Western is surprisingly ruthless with its all-American violence, and is highlighted by offbeat slapstick performances (by both Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer) and action scenes that audiences will get to uncover for decades to come. I’ve watched it four times, and it’s only gotten better with each viewing.

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks writes film festival reviews for the SF Bay Guardian, curates Midnites for Maniacs at the Castro and Roxie, and is the Film History Coordinator at Academy of Art University.

YEAR IN FILM: SAM STANDER’S TOP 13

1. Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel and Ethan Coen, US/France)

2. Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, US)

3. John Dies at the End (Don Coscarelli, US)

4. Pacific Rim (Guillermo del Toro, US)

5. Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley, Canada)

6. Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen, US)

7. The Punk Singer (Sini Anderson, US)

8. The World’s End (Edgar Wright, UK)

9. [tie] Evil Dead (Fede Alvarez, US) and You’re Next (Adam Wingard, US)

10. [tie] The Bling Ring (Sofia Coppola, US/UK/France/Germany/Japan) and Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine, US)

11. The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, Denmark/Norway/UK)

Bravo!

Michael Redmond

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December 17, 2013

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arts@sfbg.com

YEAR IN THEATER Before the holiday season crushes us in its tinsel-glinted maw and poops us out into 2014, it’s time to cast a backward glance and ponder 2013’s best moments in theater and performance.

Most satisfyingly enigmatic flights Getting lost can be a good thing. It can concentrate the attention, heighten the senses, activate the imagination, leave room for reflection — and leave something to talk about afterward. This is as true for a visit to the theater as it is for a walk around town.

The great director Robert Wilson put it like this when, speaking in 2012 in Berkeley during the revival of Einstein on the Beach, he noted the difference between his brand of theater and the average: “It’s something that you can freely associate with. [In the usual theater piece] you’re constantly told what to think or how to respond. If you go to the theater tonight, if you go to Broadway, every 20 seconds, 10 seconds, no more than 30, you have to react. It’s always, ‘Do you understand? Do you get it? Do you understand? Do you get it? Do you understand? Do you get it? Do you understand? Do you get it? Do you understand? Do you get it?’ And after a while you don’t understand anything. So in this work it’s ok to get lost.”

Without detracting from the power that can attend even the most didactic of narratives, let’s hear it for the productions this year that did not shy away from abstraction and mystery, as in Shotgun Players’ staging of Linda McLean’s strangers, babies or (more radically, if in workshop form) Affinity Project’s Nocturne (the best part in foolsFURY’s inaugural Factory Parts, a works-in-progress festival). (Robert Avila)

Best Habitués of the Home Theater Circuit We’re big fans of the Home Theater Festival and the back-to-the-basics performance model it so ably demonstrates. But where the festival ends, at the threshold of one’s own doorstep, the notion that there could be a whole DIY living room tour circuit is gaining ground. Two recent exemplars of this lo-key, high-mileage approach are Sebastopol’s the Independent Eye, which just returned home from a month-long, cross-country sojourn during which it performed 17 shows — nine in living rooms — and San Francisco’s Right Brain Performancelab expanded its private-home Due West salon into a roving three-weekend run of its 10-year anniversary performance, What Stays?, from Half Moon Bay to Oakland. (Nicole Gluckstern)

Most “Twisted” take on the big screen Dogugaeshi at Zellerbach Playhouse. Combining his own brand of invention and humor with the titular ancient Japanese form — in which moving sets of painted screens coaxed the eye through a seemingly infinite recession of figurative and abstract environments — master puppeteer Basil Twist and his deft collaborators created an opulent, entrancing, even mystical journey that ranks as one of the purest theatrical experiences all year. (Avila)

Most Pervasive Unofficial Theme for 2013: “Losing my Religion” While our headlines were more concerned with political détente and economic implosion, our stages were full of struggles of a more personal nature: that of religious belief (or lack thereof). With works like Tanya Shaffer’s Siddhartha-inspired musical The Fourth Messenger; Mugwumpin’s mesmerizing fall from prophetic grace, The Great Big Also; the epistemological ponderings of a dead felid in SF Playhouse’s Bengal Tiger at the Bagdhad Zoo; and the wounded evangelicalism simmering in Aurora Theatre’s A Bright New Boise, both actors and audiences were forced to confront questions of faith in ways that pointed to unresolved unease on both sides of the pulpit. (Gluckstern)

Most overdue Bay Area debut The Wooster Group + New York City Players at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. This production of three of Eugene O’Neill’s early seafaring one-acts seemed to flummox many, though the audience I sat with seemed as riveted as I was by the strange, challenging approach to these texts. Certainly it was a little misleading to describe this as a Wooster Group production — despite having two Wooster actors in the cast and a Wooster set, it was very much in debt to the idiosyncratic and deeply committed approach of director and playwright Richard Maxwell and his NYC Players, who made up the majority of the cast. A long overdue Bay Area visit by these acclaimed companies, it anyway made for one of the more distinctive and provoking encounters between actors and audience all year. (Avila)

Most Memorable Elementals In Aurora Theatre’s production of Max Frisch’s The Arsonists, fire played an ominous role, a tool deployed to destroy the civilization it helped build, while in Ragged Wing Ensemble’s collaborative Time Sensitive, ice took the main stage, with a dripping block signifying both the passage of time and the impermanence of the material world. While at first glance the two plays were to each other as fire and ice — one a carefully modulated farce, the other a frenetic roller coaster of status seekers and secret keepers — both inventively explored common themes of moral decay and the follies of keeping up appearances in a society full of questionable values and diminishing spiritual rewards. (Gluckstern)

Best performance of herself Judith Butler at CounterPULSE. The famed philosopher and theorist of the performativity of gender appeared as part of the ongoing Dance Discourse series, in dialogue with CounterPULSE’s Julie Phelps and outstanding performances by artists DavEnd, and Xandra Ibarra and Hentyle Yapp. While confessing it was not always easy “performing Judith Butler,” the Berkeley prof proved game, contributing to an exceptionally lively cross-disciplinary encounter. (Avila)

Playwriting Series Most Likely to Win a Gold Medal: San Francisco Olympians Festival Here be giants. Plus gods, mortals, and mythological creatures brought to often hilarious life by dozens of local playwrights and theatre artists over the course of three weeks. The brainchild of No Nude Men’s Stuart Bousel, the festival features an array of thematically-connected staged readings featuring characters long forgotten by contemporary audiences: Teucer, Thersites, Laodike, Cruesa, and Neoptolemus, to name but a few. Not content to stick to the script, SF Olympians offers a corresponding gallery show of fine art, encourages wild experimentation such as the debut installment of Megan Cohen’s crowd-directed “Totally Epic Odyssey,” and has even generated a book of new plays (Songs of Hestia, EXIT Press 2011). (Gluckstern)

Most persuasive British accents Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in No Man’s Land at Berkeley Rep. In fact, the pair, true British theater royalty, made it all look so easy. (Avila)

Theater Company Most Likely to Boldly Go… Whether a given production is a hit or miss, Cutting Ball’s commitment to staging new absurdist and experimental works has secured it a very important spot in the Bay Area’s theatrical firmament. And although very different in content, the world premieres of Andrew Saito’s boldly apocalyptic Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night and Basil Kreimendahl’s quixotic, gender-queer vaudeville Sidewinders provided an essential sounding board for two bright new talents who would have otherwise struggled long to find homes for their misfit children. (Gluckstern)

Best mess Anthony Rizzi’s An Attempt to Fail at Groundbreaking Theater with Pina Arcade Smith at Kunst-Stoff. The Frankfurt-based American performer and former William Forsythe dancer took over the Grove Street loft space for three glorious nights in February as a magnificently straight-shooting queer amalgam of Jack Smith, Penny Arcade, and Pina Bausch, flouncing, crawling, and climbing around the bric-a-brac properties strewn around the room, dancing with anyone who wanted to, dropping a laptop from a ladder (ostensibly by accident), and generally flailing with memorable brio and brilliance. (Avila)

A Few Luminous Performances That Reminded Us There Are No Small Actors, Only Small Stages Donald Currie as Sandy in Cutting Ball’s Sidewinders; Nick Medina as Belinsky in Shotgun Player’s Shipwreck; James Udom as Freddy in Performers Under Stress’ Scamoramaland; Tamar Cohn as the Old Woman in Cutting Ball’s The Chairs; Safiya Fredericks as Sydney in 42nd Street Moon’s It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman; and Amy Lizardo as Yitzhak in Boxcar Theatre’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch. (Gluckstern)

Most promising solo debut Safiya Martinez in So You Can Hear Me, at the Marsh. Writer-performer Martinez memorably recounted her shattering experience as a 23-year-old special ed teacher in the South Bronx, inhabiting lives and personalities still too rarely seen on any stage, and with a precision and verve equally uncommon. (Avila) *

Rep Clock: December 18 – 24, 2013

Michael Redmond

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December 17, 2013

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The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ “X: The History of a Film Rating” wraps up with Henry and June (1990).

PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL

Schedules are for Wed/18-Tue/24 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

“ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD FILM FESTIVAL” Balboa Theater, 3630 Balboa, SF; New People Cinema, 1746 Post, SF; www.sfindie.com. $12. Now in its 10th year, the festival highlights indie horror, sci-fi, and fantasy films, Wed-Thu.

ATA GALLERY 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. Free-$7. “Periwinkle Cinema: Voyeurs and Exhibitionists,” Wed, 8. “Shorts from the SF State Cinema Department (Fall 2013),” Thu, 7. “City College of SF Motion Picture Directing: Student Film Showcase,” Fri, 8. “Other Cinema:” “New Experimental Works,” Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA THEATRE 3630 Balboa, SF; cinemasf.com/balboa. $10. “Popcorn Palace:” It’s a Wonderful Life (Capra, 1946), Sat, 10am. Matinee for kids.

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS 1924 Cedar, Berk; www.bfuu.org. $5-10 donation. The World According to Monsanto (Robin, 2008), Thu, 7.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-12. “Noir City Xmas 2013:” •Blast of Silence (Baron, 1961), and Christmas Eve (Marin, 1947), Wed, 7. With Blast of Silence director and star Allen Baron in person with his new book, Blast of Silence: A Memoir. •Gremlins (Danter, 1984), Thu, 7, and Lethal Weapon (Donner, 1987), Thu, 9. “Midnites for Maniacs: Horrific Holidays:” •Home for the Holidays (Foster, 1995), Fri, 7:15, and Love Actually (Curtis, 2003), Fri, 9:15. •Bullitt (Yates, 1968), Sat, 2:35, 7, and The Thomas Crown Affair (Jewison, 1968), Sat, 4:50, 9:15. It’s a Wonderful Life (Capra, 1946), Sun, 2, 5, 8. “San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus: Shine,” with guest artists Matt Alber and Marina Harris, Tue, 5, 7, 9. Advance tickets ($25-35) at www.sfgmc.org.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-$10.75. The Armstrong Lie (Gibney, 2013), call for dates and times. Bettie Page Reveals All (Mori, 2012), call for dates and times. Blue is the Warmest Color (Kechiche, 2013), call for dates and times. The Great Beauty (Sorrentino, 2013), call for dates and times.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $10. “Midnight Movies:” Die Hard (McTiernan, 1988), Fri-Sat, midnight.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. PFA closed until Jan 16.

RANDALL MUSEUM 155 Museum Way, SF; elephants.brownpapertickets.com. $10-20. “An Evening with Elephants:” Sri Lanka: Elephant Island (Colbeck, 2013), Sat, 6. Followed by a slideshow and lecture about Asian elephants. Proceeds benefit elephant research and conservation efforts by Trunks & Leaves Inc.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. Is the Man Who is Tall Happy? (Gondry, 2013), Wed, 7, 9. The Punk Singer (Anderson, 2013), Wed-Thu, 7:15, 9. “Piaf: Her Story, Her Songs,” with Raquel Bitton, Thu, 8:15. This event, $25-40. Lenny Cooke (Safdie and Safdie, 2013), Dec 20-26, call for times. White Reindeer (Clark, 2013), Dec 20-26, 9:15 (also Sat-Sun, 2:45).

TANNERY 708 Gilman, Berk; berkeleyundergroundfilms.blogspot.com. Donations accepted. “Berkeley Underground Film Society:” March of the Wooden Soldiers (Meins and Rogers, 1934), Sun, 7:30.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. “X: The History of a Film Rating:” Henry and June (Kaufman, 1990), Thu, 7:30. “Films by Fassbinder:” In a Year with 13 Moons (1978), Sat, 7:30. *

Keep moving

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December 17, 2013

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arts@sfbg.com

YEAR IN DANCE This is not 12 Days of Christmas but 12 Months of Dancing. And while there were plenty of lords-a-leaping and ladies dancing (and even a few drummers drumming and pipers piping), there is nothing even remotely accumulative in this annual looking-back at the year that was. Chronology — and what stood out within a particular month because of the generating ideas — and their shape on the stage determined the (sometimes difficult) selection.

January Bebe Miller, a feminist post-modern choreographer, has been making work for over 25 years. So her multimedia A History (Jan. 25, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts), announced as a piece about “remembering remembering,” sounded just about right. It was and it wasn’t. The concept proved more intriguing than its realization, but watching the work attempt to give shape to complex ideas offered its own satisfaction.

February Modern dance repertory company Hubbard Street Dance Chicago teaming with Alonzo King LINES Ballet in the gorgeous Azimuth (Feb. 2, Cal Performances) seemed like one of the year’s unlikelier projects. Yet to watch Hubbard’s dancers take to LINES’ skewed approach to ballet with such ease — and seeing King rise to the challenge of choreographing for a large ensemble with utter confidence — was surprising and delightful.

March With the world premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s From Foreign Lands (March 1, War Memorial Opera House) San Francisco Ballet acquired another treasure from possibly the most gifted ballet choreographer working today. In a series of beautifully distinct, picture-postcard scenes of refined dancing, the choreographer honored the roots of ballet in social dance. (Lands will return Feb. 18-March 1, during SFB’s upcoming season.)

April As an Indian American dancer, singer, musician, writer, and actor, Sheetal Gandhi has a lot of resources. She excellently drew on all of them for Bahu-Beti-Biwi (Daughter-in-Law, Daughter, Wife)(April 19, ODC Theater), her humorous and poignant portrait of the restrictions that still shape Indian women’s lives, both in this country and in India.

May The wild applause notwithstanding, it was such a relief to watch the end of Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg’s overwrought Rodin (May 11, Cal Performances), based on the sculptor’s relationship with his pupil and lover Camille Claudel. You try to keep an open mind about an artist’s take on ideas, but sometimes it’s time to say “enough is enough, never again.”

June Though we also got versions by Yuri Possokhov and Bill T. Jones this year, Mark Morris and the Bad Ass Jazz Trio’s Spring, Spring, Spring (June 12, Cal Performances) was the most radical as well as most cogent reinterpretation of The Rite of Spring. Forgoing the original choregraphy and using the score’s four-hand version as musical inspiration generated a work of both ease and heft.

July Serendipity ruled. I happen to catch Pierre Lacotte’s approximation of what Parisian audiences might have seen in 1832 with La Sylphide (July 9, Palais Garnier) generally considered the first Romantic ballet. Excellently — of course — performed by the Paris Opera Ballet, this version looked like a distant cousin of the one we know, and offered a feast of classical dancing set to a score with hokey charm.

August ODC/Dance’s yearly Summer Sampler (Aug. 2-3, ODC Theater) is such a smart idea. As these superb dancers adapt themselves to their more intimate “home” theater and afford an opportunity to observe them up close, they newly reveal themselves as individuals and as a group. This year’s splendidly performed program showcased ODC’s most recent creation, the splendid Triangulating Euclid, Kimi Okada’s sparkling new Two If By Sea, and the company premiere of Kate Weare’s The Light Has Not the Arms to Carry Us.

September The San Francisco Dance Film Festival (Sept. 12-15, various venues) is growing up fast. This annual showcase of screen dance — the intricate partnering of two motion-driven arts — more than ever impressed with the range and quality of its lineup: shorts, documentaries and filmed versions of stage performances. Amy Dowling and Austin Forbord’s Well Contested Sites, filmed on Alcatraz with professional performers and former prisoners, carved itself into your brain as well as into your heart.

October Somehow artists manage to scratch enough support together to keep working (and eating, and living) in the Bay Area. So anniversaries still happen. But I can’t remember a recent one as joyous as Rhythms of Life: Down the Congo Line (Oct. 5, YBCA) for Dimensions Dance Theater’s 40th. To see a whole generation ready to build on what Deborah Vaughan has started was not the least of its gifts.

November In Joe Goode’s Annex, Jo Kreiter’s Flyaway Productions just may have found a home. The venue’s two-story ceilings and industrial look allowed Kreiter to add some discreet ladders, wires, and ropes as support structures for the aerial work she set on her six athletic women dancers. You can take the metaphor inside the piece any way you want, but Give A Woman A Lift (Nov. 8) soared.

December Like it or not, parenthood is life-changing. Maybe that’s why, in Father On (Dec. 5, ODC Theater), Scott Wells’ five dancers — four of who are recent dads — looked not only sleep-deprived but also often frantic. The one non-dad, Rajendra Serber, was the ultimate outsider. Using game structures and sports imagery, Wells created a hilarious but also curiously affectionate piece about the challenges and confusions encountered by the male and his kid. The lesson on becoming a sensitive father left me laughing through tears. *

SF Sketchfest posted its schedule today! (Spoiler: it’s awesome)

Sue Vaughan

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December 13, 2013

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SF Sketchfest posted its schedule today! (Spoiler: it’s awesome)

Dudes! Nerds! Pedro-voters! SF Sketchfest 2014 posted its complete schedule today, unveiling over 200 shows to be held in 20 venues from Jan. 23-Feb. 9. Over the past 13 years, the fest has exploded from humble local offering to one of the most popular comedy events in the country, luring the biggest names in the biz — as well as cult comedy heroes — to town.

Tickets go on sale Sun/15 at 10am, and since SF Sketchfest is P.O.P.U.L.A.R., you won’t want to delay if something in the line-up catches your eye. (Pro-tip: though the festival does contain sketch shows, it also has music, film screenings, live recordings of pod casts, panel discussions, lots of tributes, and more.) You want guidance? Highlights? Best bets and sleeper hits? Read on!

Opening night (Jan. 23), there’ll be a tribute to the tenth anniversary of Napoleon Dynamite, with Jon “Napoleon” Heder, Efren “Pedro” Ramirez, and Diedrich “Rex” Bader in person at the Castro Theatre. Later that night, also at the Castro, Jack Black and Kyle Gass attend a celebration of all things Tenacious D, which promises “an evening of conversation, clips, and songs.” Better get it on in the party zone, if you know what I’m sayin’.

Other highlights include:

* SF Sketchfest’s tribute to Key and Peele (Jan. 25), whose Comedy Central show is provocative, smart, and hilarious (exhibit A, below)

* a “Farewell, Futurama!” (also Jan. 25) chat sesh with cast and crew members of the beloved animated show

* a Feb. 2 spotlight on HBO’s Enlightened, with Laura Dern, Mike White, Luke Wilson, and others in conversation

* a tribute to THE ALAN ARKIN with a 35th anniversary screening of The In-Laws (Feb. 6)

* a 30th anniversary screening of Revenge of the Nerds, with cast and crew in person (Feb. 8)

Plus so much more: Tim Heidecker! Allison Brie! Maya Rudolph! Amy Schumer! Comedians I’m not cool enough to know about, but you probably are! Hustle over to SF Sketchfest’s website and feast your eyes.

Music Listings: December 11-16, 2013

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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December 11, 2013

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WEDNESDAY 11

ROCK

Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. The Bruises, Lovers, Upstairs Downstairs, 9 p.m., $10.

Cafe Du Nord: 2170 Market, San Francisco. Tommy & The High Pilots, The Lower 48, Will Weston, 8:30 p.m., $8.

The Chapel: 777 Valencia St., San Francisco. Lee Ranaldo & The Dust, Bill Orcutt & Jacob Felix Heule, 9 p.m., $15-$17.

DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. Fates Warning, Artizan, Bay Rum, Field of Stones, 7:30 p.m., $20-$25.

El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. Hyper Buzz, Heart of the Whale, Not Sure. Not Yet, 8 p.m., $10.

The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. Jagwar Ma, Fascinator, 8 p.m., $15.

The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. “Disorder,” w/ Screature, CIVC, Circuit Slave, DJ Nickie Tilsner, 10 p.m., $5.

DANCE

The Cafe: 2369 Market, San Francisco. “Sticky Wednesdays,” w/ DJ Mark Andrus, 8 p.m., free.

Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Bondage A Go Go,” w/ DJs Damon, Tomas Diablo, & guests, 9:30 p.m., $5-$10.

Clift Hotel, Redwood Room: 495 Geary, San Francisco. “Sessions 004,” w/ Kiwi Time, plus DJs Richard Habib, Jamal Targa, Marija Dunn, Seven, Amber Reyngoudt, and Max Gardner, 6 p.m., free.

Club X: 715 Harrison, San Francisco. “Electro Pop Rocks,” 18+ dance night with the Disco Fries, Aston Shuffle, Harris Pilton, Sychosis, Sonny Daze, Chaos, Slo Mo, Budzak, 9 p.m., $10-$20.

Edinburgh Castle: 950 Geary, San Francisco. “1964,” w/ DJ Matt B & guests, Second and Fourth Wednesday of every month, 10 p.m., $2.

Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. Powwoww, Witowmaker, Light Echo, Phntm Club, Popgang DJs, 9 p.m., $5.

The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Tainted Techno Trance,” 10 p.m.

F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Housepitality,” w/ Jozif, Pattern Drama, Sharon Buck, Johnnie Walker, 9 p.m., $5-$10.

Harlot: 46 Minna, San Francisco. “Qoöl,” 5 p.m.

Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “Indulgence,” 10 p.m.

Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “What?,” w/ resident DJ Tisdale and guests, 7 p.m., free.

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Rock the Spot,” 9 p.m., free.

MatrixFillmore: 3138 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Reload,” w/ DJ Big Bad Bruce, 10 p.m., free.

Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Booty Call,” w/ Juanita More, Joshua J, guests, 9 p.m., $3.

HIP-HOP

Skylark Bar: 3089 16th St., San Francisco. “Mixtape Wednesday,” w/ resident DJs Strategy, Junot, Herb Digs, & guests, 9 p.m., $5.

Slate Bar: 2925 16th St., San Francisco. “Special Blend,” w/ resident DJs LazyBoy & Mr. Murdock, 9 p.m., free.

ACOUSTIC

Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Paige Clem, Fiver Brown, Ben Shaw, 7 p.m.

Cafe Divine: 1600 Stockton, San Francisco. Craig Ventresco & Meredith Axelrod, 7 p.m., free.

Club Deluxe: 1511 Haight, San Francisco. Happy Hour Bluegrass, 6:30 p.m., free.

Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Ryan Montbleau, Witchdream Mansion, 8 p.m., $12-$15.

Johnny Foley’s Irish House: 243 O’Farrell St., San Francisco. Terry Savastano, Every other Wednesday, 9 p.m., free.

Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Gann Brewer, 9 p.m.

JAZZ

Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Gaucho, Eric Garland’s Jazz Session, The Amnesiacs, 7 p.m., free.

Burritt Room: 417 Stockton St., San Francisco. Terry Disley’s Rocking Jazz Trio, 6 p.m., free.

Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Charles Unger Experience, 7:30 p.m., free.

Le Colonial: 20 Cosmo, San Francisco. The Cosmo Alleycats featuring Ms. Emily Wade Adams, 7 p.m., free.

Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. “Cat’s Corner,” 9 p.m., $10.

Top of the Mark: One Nob Hill, 999 California, San Francisco. Ricardo Scales, Wednesdays, 6:30-11:30 p.m., $5.

Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Tuck & Patti, 8 p.m., $22.

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Sherri Roberts, 7:30 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL

Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. Timba Dance Party, w/ DJ WaltDigz, 10 p.m., $5.

Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. “Bachatalicious,” w/ DJs Good Sho & Rodney, 7 p.m., $5-$10.

Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell, San Francisco. Diana Arbenina & The Night Snipers, DJ Ze’ev, 8 p.m., $50.

BLUES

Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Kim Wilson All Stars, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m., $30.

Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. Dr. Mojo, 9:30 p.m., free.

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Little Jonny & The Giants, 9:30 p.m.

EXPERIMENTAL

Meridian Gallery: 535 Powell, San Francisco. Cheryl Leonard: New Natural Sounds, 7:30 p.m., $8-$10.

FUNK

Vertigo: 1160 Polk, San Francisco. “Full Tilt Boogie,” w/ KUSF-in-Exile DJs, Second Wednesday of every month, 8 p.m.-1:30 a.m., free.

SOUL

The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Freddie Hughes & Chris Burns, 7:30 p.m., free.

THURSDAY 12

ROCK

Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. City Tribe, Sea Lioness, Travis Hayes, Snow Angel, 8:30 p.m., $8.

DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. Sixth Annual Silicon Valley Rocks, Benefit for Music in Schools Today featuring live music by South Hero, Blues Deluxe, The Funkery, Peter Chung Band, Regime, nSLASHa, Open Source Band, Coverflow, and Rainbow Party., 7 p.m., $25-$65.

The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. moe., Dec. 12-14, 9 p.m., $30.

The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. Cocktails, Blood Sister, Happy Diving, 9 p.m., $5.

Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. Split Screens, The Dandelion War, Heavy Color, Jared Padovani, 8:30 p.m., $5.

DANCE

1015 Folsom: 1015 Folsom St., San Francisco. RJD2, Om Unit, Sweatson Klank, DJ Dials, Mophono, Ernie Fresh. Mr. Vos, 10 p.m., $15 advance.

Abbey Tavern: 4100 Geary, San Francisco. DJ Schrobi-Girl, 10 p.m., free.

Audio Discotech: 316 11th St., San Francisco. “Phonic,” w/ Borgeous, 9:30 p.m., $10 advance.

Aunt Charlie’s Lounge: 133 Turk, San Francisco. “Tubesteak Connection,” w/ DJ Bus Station John, 9 p.m., $5-$7.

The Cafe: 2369 Market, San Francisco. “¡Pan Dulce!,” 9 p.m., $5.

Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Throwback Thursdays,” ‘80s night with DJs Damon, Steve Washington, Dangerous Dan, and guests, 9 p.m., $6 (free before 9:30 p.m.).

The Cellar: 685 Sutter, San Francisco. “XO,” w/ DJs Astro & Rose, 10 p.m., $5.

Club X: 715 Harrison, San Francisco. “The Crib,” 9:30 p.m., $10, 18+.

Danzhaus: 1275 Connecticut, San Francisco. “Alt.Dance,” Second Thursday of every month, 7 p.m., $7, 18+.

DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. “8bitSF,” w/ Super Soul Bros, Vicereine, Owlbear, DJ Tracer, 8:30 p.m., $8-$11.

Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “Afrolicious,” w/ DJs Pleasuremaker, Señor Oz, and live guests, 9:30 p.m., $5-$8.

Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “I Love Thursdays,” 10 p.m., $10.

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Night Fever,” 9 p.m., $5 after 10 p.m.

Neck of the Woods: 406 Clement St., San Francisco. Blaus, on the downstairs stage, 10 p.m. continues through Dec. 26, free with RSVP.

Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Throwback Thursday,” w/ DJ Jay-R, 9 p.m., free.

Raven: 1151 Folsom St., San Francisco. “1999,” w/ VJ Mark Andrus, 8 p.m., free.

Ruby Skye: 420 Mason, San Francisco. “Awakening,” w/ Ørjan Nilsen, 9 p.m., $20-$30 advance.

The Tunnel Top: 601 Bush, San Francisco. “Tunneltop,” DJs Avalon and Derek ease you into the weekend with a cool and relaxed selection of tunes spun on vinyl, 10 p.m., free.

Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Bubble,” 10 p.m., free.

Vessel: 85 Campton, San Francisco. “Base,” w/ Sasha, Gabriel I, Quinn Jerome, 10 p.m., $15 advance.

HIP-HOP

Eastside West: 3154 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Throwback Thursdays,” w/ DJ Madison, 9 p.m., free.

The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Cypher,” w/ resident DJ Big Von, 10 p.m., $5-$10.

John Colins: 138 Minna, San Francisco. “Party with Friends,” w/ resident DJs IllEfect, GeektotheBeat, Merrick, and Delrokz, Second Thursday of every month, 9 p.m., free.

Neck of the Woods: 406 Clement St., San Francisco. iStandard Producer Showcase: Bay Area Edition, 8 p.m., $10 advance.

Skylark Bar: 3089 16th St., San Francisco. “Peaches,” w/lady DJs DeeAndroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, Umami, Inkfat, and Andre, 10 p.m., free.

ACOUSTIC

Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Emily Bonn & The Vivants, Arann Harris & The Farm Band, Supermodal, 9 p.m.

Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Acoustic Open Mic, 7 p.m.

Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. Jamestown Revival, Lonesome Locomotive, Keyan Keihani, 8 p.m., $9-$12.

El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. “Strung Out,” w/ Teja Gerken, Joe Gore, Eric Skye, 7 p.m.

Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Small Town Therapy, The T Sisters, Indianna Hale, 9 p.m., $10-$20.

The Lost Church: 65 Capp St., San Francisco. The Lady Crooners, 8 p.m., $10.

Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Tipsy House, 9 p.m.

JAZZ

Blush! Wine Bar: 476 Castro, San Francisco. Doug Martin’s Avatar Ensemble, 7:30 p.m., free.

Bottle Cap: 1707 Powell, San Francisco. The North Beach Sound with Ned Boynton, Jordan Samuels, and Tom Vickers, 7 p.m., free.

Cafe Claude: 7 Claude, San Francisco. Vijay Anderson Quartet, 7:30 p.m., free.

Exploratorium: Pier 15, San Francisco. Resonance: Angel City, w/ Roscoe Mitchell, James Fei, William Winant, Sarah Cahill, 7 p.m., $10-$15.

Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Clifford Lamb, Mel Butts, and Friends, Second Thursday of every month, 7:30 p.m., free.

Pier 23 Cafe: Pier 23, San Francisco. Judy Hall, 7 p.m., free.

The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Charlie Siebert & Chris Siebert, 7:30 p.m., free.

Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. Savanna Jazz Jam with Eddy Ramirez, 7:30 p.m., $5.

SFJAZZ Center: 205 Franklin St., San Francisco. “Hotplate,” w/ Robert Stewart & Chester Thompson (playing Jimmy Smith’s Back at the Chicken Shack), 8 & 9:30 p.m., $15-$20.

Top of the Mark: One Nob Hill, 999 California, San Francisco. Stompy Jones, 7:30 p.m., $10.

Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Tuck & Patti, 8 p.m., $23.

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Barbara Ochoa, 7:30 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL

Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Pa’Lante!,” w/ Juan G, El Kool Kyle, Mr. Lucky, 10 p.m., $5.

Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. Vibrasón, El DJ X, 8 p.m., $12.

Pachamama Restaurant: 1630 Powell, San Francisco. “Jueves Flamencos,” 8 p.m., free.

Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. Gary Flores & Descarga Caliente, 8 p.m.

Verdi Club: 2424 Mariposa, San Francisco. The Verdi Club Milonga, w/ Christy Coté, DJ Emilio Flores, guests, 9 p.m., $10-$15.

REGGAE

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Festival ‘68,” w/ Revival Sound System, Second Thursday of every month, 10 p.m., free.

Pissed Off Pete’s: 4528 Mission St., San Francisco. Reggae Thursdays, w/ resident DJ Jah Yzer, 9 p.m., free.

BLUES

50 Mason Social House: 50 Mason, San Francisco. Bill Phillippe, 5:30 p.m., free.

Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Mike Keneally, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m., $20-$24.

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. T-Wrex & The Primitive Rhythm, 4 p.m.; Cathy Lemons, 9:30 p.m.

COUNTRY

Atlas Cafe: 3049 20th St., San Francisco. Jinx Jones & Jessica Rose, 8 p.m., free.

The Parlor: 2801 Leavenworth, San Francisco. “Twang Honky Tonk & Country Jamboree,” w/ DJ Little Red Rodeo, 7 p.m., free.

EXPERIMENTAL

50 Mason Social House: 50 Mason, San Francisco. Tri-Cornered Tent Show, Feral Luggage, White Pee, 10 p.m., free.

The Luggage Store: 1007 Market, San Francisco. Ti Femme, Roro, Jack Hertz, 8 p.m., $6-$10.

SOUL

Cigar Bar & Grill: 850 Montgomery, San Francisco. Holiday Party with Big Blu Soul Revue, 7:30 p.m., free.

FRIDAY 13

ROCK

Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. 20 Sided Records Holiday Party, w/ Trainwreck Riders, Tartufi, Cannons & Clouds, Couches, 9 p.m., $10.

Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. Cool Ghouls, Santoros, The Spyrals, Unstrung, DJ Al Lover, 9 p.m., $7.

Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Federation X, Tweak Bird, Feral Ohms, Peace Creep, 9 p.m., $8.

Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Rue ‘66, Handler Brothers, Consolidated Electric, 9 p.m., $8.

The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. moe., Dec. 12-14, 9 p.m., $30.

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. O Presidente, Pancho-san, 7:30 p.m., $8.

Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. Surf Bored, Lemme Adams, Mr. Kind, 8:30 p.m., $8.

Slim’s: 333 11th St., San Francisco. El Ten Eleven, Slow Magic, 9 p.m., $16.

Thee Parkside: 1600 17th St., San Francisco. Slick’s Bash #100 with Poison Idea; Attitude Adjustment; Moses; I, Madman, 9 p.m., $12.

DANCE

Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. “Indie Slash,” w/ DJs Danny White and Rance, 10 p.m., $5.

Audio Discotech: 316 11th St., San Francisco. Juan MacLean (DJ set), Pacific Disco, Papa Lu, 9:30 p.m., $10-$15 advance.

BeatBox: 314 11th St., San Francisco. BeatBox Holiday Party with DJ Russ Rich, 9 p.m., free.

Cafe Flore: 2298 Market, San Francisco. “Kinky Beats,” w/ DJ Sergio, 10 p.m., free.

The Cafe: 2369 Market, San Francisco. “Boy Bar,” w/ DJ Matt Consola, 9 p.m., $5.

Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Dark Shadows: The Nightmare Before Christmas,” w/ DJs Daniel Skellington, Melting Girl, Joe Radio, and Skarkrow, 9:30 p.m., $7 ($3 before 10 p.m.).

The Cellar: 685 Sutter, San Francisco. “F.T.S.: For the Story,” 10 p.m.

The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Fever,” 10 p.m., free before midnight.

F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Trap City,” w/ Loudpvck, UltraViolet, Napsty, WolfBitch, The Whooligan, Teleport, Meikee Magnetic, Mixtress Shizaam, 10 p.m., $15.

The Grand Nightclub: 520 4th St., San Francisco. “We Rock Fridays,” 9:30 p.m.

Harlot: 46 Minna, San Francisco. “The Animal Party: Reindeer Unleashed,” w/ Traviswild & Thomas Jack, 9 p.m., $10-$20 advance.

Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “Escape Fridays,” 10 p.m., $20.

Lone Star Saloon: 1354 Harrison, San Francisco. “Cubcake,” w/ DJ Medic, Second Friday of every month, 9 p.m.

Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “HYSL,” 9 p.m., $3.

Manor West: 750 Harrison, San Francisco. “Fortune Fridays,” 10 p.m., free before 11 p.m. with RSVP.

MatrixFillmore: 3138 Fillmore, San Francisco. “F-Style Fridays,” w/ DJ Jared-F, 9 p.m.

Mighty: 119 Utah, San Francisco. Mighty 10-Year Anniversary, w/ Hernan Cattaneo, Naveen G, 9 p.m., $20-$30 advance.

Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. “Smoke N’ Mirrors: A Winter Holiday Soirée,” w/ Crazy P, Climbers, Shiny Objects, Lisbona, Trev Campbell, 9 p.m., $10.

OMG: 43 6th St., San Francisco. “Release,” 9 p.m., free before 11 p.m.

Public Works: 161 Erie, San Francisco. “Friday the 13th, Part IV,” w/ Zebra Katz, House of LaDosha, 10 p.m., $10-$15.

Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Pump: Worq It Out Fridays,” w/ resident DJ Christopher B, 9 p.m., $3.

Ruby Skye: 420 Mason, San Francisco. Simon Patterson, John Beaver, 9 p.m., $20 advance.

Showdown: 10 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Electric WKND,” w/ The Certain People Crew, Second Friday of every month, 10 p.m., free.

Slide: 430 Mason, San Francisco. “E2F,” Second Friday of every month, 9 p.m.

Supperclub San Francisco: 657 Harrison, San Francisco. “F*ck It’s Free-zing,” w/ Michael Anthony, Be Smiley, Jimmy Bell, Didje Kelli, 10 p.m., free.

Temple: 540 Howard, San Francisco. The Les, DJ Enfo, DJ E-20, Mikey Tan, DJ Rufio, 10 p.m., $15.

Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Bionic,” 10 p.m., $5.

Wish: 1539 Folsom, San Francisco. “Bridge the Gap,” w/ resident DJ Don Kainoa, Fridays, 6-10 p.m., free.

HIP-HOP

EZ5: 682 Commercial, San Francisco. “Decompression,” Fridays, 5-9 p.m.

John Colins: 138 Minna, San Francisco. “Heartbeat,” w/ resident DJ Strategy, Second Friday of every month, 9 p.m., $5 (free before 11 p.m).

Mezzanine: 444 Jessie, San Francisco. Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, 9 p.m., $25-$45.

Slate Bar: 2925 16th St., San Francisco. “The Hustle,” w/ DJs Sake One & Sean G, Second Friday of every month, 9 p.m.

ACOUSTIC

Dolores Park Cafe: 501 Dolores, San Francisco. Secret Town, 7:30 p.m.

The Sports Basement: 610 Old Mason, San Francisco. “Breakfast with Enzo,” w/ Enzo Garcia, 10 a.m., $5.

JAZZ

Atlas Cafe: 3049 20th St., San Francisco. Tom Lander, 7:30 p.m., free.

Beach Chalet Brewery & Restaurant: 1000 Great Highway, San Francisco. Johnny Smith, 8 p.m., free.

Bird & Beckett: 653 Chenery, San Francisco. Jimmy Ryan Quintet, Second Friday of every month, 5:30 p.m., free.

Cafe Claude: 7 Claude, San Francisco. Alex Conde Trio, 7:30 p.m., free.

Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Charles Unger Experience, 7:30 p.m., free.

The Palace Hotel: 2 New Montgomery, San Francisco. The Klipptones, 8 p.m., free.

Pier 23 Cafe: Pier 23, San Francisco. Soul Sauce, 8 p.m., free.

Red Poppy Art House: 2698 Folsom, San Francisco. Rob Reich Trio, 7:30 p.m., $10-$15.

The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Steve Lucky & Carmen Getit, 7:30 p.m., free.

Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. Jim Butler Group, 7:30 p.m., $8.

Top of the Mark: One Nob Hill, 999 California, San Francisco. Black Market Jazz Orchestra, 9 p.m., $10.

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Joyce Grant, 8 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL

Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Paris-Dakar African Mix Coupe Decale,” 10 p.m., $5.

Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. Taste Fridays, featuring local cuisine tastings, salsa bands, dance lessons, and more, 7:30 p.m., $15 (free entry to patio).

Cliff House: 1090 Point Lobos, San Francisco. Orquesta Conquistador Quartet, 7 p.m.

Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. Lagos Roots, 10 p.m., $10.

The Emerald Tablet: 80 Fresno St., San Francisco. Flamenco del Oro, 8 p.m., $15 suggested donation.

Pachamama Restaurant: 1630 Powell, San Francisco. Cuban Night with Fito Reinoso, 7:30 & 9:15 p.m., $15-$18.

Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell, San Francisco. La Gente, La Misa Negra, 8 p.m., $10-$13.

Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Sheila E. Birthday Celebration, 8 & 10 p.m., $34-$39.

REGGAE

Gestalt Haus: 3159 16th St., San Francisco. “Music Like Dirt,” 7:30 p.m., free.

BLUES

Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Elvin Bishop, 7:30 & 10 p.m., $40.

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Jinx Jones & The KingTones, Second Friday of every month, 4 p.m.; T.C. Riders, 9:30 p.m.

EXPERIMENTAL

Artists’ Television Access: 992 Valencia, San Francisco. “Other States,” w/ Evan Caminiti, Danny Paul Grody, and Trevor Montgomery, plus films by Paul Clipson, 8 p.m., $6-$10.

FUNK

Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. Steppin’, DJ K-Os, 9:30 p.m., $10.

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Loose Joints,” w/ DJs Centipede, Damon Bell, and Tom Thump, 10 p.m., $5-$10.

SOUL

Edinburgh Castle: 950 Geary, San Francisco. “Soul Crush,” w/ DJ Serious Leisure, 10 p.m., free.

The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. “Nightbeat,” w/ DJs Primo, Lucky, and Dr. Scott, Second Friday of every month, 10 p.m., $4.

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Yo Momma: M.O.M. Weekend Edition,” w/ DJ Gordo Cabeza, Second Friday of every month, 9 p.m., $5 (free before 10 p.m.).

SATURDAY 14

ROCK

Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. Kitten, The Hot Toddies, Dog Party, 9:30 p.m., $15.

Connecticut Yankee: 100 Connecticut, San Francisco. Sad Bastard Book Club, Waning, Balms, 9:30 p.m., $10.

Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. The Loyalists, Cinder Cone, Mosshead, 9:30 p.m., $6.

Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. The Comet Empire, The Suborbitals, Akale, 9 p.m., $8.

The Independent: 628 Divisadero, San Francisco. moe., Dec. 12-14, 9 p.m., $30.

The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. The Fucking Buckaroos, Buffalo Tooth, The Parmesans, A Million Billion Dying Suns, 3 p.m., $7.

Thee Parkside: 1600 17th St., San Francisco. Pedal Revolution Benefit Show with Clamhawk Manor, Twinsect, Jamaged Goods, Joe Sikelianos, 4 p.m., $5; The Weirdos, VKTMS, The Re-Volts, DJ Aya Papaya, 9 p.m., $18.

DANCE

Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. “2 Men Will Move You,” w/ DJs Primo & Jordan, Second Saturday of every month, 9 p.m.

Audio Discotech: 316 11th St., San Francisco. Solidisco, Chordashian, MyKill, Sunwoo, 9:30 p.m., $10 advance.

BeatBox: 314 11th St., San Francisco. “I Just Wanna F*ckin Dance: First Annual Battle of the Beats,” 10 p.m., $15-$25.

Cafe Flore: 2298 Market, San Francisco. “Bistrotheque,” w/ DJ Ken Vulsion, 8 p.m., free.

Cat Club: 1190 Folsom, San Francisco. “Club Gossip: New Order vs. Erasure,” w/ DJs Damon, Shon, Low-Life, Daniel Skellington, and Panic, 9 p.m., $5-$8 (free before 9:30 p.m.).

DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. “Bootie S.F.,” w/ Smash-Up Derby, A+D, DJ Dada, Myster C, Mr. Washington, Keith Kraft, more, 9 p.m., $10-$15.

S.F. Eagle: 398 12th St., San Francisco. “Sadistic Saturdays,” Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., free.

El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. Maxwell Powers, Date Nite, Pixel Memory, 9 p.m., $6-$12.

Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “Tormenta Tropical: 6-Year Anniversary,” w/ Max Glazer, Oro11, Deejay Theory, 10 p.m., $5-$10.

The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “Eclectricity,” Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m.

The Grand Nightclub: 520 4th St., San Francisco. “Love Generation,” w/ The Fancy Cats, 10 p.m., $20.

Harlot: 46 Minna, San Francisco. “Freak ‘n’ You,” w/ Philipp Jung (of M.A.N.D.Y.), Nick Williams, Dan Sherman, 9 p.m., $10 advance.

The Hot Spot: 1414 Market, San Francisco. “Love Will Fix It,” w/ DJ Bus Station John, Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., $5.

Infusion Lounge: 124 Ellis, San Francisco. “One Way Ticket Saturdays,” w/ Eric D-Lux, Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., $20.

The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. “Galaxy Radio,” w/ Matrixxman, Lel Ephant, Smac, Emils, PlaZa, Holly B, 9 p.m., free.

Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “Bounce!,” 9 p.m., $3.

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Music Video Night,” w/ DJs Satva & 4AM, Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., $5.

Mighty: 119 Utah, San Francisco. Gorgon City, 10 p.m., $12.50-$20.

Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. “No Way Back,” w/ Mudd, Felix Dickinson, Conor, Solar, 10 p.m., $10-$20.

Neck of the Woods: 406 Clement St., San Francisco. French Horn Rebellion, Carousel, on the upstairs stage, 9 p.m., $12-$15.

OMG: 43 6th St., San Francisco. “Fixup,” Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., $5 (free before 11 p.m).

Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell, San Francisco. “Cockblock: The Holiday Party,” w/ DJs Niki-C & Natalie Nuxx, 10 p.m., $10.

Slate Bar: 2925 16th St., San Francisco. “The KissGroove S.F.,” w/ DJ Vinroc & The Whooligan, Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., free.

The Stud: 399 Ninth St., San Francisco. “Frolic: A Celebration of Costume & Dance,” w/ resident DJ NeonBunny, Second Saturday of every month, 8 p.m., $8 ($4 in costume).

Temple: 540 Howard, San Francisco. Frenchy Le Freak, Pheeko Dubfunk, Lorentzo, 10 p.m., $20.

Wish: 1539 Folsom, San Francisco. “All Styles & Smiles,” w/ DJ Tom Thump, Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., free.

HIP-HOP

111 Minna Gallery: 111 Minna St., San Francisco. “Back to the ‘90s,” Second Saturday of every month, 9:30 p.m., $10.

Double Dutch: 3192 16th St., San Francisco. “Cash IV Gold,” w/ DJs Kool Karlo, Roost Uno, and Sean G, Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., free.

John Colins: 138 Minna, San Francisco. “Second Saturdays,” w/ resident DJ Matt Cali, Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., free.

Showdown: 10 Sixth St., San Francisco. “The Shit Show,” w/ resident DJ Taurus Scott, Second Saturday of every month, 10 p.m., two for $5.

Slim’s: 333 11th St., San Francisco. Jake Miller, Action Item, Air Dubai, 9 p.m., sold out.

ACOUSTIC

Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Small Souls, Old Pals, 7 p.m., $5-$7.

Atlas Cafe: 3049 20th St., San Francisco. Craig Ventresco & Meredith Axelrod, Saturdays, 4-6 p.m., free.

Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Jordan Singh VanderBeek, 7 p.m.

Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. The Shelby Foot Three, 9 p.m.

The Riptide: 3639 Taraval, San Francisco. Dark Hollow, 9:30 p.m., free.

JAZZ

Cafe Claude: 7 Claude, San Francisco. Belinda Blair, 7:30 p.m., free.

Cigar Bar & Grill: 850 Montgomery, San Francisco. Josh Jones Latin Jazz Ensemble, 8 p.m.

The Emerald Tablet: 80 Fresno St., San Francisco. Madeline Eastman & Her Trio, 8 p.m., $20 suggested donation.

Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Bill “Doc” Webster & Jazz Nostalgia, 7:30 p.m., free.

The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Wil Blades & Jack Tone Riordan, 7:30 p.m., free.

San Francisco Golden Gate Rugby Club: 725 California Ave., San Francisco. S.F. Bal Fest: Treasure Island Hop, 9 a.m., $5; S.F. Bal Fest: Aloha Swing Dance, w/ Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, 7 p.m., $15-$20 ($5 off with costume).

Savanna Jazz Club: 2937 Mission, San Francisco. David Byrd Group, 7:30 p.m., $8.

Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. The Robert Stewart Experience, 9 p.m.

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Barbara Ochoa, 8 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL

1015 Folsom: 1015 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Pura,” 9 p.m., $20.

Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. Misión Flamenca, Monthly live music and dance performances., Second Saturday of every month, 7:30 p.m. “Paris-Dakar African Mix Coupe Decale,” 10 p.m., $5.

Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. Makrú, Las Cafeteras, DJ Izzy*wise, 9 p.m., $12-$15.

Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. Orquesta Borinquen, DJ Luis Medina, 8 p.m., $15.

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “El SuperRitmo,” w/ DJs Roger Mas & El Kool Kyle, 10 p.m., $5 before 11 p.m.

Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. Dança Makèzú’s Kizomba, Semba, and African Rhythms Mega Party, 9:30 p.m., $10.

Pachamama Restaurant: 1630 Powell, San Francisco. Peña Eddy Navia & Pachamama Band, 8 p.m., free.

Red Poppy Art House: 2698 Folsom, San Francisco. John Calloway and the New Riders of the Clave Maze, 7:30 p.m., $15-$20.

Space 550: 550 Barneveld, San Francisco. “Club Fuego,” 9:30 p.m.

Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Sheila E. Birthday Celebration, 8 & 10 p.m., $39.

BLUES

Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Maria Muldaur, 7:30 & 10 p.m., $22.

Pier 23 Cafe: Pier 23, San Francisco. Bobbie Webb, 8 p.m., free.

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Dave Workman, Second Saturday of every month, 4 p.m.; Delta Wires, 9:30 p.m.

COUNTRY

The Chapel: 777 Valencia St., San Francisco. Swinging Doors, 9 p.m., free.

FUNK

Public Works: 161 Erie, San Francisco. SantaCon Funk Night, w/ DJs Gordo Cabeza, Timoteo Gigante, Malachi, Señor Oz, Pleasuremaker, Motion Potion, and Phleck, 6 p.m., $5.

SOUL

Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. Wicked Mercies, Kelly Rock, DJ K-Os, 9:30 p.m., $10-$15.

SUNDAY 15

ROCK

Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. San Francisco Rock Project’s 2013 Festive Festival of Bands, 5:30 p.m., $10+.

Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Little Claw, Death Valley Girls, SFPD, 8:30 p.m., $6.

DANCE

The Cellar: 685 Sutter, San Francisco. “Replay Sundays,” 9 p.m., free.

The Edge: 4149 18th St., San Francisco. “’80s at 8,” w/ DJ MC2, 8 p.m.

Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “Dub Mission,” w/ Timoteo Gigante, DJ Sep, J-Boogie, 9 p.m., $6 (free before 9:30 p.m.).

The EndUp: 401 Sixth St., San Francisco. “T.Dance,” 6 a.m.-6 p.m.; “Elements of House,” w/ Mozaic, David Gregory, Dan Sherman, 10 p.m.

F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Stamina,” w/ Bachelors of Science, Jamal, 10 p.m., free.

The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. “Sweater Funk,” 10 p.m., free.

Lookout: 3600 16th St., San Francisco. “Jock,” Sundays, 3-8 p.m., $2.

MatrixFillmore: 3138 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Bounce,” w/ DJ Just, 10 p.m.

Mezzanine: 444 Jessie, San Francisco. Paul Kalkbrenner, Bells & Whistles, 7:30 p.m., $20-$30.

Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. “Black Magic Disko,” w/ Mind Against, Brian Bejarano, Star Kommand, 9 p.m., $10-$15.

Otis: 25 Maiden, San Francisco. “What’s the Werd?,” w/ resident DJs Nick Williams, Kevin Knapp, Maxwell Dub, and guests, 9 p.m., $5 (free before 11 p.m.).

The Parlor: 2801 Leavenworth, San Francisco. DJ Marc deVasconcelos, 10 p.m., free.

Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Gigante,” 8 p.m., free.

Slate Bar: 2925 16th St., San Francisco. “She Said…: A Queer Affair,” Third Sunday of every month, 4 p.m., $3-$5.

The Stud: 399 Ninth St., San Francisco. “No Parking on the Dancefloor,” w/ resident DJs Dutchboy & Gehno Aviance, 11 p.m., $5.

HIP-HOP

Boom Boom Room: 1601 Fillmore, San Francisco. “Return of the Cypher,” 9:30 p.m., free.

ACOUSTIC

Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. A Very Shut-Ins Xmas, 6 p.m.

Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Her Electric Fur, El Joe of the River, Axel Mansoor, Sean Simerly, 8 p.m., $7.

The Lost Church: 65 Capp St., San Francisco. Misner & Smith, Justin Farren, 8 p.m., $10.

The Lucky Horseshoe: 453 Cortland, San Francisco. Bernal Mountain Bluegrass Jam, 4 p.m., free.

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Spike’s Mic Night,” Sundays, 4-8 p.m., free.

Neck of the Woods: 406 Clement St., San Francisco. “iPlay,” open mic with featured weekly artists, 6:30 p.m., free.

Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Seisiún with John Sherry & Kyle Thayer, 9 p.m.

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church: 1755 Clay, San Francisco. “Sunday Night Mic,” w/ Roem Baur, 5 p.m., free.

JAZZ

El Rio: 3158 Mission, San Francisco. The Emergency Ensemble, 8 p.m., free.

Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Bill “Doc” Webster & Jazz Nostalgia, 7:30 p.m., free.

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Sunday Sessions,” 10 p.m., free.

Revolution Cafe: 3248 22nd St., San Francisco. Jazz Revolution, 4 p.m., free/donation.

The Riptide: 3639 Taraval, San Francisco. The Cottontails, Third Sunday of every month, 7:30 p.m., free.

The Royal Cuckoo: 3202 Mission, San Francisco. Lavay Smith & Chris Siebert, 7:30 p.m., free.

San Francisco Golden Gate Rugby Club: 725 California Ave., San Francisco. S.F. Bal Fest: Prohibition Party Swing Dance, w/ The Kally Price Trio, 7 p.m., $15-$20 ($5 off with costume).

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Lisa Lindsley, 7:30 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL

Atmosphere: 447 Broadway, San Francisco. “Hot Bachata Nights,” w/ DJ El Guapo, 5:30 p.m., $10 ($18-$25 with dance lessons).

Balancoire: 2565 Mission St., San Francisco. “Tardeadas Tropicales,” 3 p.m.

Bissap Baobab: 3372 19th St., San Francisco. “Brazil & Beyond,” 6:30 p.m., free.

Thirsty Bear Brewing Company: 661 Howard, San Francisco. “The Flamenco Room,” 7:30 & 8:30 p.m.

REGGAE

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. Titan Ups, Franco Nero, The Tritonics, 7:30 p.m., $8.

BLUES

Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. HowellDevine, Third Sunday of every month, 8:30 p.m., $7-$10.

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Blues Power, 4 p.m.; Spencer Jarrett, 9:30 p.m.

Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. Bohemian Knuckleboogie, 8 p.m., free.

Swig: 571 Geary, San Francisco. Sunday Blues Jam with Ed Ivey, 9 p.m.

SOUL

Delirium Cocktails: 3139 16th St., San Francisco. “Heart & Soul,” w/ DJ Lovely Lesage, 10 p.m., free.

MONDAY 16

ROCK

Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. Midlake, Sarah Jaffe, 7:30 p.m., $12-$14.

DANCE

DNA Lounge: 375 11th St., San Francisco. “Death Guild,” 18+ dance party with DJs Decay, Joe Radio, Melting Girl, & guests, 9:30 p.m., $3-$5.

Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Wanted,” w/ DJs Key&Kite and Richie Panic, 9 p.m., free.

Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Vienetta Discotheque,” w/ DJs Stanley Frank and Robert Jeffrey, 10 p.m., free.

ACOUSTIC

Amnesia: 853 Valencia, San Francisco. Windy Hill, Third Monday of every month, 9 p.m., free.

The Chieftain: 198 Fifth St., San Francisco. The Wrenboys, 7 p.m., free.

Congregation Sherith Israel: 2266 California, San Francisco. Andrew Bird Gezelligheid, Tift Merritt, Dec. 16-17, 8 p.m., $45.

Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. The Highway Poets, The New Thoreaus, 9 p.m., $6.

Fiddler’s Green: 1333 Columbus, San Francisco. Terry Savastano, 9:30 p.m., free/donation.

Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Open Mic with Brendan Getzell, 8 p.m., free.

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Sad Bastard Club,” Third Monday of every month, 7:30 p.m., free.

Osteria: 3277 Sacramento, San Francisco. “Acoustic Bistro,” 7 p.m., free.

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Peter Lindman, 4 p.m.

JAZZ

Cafe Divine: 1600 Stockton, San Francisco. Rob Reich, First and Third Monday of every month, 7 p.m.

Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Eugene Pliner Quartet with Tod Dickow, 7:30 p.m., free.

Le Colonial: 20 Cosmo, San Francisco. Le Jazz Hot, 7 p.m., free.

Sheba Piano Lounge: 1419 Fillmore, San Francisco. City Jazz Instrumental Jam Session, 8 p.m.

The Union Room at Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. The Session: A Monday Night Jazz Series, pro jazz jam with Mike Olmos, 7:30 p.m., $12.

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Nora Maki, 7:30 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL

Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Havana Reunion with Jimmy Branly, Carlitos del Puerto, and Iván “Melón” Lewis, 8 p.m., $24.

REGGAE

Skylark Bar: 3089 16th St., San Francisco. “Skylarking,” w/ I&I Vibration, 10 p.m., free.

BLUES

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. The Bachelors, 9:30 p.m.

COUNTRY

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Whiskey River,” w/ DJ Handlebars & Pretty Ricky, Third Monday of every month, 10 p.m., free.

SOUL

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “M.O.M. (Motown on Mondays),” w/ DJ Gordo Cabeza & Timoteo Gigante, 8 p.m., free.

TUESDAY 17

ROCK

Bottom of the Hill: 1233 17th St., San Francisco. Warm Soda, The Herms, POW!, 9 p.m., $12.

S.F. Eagle: 398 12th St., San Francisco. Eric Himan, Zbörnak, 9 p.m.

Hotel Utah: 500 Fourth St., San Francisco. Dispel, Midnight Sons, King Kong Zilla, 9 p.m., $10.

The Knockout: 3223 Mission, San Francisco. Shadowhouse, Crimson Scarlet, 2084, Gone to Ground, DJ Laurgactyl, 9:30 p.m., $7.

Slim’s: 333 11th St., San Francisco. Pere Ubu, 8 p.m., $16.

DANCE

Aunt Charlie’s Lounge: 133 Turk, San Francisco. “High Fantasy,” w/ DJ Viv, Myles Cooper, & guests, 10 p.m., $2.

Monarch: 101 6th St., San Francisco. “Soundpieces,” 10 p.m., free-$10.

Otis: 25 Maiden, San Francisco. “Vibe,” w/ Binkadink, Third Tuesday of every month, 6 p.m., free.

Q Bar: 456 Castro, San Francisco. “Switch,” w/ DJs Jenna Riot & Andre, 9 p.m., $3.

Underground SF: 424 Haight, San Francisco. “Shelter,” 10 p.m., free.

Wish: 1539 Folsom, San Francisco. “Tight,” w/ resident DJs Michael May & Lito, 8 p.m., free.

HIP-HOP

Brick & Mortar Music Hall: 1710 Mission, San Francisco. “S.F. Connects,” w/ Children of the Funk, Telli Prego, Heat, Big Vic, Shark Sinatra, Cole, Jedi, Dreidel, 8 p.m., $5-$8.

ACOUSTIC

Bazaar Cafe: 5927 California, San Francisco. Songwriter in Residence: Kate Kilbane, 7 p.m. continues through Dec. 31.

Congregation Sherith Israel: 2266 California, San Francisco. Andrew Bird Gezelligheid, Tift Merritt, Dec. 16-17, 8 p.m., $45.

Hemlock Tavern: 1131 Polk, San Francisco. Kathryn Anne Davis, Soft Shells, 8:30 p.m., $6.

Plough & Stars: 116 Clement, San Francisco. Seisiún with Autumn Rhodes, Pat O’Donnell, and Sean O’Donnell, 9 p.m.

JAZZ

Beach Chalet Brewery & Restaurant: 1000 Great Highway, San Francisco. Gerry Grosz Jazz Jam, 7 p.m.

Blush! Wine Bar: 476 Castro, San Francisco. Kally Price & Rob Reich, 7 p.m., free.

Burritt Room: 417 Stockton St., San Francisco. Terry Disley’s Rocking Jazz Trio, 6 p.m., free.

Cafe Divine: 1600 Stockton, San Francisco. Chris Amberger, 7 p.m.

Jazz Bistro at Les Joulins: 44 Ellis, San Francisco. Clifford Lamb, Mel Butts, and Friends, 7:30 p.m., free.

Le Colonial: 20 Cosmo, San Francisco. Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, 7 p.m.

Revolution Cafe: 3248 22nd St., San Francisco. West Side Jazz Club, 5 p.m., free; Panique, Third Tuesday of every month, 8:30 p.m., free/donation.

Verdi Club: 2424 Mariposa, San Francisco. “Tuesday Night Jump,” w/ Stompy Jones, 9 p.m., $10-$12.

Yoshi’s San Francisco: 1330 Fillmore, San Francisco. Tommy Igoe Big Band, 8 p.m., $22.

Zingari: 501 Post, San Francisco. Brenda Reed, 7:30 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL

Cafe Cocomo: 650 Indiana, San Francisco. “Descarga S.F.,” w/ DJs Hong & Good Sho, 8 p.m., $12.

The Cosmo Bar & Lounge: 440 Broadway, San Francisco. “Conga Tuesdays,” 8 p.m., $7-$10.

Elbo Room: 647 Valencia, San Francisco. “Porreta!,” all night forro party with DJs Carioca & Lucio K, Third Tuesday of every month, 9 p.m., $7.

F8: 1192 Folsom St., San Francisco. “Underground Nomads,” w/ rotating resident DJs Amar, Sep, and Dulce Vita, plus guests, 9 p.m., $5 (free before 9:30 p.m.).

REGGAE

Milk Bar: 1840 Haight, San Francisco. “Bless Up,” w/ Jah Warrior Shelter Hi-Fi, 10 p.m.

BLUES

Biscuits and Blues: 401 Mason, San Francisco. Twice as Good, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m., $15.

The Saloon: 1232 Grant, San Francisco. Lisa Kindred, Third Tuesday of every month, 9:30 p.m.

FUNK

Madrone Art Bar: 500 Divisadero, San Francisco. “Boogaloo Tuesday,” w/ Oscar Myers & Steppin’, 9:30 p.m., free.

SOUL

Make-Out Room: 3225 22nd St., San Francisco. “Lost & Found,” w/ DJs Primo, Lucky, and guests, 9:30 p.m., free. 2

Band practice

Michael Redmond

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December 10, 2013

0

arts@sfbg.com

THEATER We meet above the waterfall in Yerba Buena Gardens. It’s cold, getting dark. Everyone seems relieved to get inside the YBCA theater next door. We’ll talk here for the next hour, standing around a worktable with a gold lamé circle spread over it, before the band heads downstairs to a windowless rehearsal space in the deep well of the building.

Nicole Kidman Is Fucking Gorgeous is the band formerly known as the artists John Foster Cartwright, Maryam Rostami, and Mica Sigourney. In fact, NKIFG is more and less than a band — it’s a conceit, a project title, a series of performances, maybe a forthcoming album? (They don’t know yet.) None of its members actually plays an instrument, as far as I can tell. But they do compose songs, choreography, and objects that they employ in an unfolding series of situations they as readily call parties as performances. And they will have live music infusing their show this weekend at CounterPULSE, courtesy of ongoing collaborator and perennial inspiration Deep Teens.

Embracing a loopy goth spirit, the triumvirate, which has its origins in a performance two years ago at dancer-choreographer Liz Tenuto’s apartment during the Home Theater Festival, takes its send-ups of contemporary dance and performance art tropes seriously. And for all its insouciance and nonchalant humor, the project is at some level equally as much about the crisis of three artists (two of them well-known drag queens, the other a DJ and videographer) finding a way to live and work in today’s severely stratified San Francisco. It also draws eagerly, if obscurely, from their own private lives.

As for the name, its members like to say what they do is defined by both the presence and absence of someone or something called Nicole Kidman. To hear them talk about it, Kidman starts to sound like a key swallowed by a red herring.

“Who cares about Nicole Kidman?” notes Sigourney, with paradoxical delight. “But people do care about her! She’s the perfect vessel.”

What else should you know about Nicole Kidman Is Fucking Gorgeous? The answer to that question took a rambling, circuitous form. It was ultimately put to a Tarot deck set in the middle of the table.

Mica Sigourney So the frame of this reading is around getting at the truths and dispelling the illusions around this project for you. [The first card is] the Seven of Cups, which is about illusion [versus] reality, and picking out the truth. Right now, all of us are [experiencing] an abundance of emotions, an overwhelming amount.

Maryam Rostami Cups are heart energy, heart chakra, love, emotions.

[skipping ahead]

MS So what we need to manifest in our next step in this project — see, I don’t know if this is telling us what to tell Rob.

MR No, I think it is, I think this is great.

MS We are students of creativity…

MR And magic…

MS So we’re not masters of this yet. We’re still learning. Page of Wands is also about adventure and following bliss really. And our final outcome is the Ten of Swords. So it means we’re being stabbed in the back!

MR The Ten of Swords looks like this: It’s all of our fears pointing toward one single spot. The Ten is when the next step is coming. We’ve reached the end of something and it’s the next thing. The Moon, I feel, has to do with a difficult birthing process. The Moon is about traversing these murky emotional territories, which we have done together and we continue to do. I think this represents our fear.

MS Can I give it a reading too?

MR Yes.

MS Ten being the overabundance of the suit, and Tens being about communication and intellect: The outcome is an overabundance of ideas that sometimes feel like a burden, and are sometimes painful because there are just too many ideas happening. So we’re going to end up with too many ideas. Coupled with the Moon, I’m going to say our final outcome will actually be knowledge that is not measurable by the intellect and is much more intuitive and based in mystery, that is, not easily described by the mind.

MR We’re going to have to dig deeper from all of this. The Ten makes us need to take the next step.

MS And that next step is toward the dark. Well, toward intuition.

MR It is toward intuition. I think that moving toward the more Moon aspects will maybe then inform the next piece.

MS Oh, the moon…

MR Oh, the moon, duh! But this is perfect!

MS The moon is in our piece a lot.

MR Like the actual physical moon.

MS So basically, to clarify things for Rob: The Tarot reading says that we need to dispel some illusions for you. What we need to tell you is that we are about to have a moment of reckoning at this show at which we realize our values and our worth, and our sins. And what’s driving us as a collective is to reap the benefits of a good harvest, as well as learn from each other, and continue to be students of creativity, passion, and magic.

MR Ultimately, not to let our fears get us down and to know that we’re going in the right direction.

MS And this being our final outcome makes me think that maybe you should just know: “The moon.”

John Foster Cartwright The moon.

MS We need to shut up with all our ideas and just be like, the moon.

MR I’m with that. *

NICOLE KIDMAN IS FUCKING GORGEOUS

Thu/12-Sun/15, 8pm, $20

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

www.counterpulse.org

Rep Clock: December 11 – 17, 2013

Michael Redmond

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December 10, 2013

0

Schedules are for Wed/11-Tue/17 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

“ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD FILM FESTIVAL” Balboa Theater, 3630 Balboa, SF; New People Cinema, 1746 Post, SF; www.sfindie.com. $12. Now in its 10th year, the festival highlights indie horror, sci-fi, and fantasy films, through Dec 19.

ATA GALLERY 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-10. The Book of Jane (Alli, 2013), Thu, 8. “Open States,” sound and music performances by Evan Caminiti, Danny Paul Grody, and Trevor Montgomery, plus films by Paul Clipson, Fri, 8. “Other Cinema:” Children of the Stars (Perrine, 2012), Sat, 8:30. “Small Press Traffic: Amanda Davidson and Jaime Cortez,” reading, Sun, 5.

BALBOA THEATRE 3630 Balboa, SF; cinemasf.com/balboa. $10. Silent Night, Deadly Night (Sellier, 1984), Sat, 10. “Popcorn Palace:” Elf (Favreau, 2003), Sat, 10am. Matinee for kids.

BINDLESTIFF STUDIO 185 Sixth St, SF; www.facinesf.com. $10-20. “FACINE bente: Filipino American Cine Festival,” 33 feature length films and short works from the Philippines and the Filipino Diaspora, Wed-Sat. Proceeds benefit Typhoon Haiyan relief operations in the Philippines.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-12. Gravity (Cuarón, 2013), Wed, 2:30, 4:45, 7, 9:15. Mystical Traveler: The Life and Times of Dr. John-Roger (John-Roger and Garcia), Thu, 7:30. Free screening; visit website for related events. •Killer of Sheep (Burnett, 1977), Fri, 7:15, and Eraserhead (Lynch, 1976), Fri, 9. Mariinsky Theater’s The Nutcracker in 3D (2013), Sat, 1:30, 4. Children of Paradise (Carné, 1945), Sat, 7. •To Catch a Thief (Hitchcock, 1955), Sun, 2:25, 7, and Dial M for Murder (Hitchcock, 1954), Sun, 4:55, 9. “A Holiday Wurlitzer Extravaganza,” holiday organ concert to save and enhance the Castro’s Wurlitzer, Mon, 7:30. This event, $20.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-$10.75. The Armstrong Lie (Gibney, 2013), call for dates and times. Blue is the Warmest Color (Kechiche, 2013), call for dates and times. The Great Beauty (Sorrentino, 2013), call for dates and times. Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago (Smith, 2013), call for dates and times. “Hollywood Home Movies,” Wed, 7. This event, $12. “A Century Ago: The Films of 1913,” Thu, 7. This event, $12. Bettie Page Reveals All (Mori, 2012), Dec 13-19, call for times. Mariinsky Theater’s The Nutcracker in 3D (2013), Sun, 1:30 and Dec 19, 7.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $10. “Midnight Movies:” The Room (Wiseau, 2003), Sat, midnight.

EXPLORATORIUM 600 the Embarcadero, SF; www.sfcinematheque.org. $5-10. San Francisco Cinematheque presents: “Teeming and Tenuous/Fleeting and Alive: Film Performances by Alex MacKenzie,” Wed, 7.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “The Resolution Starts Now: 4K Restorations from Sony Pictures:” Experiment in Terror (Edwards, 1962), Wed, 7; Obsession (De Palma, 1976), Fri, 7; Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Kubrick, 1964), Fri, 9; On the Waterfront (Kazan, 1954), Sun, 3. “Love Is Colder Than Death: The Cinema of Rainer Werner Fassbinder:” Martha (1973), Thu, 7; Querelle (1982), Sat, 8:40; In a Year of 13 Moons (1978), Sun, 5:15. “Fassbinder’s Favorites:” Johnny Guitar (Ray, 1954), Sat, 6:30.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. At Berkeley (Wiseman, 2013), Wed-Thu, 6:45. The Punk Singer (Anderson, 2013), Wed-Thu, 7, 8:45. Ms. 45 (Ferrara, 1981), Fri-Sat, 11; Sun, 2; Mon, TBA.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. “X: The History of a Film Rating:” Midnight Cowboy (Schlesinger, 1969), Thu, 7:30; Pink Flamingos (Waters, 1972), Sat, 7:30. *

Theater Listings: December 11 – 17, 2013

Michael Redmond

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December 10, 2013

0

Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

Crones for the Holidays: The Sequel Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.crackpotcrones.com. $20 (first weekend shows, free). Opens Sat/14, 3 and 8pm. Runs Sat-Sun, 3pm (also Sat, 8pm). Through Dec 29. Vignettes, improv, songs, and more, written by and starring Terry Baum and Carolyn Myers.

It’s Christmas, Carole! Creativity Theater, 221 Fourth St, SF; www.itschristmascarole.com. $10-20. Opens Thu/12, 7pm. Runs Thu-Fri, 7pm; Sat-Sun, 2 and 5pm. Through Dec 22. Thrillride Mechanics performs the world premiere of Michael Phillis’ “human cartoon” that puts an Office Space-style spin on the Dickens classic.

Too Many Tamales: A Holiday Story for the Whole Family Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-35. Previews Sat/14-Sun/15, 2pm. Opens Dec 21, 2 and 8pm. Runs Dec 22-23, 27-30, and Jan 2-4, 2pm. Through Jan 4. Marsh Youth Theater and author Gary Soto collaborate on this high-energy holiday show — complete with puppets and Mexican music — based on Soto’s picture book.

ONGOING

Amaluna Big Top at AT&T Park, Third Street at Terry A. Francois Blvd, SF; www.cirquedusoliel.com. $50-175. Check website for schedule, including special holiday showtimes. Through Jan 12. Cirque de Soleil is back in town, this time bringing its Tempest-inspired Amaluna to the big top set up outside AT&T Park. Touted for being a celebration of “women [sic] power,” it seems initially odd that the design elements are so focused on the male peacock feather — all greens and blues and graceful, with curving “fronds” rising up from the stage. Jungle sounds chirp in the background as a bevy of Amazonian women in bejeweled headdresses and a mischievous lizard-man circulate the room until the show starts with the lovely abstraction of a floating red cloud of translucent fabric dancing in a single beam of light. The flimsy plotline is forgettable, a coming-of-age and courtship tale between the island’s young princess, Miranda (Iuliia Mykhailova) and a shipwrecked young Romeo (Evgeny Kurkin), though the parallel courtship between the two comic figures of Jeeves (Nathalie Claude) and Deeda (Shereen Hickman) provides a bit of levity and a novel use for footballs. The most realized character is probably Cali (Victor Kee), the half-lizard, whose prehensile tail and neon body paint give him an otherworldly allure, but it’s the aerialist goddesses and fierce embodiments of the storm that are most memorable from an acrobatic point-of-view, and Lara Jacobs’ unique balancing act from a meditative one. (Gluckstern)

Avenue Q New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Previews Fri/13, 8pm. Opens Sat/14, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Jan 12. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the Tony-winning comedy.

The Barbary Coast Revue Stud Bar, 399 Ninth St, SF; eventbrite.com/org/4730361353. $10-40. Wed, 9pm. Through Dec 18. Blake Wiers’ new “live history musical experience” features Mark Twain as a tour guide through San Francisco’s wild past.

The Book of Mormon Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market, SF; www.shnsf.com. $60-120. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 1 and 6:30pm. Through Jan 19. When approaching the oeuvre of South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, it’s best to check your political correctness at the door. That’s certainly no less true of their 2011 Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, co-penned with Robert Lopez (of Avenue Q fame), despite the clean-scrubbed appearance of their fumbling albeit well-intentioned missionary protagonists. Sent to Uganda for two years, top mission pupil Elder Price (Nic Rouleau) and his clumsy but affable partner Elder Cunningham (A.J. Holmes) are faced with a village oppressed by a scenery-chewing warlord, a demoralized coterie of fellow missionaries who have yet to have a successful conversion, and their own fraught, odd-couple dynamic. Rouleau’s Price is an appropriate blend of smarm, charm, and secret self-doubt while Holmes excels in his portrayal of a perennial-loser-turned-prophet (his power ballad-esque solo in “Man Up” is one of the show’s best). Of their hosts, the wry Mafala (James Vincent Meredith) and his sweet but strong-willed daughter Nabulungi (Syesha Mercado) get the most stage time, but it’s the crude and caustic General (David Aron Damane) who grabs the most attention. The gleefully profane “Hasa Diga Eebowai,” a Forbidden Zone-style “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream”, and the deliriously blasphemous “Joseph Smith, American Moses,” round out the entertaining, and strangely informative, score. Though it’s (very) unlikely to convert you to the Church of Latter-Day Saints, there’s a good chance you’ll want to convert to the church of Parker and Stone, if you haven’t already. (Gluckstern)

BoomerAging: From LSD to OMG Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Tue/17, 8pm. Will Durst’s hit solo show looks at baby boomers grappling with life in the 21st century.

A Christmas Carol Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-95. Wed-Sat, 7pm (no evening shows Dec 24, 26, or 28; also Wed/11, Sat/14, Dec 21, and 23, 2pm; Dec 24 and 26-28, 1pm; Dec 27 evening show at 5:30pm); Sun, 5:30pm (also Sun/15 and Dec 22, 1pm). Through Dec 28. American Conservatory Theater mounts its annual production of the Dickens classic, with James Carpenter as Scrooge and Ken Ruta as Jacob Marley’s ghost.

Cinderella Buriel Clay Theater, African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton, SF; www.african-americanshakes.org. $12.50-50. Sat, 8pm (also Dec 21, 3pm); Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 22. African-American Shakespeare Company presents this fairy-tale production for the holidays.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $32-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

The Golden Girls: The XMAS Episodes Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th, SF; www.trannyshack.com. $30. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 22. Plastic Christmas tree, 80s TV jingles, men in muumuus — it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Two new (old) episodes from the classic television sitcom enliven this year’s staging of the seasonal favorite, starring drag luminaries Heklina, as Dorothy; Cookie Dough, as Sophia; Matthew Martin (who also directs), as Blanche; and Pollo Del Mar, as Rose. Decked to the halls in frighteningly festive outfits courtesy of costumers Landa Lakes and Van Hedwall, the ladies bring out the geriatric within, while proving over and over again that nobody ever really grows up anyway. Laurie Bushman, Manuel Caneri, Peter Griggs, and Jordan Wheeler round out the cast, along with a rotating roster of special guests (including opening night’s appearance by Donna Sashet). Yule laugh, Yule cry, mostly Yule laugh. (Avila)

The Jewelry Box: A Genuine Christmas Story The Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-40. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Dec 28. Brian Copeland performs the world premiere of his new, holiday-themed work, an Oakland-set autobiographical tale that’s a prequel to his popular Not a Genuine Black Man.

My Beautiful Launderette New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 22. In this stage adaptation of the 1985 Hanif Kureishi-Stephen Frears film, SF newcomer Javi Harnly takes on the role of Omar, a British-Pakistani youth with an eye for business opportunity, while Robert Rushin portrays his former schoolmate and eventual lover Johnny, a working-class tough and erstwhile fascist whose navigation of Thatcher-era London is fraught with poverty and violence. While the play sticks to much of the original’s plot, the cast is reduced to a chamber septet, with the perhaps unintended consequence of creating an extra layer of isolation for Johnny, whose former “mates” remain offstage, leaving him to be defined almost solely by his relationships to Omar and Omar’s family. Director Andrew Nance’s pacing errs on the side of sedate, subduing the more passionate responses of many of the supporting characters: Omar’s restless cousin Tania (Radhika Rao); his widowed, alcoholic father (Ravi Bhatnagar); his mercurial entrepreneur uncle Nasser (Keith Stevenson); and Nasser’s kittenish mistress (Cat Luedtke). Only Daniel Redmond as the unrepentantly shady Salim gets to fully embody his character’s extremist views and actions, while the sweetly awkward chemistry between the two protagonists does produce a nice bit of heat, their refreshingly matter-of-fact relationship encompassing a full spectrum of emotion and circumstance. (Gluckstern)

The Oy of Sex Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-100. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Jan 18. Comedian Alicia Dattner performs her solo show, based on her stories from her own life and love addiction.

Peter/Wendy Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough, SF; www.custommade.org. $15-33. Thu/12-Sat/14, 8pm; Sun/15, 7pm. J.M. Barrie’s familiar and much-revisited children’s story, about a boy who refuses to grow up, has always had its darker aspects, including the violent streak in its hero, forever-child Peter (Sam Bertken). Unfortunately, any underlying social or psychological complexity in the story — originally published in 1902 in The Little White Bird — is of no consequence in adapter-director Jeremy Bloom’s relentlessly cheerful and quickly monotonous retelling. The production, which narrates and acts out the story in somewhat condensed form, says it’s designed for adults of all ages and children over 12, but it seems pitched to an audience much younger still. Custom Made Theater’s lackluster staging does little to make the time go faster. There’s a mischievous energy in Bertken’s Peter and a bright intelligence in Anya Kazimierski’s Tinker Bell that together produce the play’s only emotional heat, but it’s fleeting. As Wendy, Elissa Beth Stebbins is generally solid but too mild to elicit much sympathy for her unrequited affections for Peter. Clad exclusively in striped jammies, the uneven ensemble (which also includes Terry Bamberger, Jessica Rudholm, Kim Saunders, and Jeunee Simon in multiple roles) rarely encourages focus on the finer points of character and plot, which anyway come with a soporific dose of trifling detail amid generally awkward physical choreography. Indeed, any “happy thoughts” one walks in with would risk vanishing entirely, were it not that the cast harvests them immediately and writes them down for future reference on the stage floor. (Avila)

Snoopy!!! Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.42ndstmoon.org. $25-75. Wed/11-Thu/12, 7pm; Fri/13, 8pm; Sat/14, 6pm; Sun/15, 3pm. 42nd Street Moon performs the sequel to You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

Storefront Church San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post St, Second Flr, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-100. Tue-Thu, 7pm (no shows Dec 24-25 or Jan 1); Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm); Sun, 2pm (also Dec 22, 7pm). Through Jan 11. A modern-day Scrooge finds redemption in San Francisco Playhouse’s production of John Patrick Shanley’s uplifting comedy.

The Vixens of Broadway Feinstein’s at the Nikko, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.feinsteinssf.com. $50-80. Thu/12-Fri/13, 8pm; Sat/14-Sun/15, 7pm. A recipe for beating the cold outside: A few Sazeracs and this intimate cabaret-style show featuring Broadway star Betty Buckley, interpreting iconic and unusual songs from Broadway’s “other women” — characters who inhabit the darker, naughtier, or at least more complex side of musical-theater femininity in germinal gems like Kander and Ebb’s “When You’re Good to Mama” (from Chicago) or Cole Porter’s “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” (from Leave It To Me!). Arranged by pianist and accompanist Christian Jacob (heading up a smooth jazz trio), the set includes amusing parodies, and comes sprinkled with stories that include its star’s own Fort Worth, Texas roots and earliest showbiz memories. Delivered with personality as well as consummate skill by Buckley (whose remarkable career includes at least 15 records as well as legendary roles in shows like Cats or TV’s Eight Is Enough), The Vixens of Broadway is a warm, playful, lightly mischievous class act. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Can You Dig It? Back Down East 14th — the 60s and Beyond Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat/14, 8:30pm; Sun/15, 7pm. Don Reed’s new show offers more stories from his colorful upbringing in East Oakland in the 1960s and ’70s. More hilarious and heartfelt depictions of his exceptional parents, independent siblings, and his mostly African American but ethnically mixed working-class community — punctuated with period pop, Motown, and funk classics, to which Reed shimmies and spins with effortless grace. And of course there’s more too of the expert physical comedy and charm that made long-running hits of Reed’s last two solo shows, East 14th and The Kipling Hotel (both launched, like this newest, at the Marsh). Can You Dig It? reaches, for the most part, into the “early” early years, Reed’s grammar-school days, before the events depicted in East 14th or Kipling Hotel came to pass. But in nearly two hours of material, not all of it of equal value or impact, there’s inevitably some overlap and indeed some recycling. Reed, who also directs the show, may start whittling it down as the run continues. But, as is, there are at least 20 unnecessary minutes diluting the overall impact of the piece, which is thin on plot already — much more a series of often very enjoyable vignettes and some painful but largely unexplored observations, wrapped up at the end in a sentimental moral that, while sincere, feels rushed and inadequate. (Avila)

Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Previews Wed/11-Thu/12, 7pm. Opens Fri/13, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Jan 11. Shotgun Players performs Anthony Neilson’s comic romp set in “a sensual Edwardian world of top hats, fantastical puppets, and flash powder.”

Harvey Barn Theatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.rossvalleyplayers.com. $10-22. Thu/12, 7:30pm; Fri/13-Sat/14, 8pm; Sun/15, 2pm. Ross Valley Players perform the Pulitzer-winning play by Mary Chase.

Little Women Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $19-79. Tue-Wed and Dec 30, 7:30pm (no shows Dec 24-25; Dec 31, show at 2pm only; no show Jan 1); Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat and Dec 26 and Jan 4, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Jan 4. TheatreWorks performs the musical adaptation of the Louisa May Alcott tale.

Mame Hillbarn Theatre, 1285 East Hillsdale, Foster City; www.hillbarntheatre.org. $19-40. Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/14 and Dec 21, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 22. Hillbarn Theatre performs Jerry Herman’s classic musical.

The Pianist of Willesden Lane Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-89. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; no shows Dec 24 or 31); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm; matinees only Sun/15, Dec 22, and Jan 5; no show Dec 25). Extended through Jan 5. Mona Golabek stars in this solo performance inspired by her mother, a Jewish pianist whose dreams and life were threatened by the Nazi regime.

Troilus and Cressida La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-25. Thu/12-Sat/14, 8pm; Sun/15, 7pm. One of Shakespeare’s more difficult and under-produced plays, Troilus and Cressida does wax in popularity during protracted times of war, so it’s about the right time for Impact Theatre to tackle it. Set during the seventh year of the Trojan War, the players are all either soldiers or spoils of war, and both morale and morals are at a low ebb. So-called heroes hide in their tents, the fair Helen (Julie Kuwabara) is a callow bawd, and everyone just wants the war to be over. Troilus (Eric Kerr), a Trojan, and Cressida (Sarah Coykendall), a Greek, meet-cute thanks to the machinations of the flamboyant Pandarus (Shawn J. West), only to be quickly separated by circumstances beyond their control, and thrust abruptly to the sidelines of their own tragedy, their eventual betrayal of each other lost within the greater treacheries of the battlefield. It’s a problematic script, not least of all because the only truly moral character is the very innocent, very mad Cassandra (Akemi Okamura), whose prophecies are written off as mere ravings, subtly mirrored by the nihilistic fool, Thersites (Miyaka Cochrane), who delivers his frontline ravings as prophecies. Director Melissa Hillman makes some bold choices, however, including casting Lauren Spencer as the level-headed Ulysses, and father-son team Jon Nagel and Jonah McClellan as Aeneas and Antenor, turning the walk-on role of a pawn into a tragic symbol of war’s all too-human cost. (Gluckstern)

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Attractive Camp” Lost Weekend Video, 1034 Valencia, SF; lostweekendcinecave.eventbrite.com. Sun/15, 7pm. $10. Featuring work by stand-up comedians, sketch writers, and short filmmakers.

“Aura Fischbeck Dance presents: Two Evenings of Deborah Hay Solo Adaptations” NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/13-Sat/14, 7pm. $15. Choreography by Deborah Hay, presented as part of the Solo Performance Commissioning Project.

“Broadway Bingo” Feinstein’s at the Nikko, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.feinsteinssf.com. Wed, 7-9pm. Ongoing. Free. Countess Katya Smirnoff-Skyy and Joe Wicht host this Broadway-flavored night of games and performance.

“Christmas in San Francisco” Pa’ina Lounge and Restaurant, 1865 Post, SF; www.christmasinSF.com. Fri/13-Sat/14, 7:30pm. $25-45. Singer Russ Lorenson performs jazz standards with guests Wesla Whitfield, Mike Greensill, and Veronica Klaus.

“Cirque Dreams Holidaze” Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF; www.shnsf.com. Wed/11-Sat/14, 7pm (also Fri/13-Sat/14, 1pm); Sun/15, 1 and 6:30pm. $45-160. Energetic, acrobatic fantasy set in a winter wonderland.

“Color Dance” a.Muse Art Gallery, 614 Alabama, SF; facebook.com/ranghouseproductions. Sat/14-Sun/15, 8pm. $12 suggested donation. Non-profit dance theater company Rang House Productions presents its debut performance.

“Comedy Bottle with Eddie Brill” Purple Onion at Kells, 530 Jackson, SF; www.purpleonionatkells.com. Fri/13-Sat/14, 7pm. $10 plus one-drink minimum. Stand-up with headliner Brill and opener Red Scott.

“Cozzie Maurice” Mariposa Studio, 2808 Mariposa, SF; www.mariposastudio.org. Wed/11-Sat/14, 7pm; Sun/15, 3pm. Donations accepted. Music, poetry, and stories of “the weird West.”

“Dance-Along Nutcracker: Nutcrackers of the Caribbean!” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.dancealongnutcracker.org. Sat/14, 2 (preview) and 7pm (gala); Sun/15, 11am and 3pm. $10-50. The beloved Bay Area tradition, with music performed by the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band, returns, with shows aimed at both kids and grown-ups (this year: the nautical theme includes a piratical “Captain’s Ball Gala”).

“Dolores: The Temporary Life of a 220-Year-Old Bionic Woman” Stage Werx Theater, 446 Valencia, SF; www.stagewerx.org. Wed/11, 7:30pm. $15-20. On a bare floor, physical theater maker Carolina Duncan, as her Colombian grandmother, pops opens her cranium like a steamer trunk and retrieves the scrapbook of a boundless life. Here memory and imagination exist in equal measures, as Duncan traces key moments and fleeting images from an arc of days defined by family, romance, and at least one titanic battle between an Amazonian dinosaur and a new secret-agent boyfriend. Combining mime, scattered dialogue, physical comedy, and a live soundscape, this loving and whimsical homage comes gracefully delivered and almost always vividly expressed. All the while, Duncan (a graduate of SF’s Clown Conservatory and James Donlon and Leonard Pitt’s Flying Actor Studio) exudes an infectious enthusiasm for her subject, who proves as alive in a passing but concrete image of first childhood steps as she does in her final outing, a prolonged spacewalk into the familiar and unknown. Note: review from an earlier run of this show. (Avila)

“Dream Queens Revue” Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF; www.dreamqueensrevue.com. Wed/11, 9:30-11:30pm. Free. With Collette LeGrande, Ruby Slippers, Sophilya Leggz, and more.

“Fiesta Navidena” Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sun/15, Dec 21-22, and 27-28, 6:15pm. $15-21. Carolina Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco performs a holiday show.

“G. Scott Lacy’s Holiday Cabaret” Society Cabaret at Hotel Rex, 562 Sutter, SF; www.societycabaret.com. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 22. $20-40. A seasonal blend of music and song.

“Global Dance Passport Showcase” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Fri/13-Sat/14, 8pm (also Sat/14, 5:30pm). $10. World dance sampler, with styles from across the globe.

“House of Matter” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.embodimentproject.org. Fri/13-Sun/15, 8pm. $18-38. Embodiment Project performs its latest multi-media street dance drama, with live music by Valerie Troutt and MoonCandy.

“Hysterical Historical San Francisco, Holiday Edition” Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.org. Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 29. $30-40. Comic Kurt Weitzman performs.

“Killing My Lobster Winter Follies” Z Below, 470 Florida, SF; www.killingmylobster.com. Thu/12-Sat/15, 8pm (also Sat/15, 10pm). $20. Sketch comedy for the season.

“Making Spirits Bright” St. Matthew’s Lutheran, 3281 16th St, SF; www.ggmc.org. Thu/12-Fri/13 and Tue/17, 8pm; Sun/15, 3pm. $25-35. The Golden Gate Men’s Chorus performs its annual holiday program.

“Mark Foehringer’s Nutcracker Sweets” Southside Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat/14-Sun/15, Dec 20-24, 11am and 2pm (also Sat/14-Sun/15 and Dec 21-22, 4pm). $18-28. Contemporary ballet company Mark Foehringer Dance Project SF performs its fifth annual production of this Nutcracker-inspired work aimed at families with young children.

“Max and Nicky” Merchants of Reality, 285 Ninth St, SF; maxandnicky.wordpress.com. Sat/14, 8pm. $10. “Music and comedy variety hour spectacular” from twins Max and Nicky Weinbach.

“Mine” Joe Goode Annex, 401 Alabama, SF; www.rawdance.org. Wed/11-Sun/15, 8pm. $21-25. RAWdance performs a world premiere by company founders Ryan T. Smith and Wendy Rein.

“Mortified” DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, SF; www.getmortified.com. Fri/13, 7:30pm. $21. Also Sat/14, 7:30pm, $20, Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakl. First-person storytelling, of the extremely cringe-inducing variety. This month’s show has a “Best of 2013” theme.

“Nicole Kidman is Fucking Gorgeous” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Thu/12-Sun/15, 8pm. $20. Mica Sigourney, John Foster Cartwright, and Maryam Rostami perform.

“NSA Comedy Tour” Internet Archives, 300 Funston, SF; blog.archive.org. Wed/11, 6pm. $10-250. A night of comedy and ethics and technology discussion with comedian Will Durst and “a lively panel of nerds.” Benefits a variety of organizations including CodePink, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and EthicsInTech.

“Okeanos Intimate” Aquarium of the Bay, Pier 39, SF; www.capacitor.org. Sat, 8pm. $20-30 (free aquarium ticket with show ticket). Extended through Dec 28. Choreographer Jodi Lomask and her company, Capacitor, revive 2012’s Okeanos — a cirque-dance piece exploring the wonder and fragility of our innate connection to the world’s oceans — in a special “intimate” version designed for the mid-size theater at Pier 39’s Aquarium of the Bay. The show, developed in collaboration with scientists and engineers, comes preceded by a short talk by a guest expert — for a recent Saturday performance it was a down-to-earth and truly fascinating local ecological history lesson by the Bay Institute’s Marc Holmes. In addition to its Cirque du Soleil-like blend of quasi-representational modern dance and circus acrobatics — powered by a synth-heavy blend of atmospheric pop music — Okeanos makes use of some stunning underwater photography and an intermittent narrative that includes testimonials from the likes of marine biologist and filmmaker Dr. Tierney Thys. The performers, including contortionists, also interact with some original physical properties hanging from the flies — a swirling vortex and a spherical shell — as they wrap and warp their bodies in a kind of metamorphic homage to the capacity and resiliency of evolution, the varied ingenuity of all life forms. If the movement vocabulary can seem limited at times, and too derivative, the show also feels a little cramped on the Aquarium Theater stage, whose proscenium arrangement does the piece few favors aesthetically. Nevertheless, the family-oriented Okeanos Intimate spurs a conversation with the ocean that is nothing if not urgent. (Avila)

“One-Minute Play Festival” Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.playwrightsfoundation.org. Sat/14-Sun/15, 8pm (also Sun/15, 3pm). $25. The Playwrights Foundation presents this fourth annual fest of 70 one-minute plays.

“Point Break Live!” DNA Lounge, 373 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. Jan 3, Feb 7, March 7, and April 4, 7:30 and 11pm. $25-50. Dude, Point Break Live! is like dropping into a monster wave, or holding up a bank, like, just a pure adrenaline rush, man. Ahem. Sorry, but I really can’t help but channel Keanu Reeves and his Johnny Utah character when thinking about the awesomely bad 1991 movie Point Break or its equally yummily cheesy stage adaptation. And if you do an even better Keanu impression than me — the trick is in the vacant stare and stoner drawl — then you can play his starring role amid a cast of solid actors, reading from cue cards from a hilarious production assistant in order to more closely approximate Keanu’s acting ability. This play is just so much fun, even better now at DNA Lounge than it was a couple years ago at CELLspace. But definitely buy the poncho pack and wear it, because the blood, spit, and surf spray really do make this a fully immersive experience. (Steven T. Jones)

“Queen of Knives” Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.sharpandfine.com. Thu/12-Sat/14, 8pm; Sun/15, 2pm. $30. Sharp & Fine performs an evening-length dance adaptation of a Neil Gaiman poem.

“San Francisco Magic Parlor” Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

“Sing You A Merry Christmas” Grace Cathedral, 1100 California, SF; www.gracecathedral.org. Sat/14 and Dec 21, 11am. $5-25. A sing-along for younger children and their families

“The Velveteen Rabbit” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Lam Research Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.odcdance.org. Thu/12-Fri/13, 11am; Sat/14, 1 and 4pm; Sun/15, 2pm. $20-75. ODC/Dance performs its popular holiday show, directed with fresh perspective this year by ODC founder Brenda Way.

“A Very Merry Murder Mystery” Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 21. $20. BATS Improv performs a holiday-themed murder tale.

BAY AREA

“A Chanticleer Christmas” Cathedral of Christ the Light, 2121 Harrison, Oakl; www.chanticleer.org. Fri/13, 8pm. $30-65. The Grammy-winning vocal ensemble performs profound and joyous seasonal tunes. Visit the group’s website for additional concerts in Berkeley, SF, and other NorCal locations through Dec 23.

“Following the Wrong God Home” Osher Studio in the Arts Passage of Berkeley Central, 2055 Center, Berk; www.brownpapertickets.com. Mon/16, 8pm. $15-25. Company 212 presents a physical theater piece choreographed and directed by MaryBeth Cavanaugh that imagines six Shakespeare characters on alternate journeys beyond the plays they appear in.

“Home, Holidays and Harmony” First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St, Oakl; www.uuoakland.org. Sat/14, 7-9pm. $5-25. Songs from various holiday traditions with the Crescendo Choir, Joyful Noise, and other groups and soloists.

“Hungry for Yiddish: A Mitzvah Project” Subterranean Arthouse, 2179 Bancroft, Berk; www.subterraneanarthouse.org. Thu/12, 8pm. $10-20 donation. With Heather Klein’s Inextinguishable Trio, performing lost works of the Yiddish art song repertoire, and other Jewish music acts.

“Let Us Break Bread Together: A Holiday Celebration” Paramount Theatre, 2025 Broadway, Oakl; www.oebs.org. Sun/15, 4pm. $15-50. Unconventional holiday concert with new gospel works commissioned by OEBS and the James Irvine Foundation and performances by the Oakland Symphony Chorus, Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, klezmer band Kugelplex, Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir, and others.

“The Marsh’s Third Annual Holiday Bash” Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. Sat/14, 7pm. $20-100. Holiday tales recounted by notable local solo performers: Marga Gomez, Don Reed, Josh Kornbluth, and more.

“Shirly’s Variety Show Extraordinaire” Studio Quercus, 385 26th St, Oakl; www.studioquercus.com. Sat/14, 8pm. $12. Entertainment for audiences 18 and up with clown antics and Tin Pan Alley songs.

“A Swell Noël” Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. Dec 17-21, 7:30pm; Dec 22, 5pm. $25-32. Cabaret star Craig Jessup performs songs by Noël Coward, Jacques Brel, Stephen Sondheim, and other composers.

“The World of Webber: A Cabaret Tribute to the Songs of Andrew Lloyd Webber” Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic, Walnut Creek; (925) 943-SHOW. Sun/15, 2:30pm. $25-30. Musical theater stars perform songs from Cats, Evita, Phantom of the Opera and other shows, performed to benefit the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano.

“XXmas: The Christmas Ballet, 2013 Edition” Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.smuinballet.org. Wed/11-Sat/14, 8pm (also Sat/14, 2pm); Sun/15, 2pm, $49-65. Also Dec 18-28, $24-64, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Lam Research Theater, 700 Howard, SF. Smuin Ballet’s annual holiday show boasts festive ballet, tap, and swing-dance numbers. *

This Week’s Picks: December 4 – 10, 2013

Michael Redmond

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December 3, 2013

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THURSDAY 12/5

Gaby Moreno

This year, when Guatemalan-born Los Angeles transplant Gaby Moreno won Best New Artist at the Latin Grammys, she had already earned nods from the same voting body, in the form of nominations in 2012 for Song and Record of the Year. The tune was “Fuiste Tú,” the video for which is in the hundred million view club on YouTube. Her voice is a close cousin to that of Norah Jones, and her bilingual blend of jazz, soul, and blues has won effusive praise from NPR and the New York Times. And she’s got pop-culture cred, too: Fans of TV’s Parks and Recreation will note that she earned an Emmy nom in 2010 for co-writing its theme song. (Nathan Baker)

With David Garza, Cazadero, Irene Diaz

8pm, $15

Slim’s

333 11th St, SF

www.slimspresents.com

Scott Wells and Dancers

Fatherhood as a topic for dance? Never heard of it. But here come Scott Wells and Sheldon B. Smith, two very smart, highly experienced choreographers, with a dance about dads. With one exception, all the performers in Father On actually are fathers. We all know that today’s fathers are neither like our own, nor like the comic versions that still percolate through TV shows. But what are they? I look forward to witnessing what these men have to say. (Rita Felciano)

Thu/5-Sat/7, 8pm; Sun/8, 7pm, $25

ODC Theater

3153 17th St, SF

www.odcdance.org

A Chorus Line

In classic musical A Chorus Line, based on the book by James Kirkwood Jr. and Nicholas Dante, 17 Broadway dancers audition for a spot in the chorus line — the gig of a lifetime for any of them. It’s a story that resonated with audiences and awards-givers (it won Tonys and a Pulitzer), and continues to be popular today nearly 40 years after its debut. San Francisco State associate professor Barbara Damashek (a Tony nominee herself, for her musical Quilters) directs San Francisco State University’s Creative State’s take on the backstage tale, featuring toe-tapping music and lyrics by Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban. (Kirstie Haruta)

Through Dec 15, $5-$15

Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm

Little Theatre

San Francisco State University

1600 Holloway, SF

creativestate.sfsu.edu

“Paisley Underground Redux”

Amid the synth pop, power ballads, and schlock metal dominating airwaves in 1983, a small nucleus of Los Angeles musicians looked backward to revive the purer pleasures of 1960s jangly power pop, garage rock, and psychedelia. Dubbed the “Paisley Underground,” this beloved if short-lived scene inspired other bands around the globe. The four “founding father” (and mother) outfits are back in this one-night only reunion bill: mysterioso tripsters the Rain Parade, rootsy rockers the Dream Syndicate, twee yet punchy pure-poppers the Three O’Clock, and all-female the Bangles — who started out as early Beatles idolaters before (alone among this lot) scoring mainstream hits with a more commercial sound. (Dennis Harvey)

8pm, $36.50

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

www.thefillmore.com

The Golden Girls: The Christmas Episodes

One thing you can always count on with San Francisco traditions is that they’ll be anything but traditional. One example: the drag legends of Trannyshack (Heklina, Cookie Dough, Matthew Martin, and Pollo Del Mar) starring as Miami’s famously sassy seniors in The Golden Girls: The Christmas Episodes. For 2013’s version of the sitcom send-up — these shows sell out, so pounce on tickets ASAP — audiences can watch as Rose gets scared of going all the way, Blanche goes cougar for a day, and she, Dorothy, and Rose are mistaken for prostitutes and taken to jail. Thank you for being a holiday tradition, ladies. (Janina Glasov)

Through Dec 22, $30

Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm

Victoria Theatre

2961 16th St, SF

www.trannyshack.com

“Open Mic Glam Drive”

What’s better than a night of music for a good cause? A night of music for two good causes! Local boutique 31 RAX and nightlife crew SheWolves present an open mic and glam drive that benefits not only the Asian Women’s Shelter, but also Typhoon Haiyan relief efforts. All proceeds from the event’s $5 cover will go to NAFCON to aid those affected by the devastating storm. And while you’re getting gussied up for the night, round up some extra toiletries, makeup, hairbrushes, bras, and other beauty staples to bring and donate to the Asian Women’s Shelter — an organization that since 1988 has worked to serve the needs of women, transpeople, and children who are survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking. Aspiring performers can email openmic@31rax.com to reserve a spot. (Kirstie Haruta)

7pm, $5

Pa’ina Lounge & Restaurant

1865 Post, SF

facebook.com/31RAX

FRIDAY 12/6

“Hand to Mouth Comedy: Fantasy”

There is a place, as far away as the outer reaches of this galaxy, yet as close as the molecules of air between your cotton pillowcase and the cartilage of your ear. It resembles the grounds of Hogwarts under constantly overcast purple-veined skies, and it holds the fortress of Isengard, which you reach by traveling along a chocolate river in a tollbooth. To avoid the dungeons and dragons of this land — a land accessed through a wardrobe only once every wrinkle in time, you may be asked to sling a gun or wield a wand. Upon their return, survivors Kellen Erskine, Kelly Anneken, Jules Posner, Kevin O’Shea, Gary Anderson, and Jaime Fernandez make light of this dark realm at this month’s Hand To Mouth comedy show, piquing your fantasy and questioning your sanity. (Kaylen Baker)

10pm, $8

Dark Room

2263 Mission, SF

www.handtomouthcomedy.com

SATURDAY 12/7

Swiftumz

Whoever said too much fuzz was a bad thing? Tonight, Swiftumz and Tony Molina will set out to prove that statement wrong. Headliner Swiftumz sounds like Sour Patch Kids taste: saccharine sweet with an unexpected bite. The project’s vocalist and mastermind, Christopher McVicker — who has written songs for Hunx and his Punx — blends power pop and punk with a little ’60s flair. Also on the bill is Tony Molina, who will be taking the stage solo, then playing lead guitar in post-punk band Violent Change. As a solo artist, Molina takes cues from lo-fi standard Guided By Voices, adding a fuzzy coating to the Metallica cover that appears on his recent Six Tracks EP. (Erin Dage)

10pm, $5

Bender’s Bar and Grill

806 S. Van Ness, SF

www.bendersbar.com

32nd Annual Encuentro del Canto Popular

The loss of three prodigious artists this year has prompted Acción Latina to dedicate this year’s Encuentro del Canto Popular — a San Francisco tradition highlighting the status of the nueva canción movement locally and internationally — to their memories and their work. Jon Fromer (Jan. 2), Rafael Manriquez (June 25), and Jose Montoya (Sept. 25) were superlative cultural workers, musicians, originators, and opinion leaders with a bulk of work that transcends California. Without a doubt, their presence in this world will be sorely missed. The show kicks off with the winners of “Encuentritos,” a series of musical contests for emerging local artists. (Fernando Andres)

7pm, $19

Brava Theater Center

2781 24th St., SF

accionlatina.org/Encuentro2013

2manydjs

Once, at a packed Soulwax show, I witnessed a woman’s reverent excitement achieve levels usually reserved for Michael Jackson concert videos. Then she fainted. On their end of things, Belgium’s Dewaele brothers remain thoroughly irreverent, particularly in DJ form as 2manydjs. Recent projects include building 50,000-watt vinyl-only sound systems with James Murphy, recording tributes to David Bowie as part of their 24-hour online A/V site Radio Soulwax (not to be confused with Soulwax FM in Grand Theft Auto V), and slowing down old gabber tracks for kicks. Part of Mighty’s 10-year anniversary celebration, this will be a spatial turn from 2manydj’s hit-mashing festival ragers. Take care of the people up front. (Ryan Prendiville)

With EUG, Ron (Cosmic Kids), Derek Opperman, J. Montag

9pm, $25

Mighty

119 Utah, SF

www.mighty119.com

TUESDAY 12/10

Modern Art Desserts

Typically, the labyrinthine galleries and glut of provocative visuals in modern art museums have visitors turning towards sugar and fat in a nearby café to refuel. Yet Caitlin Freeman, pastry chef of Blue Bottle Coffee in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (currently closed for construction), has reversed this pattern. The mimicry of modern art in her masterful pastries gives visitors a hunger to trail back through the exhibits for second look — the honey pistachio frozen mousse encased in a white chocolate cube and dotted with honeybees echoes Richard Avedon’s photograph of a bee-swarmed man; the salted chocolate and cream layered cake mirrors Rineke Dijkstra’s striped beach bather. Tonight, check out the photos and the recipes in Freeman’s new Modern Art Desserts, and taste the Mondrian Cake, a multi-blocked cake resembling Piet’s primary grid. (Baker)

7pm, free (RSVP to aberry@art.com)

Art.com Pop-Up in Union Square

117 Post, SF

(415) 956-2571

www.modernartdesserts.com “Food-For-All” ‘Tis the season for techies to spread the wealth at the Tech Gives Back charity drive. The multi-week campaign concludes with “Food-for-All,” a party hosted by ZeroCater, where guests are invited to eat as much as they want for free from the variety of foods provided by the corporate catering company’s top vendors. If they choose to put down their plates, they can hit the dance floor, the bar, or the free photo booth. But this party isn’t just fun, games, and Instagram fodder; there’ll also be barrels for food donations, and all proceeds from ticket sales will go to the San Francisco and Marin food banks. (Glasov) 6-9pm, $15 Public Works 161 Erie, SF blog.zerocater.com

Rep Clock: December 4 – 10, 2013

Michael Redmond

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December 3, 2013

0

Schedules are for Wed/4-Tue/10 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ALBANY 1115 Solano, Albany; www.landmarktheatres.com. $7. “Family Series:” The Muppet Movie (Frawley, 1979), Sat-Sun, 10:30am.

“ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD FILM FESTIVAL” Balboa Theater, 3630 Balboa, SF; New People Cinema, 1746 Post, SF; www.sfindie.com. $12. Now in its 10th year, the festival highlights indie horror, sci-fi, and fantasy films, through Dec 19.

ATA GALLERY 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $4-10. “OpenScreening,” Thu, 8. For more info, contact programming@atasite.org. “Other Cinema,” animated works by Martha Coburn, Jeremy Rouke, Janie Geiser, and others, Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA THEATRE 3630 Balboa, SF; cinemasf.com/balboa. $10. Art Gods: An Oral History of the Tower Records Art Department (Taylor, 2013), Fri-Sat, 10. “Popcorn Palace:” The Polar Express (Zemeckis, 2005), Sat, 10am. Matinee for kids.

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS’ HALL 1924 Cedar, Berk; www.bfuu.org. $5-10. “Screening the Green:” The Story of Stuff (Fox, 2007), and The Story of Solutions (2013), Thu, 7.

BINDLESTIFF STUDIO 185 Sixth St, SF; www.facinesf.com. $10-20. “FACINE bente: Filipino American Cine Festival,” 33 feature length films and short works from the Philippines and the Filipino Diaspora, Dec 9-14. Proceeds benefit Typhoon Haiyan relief operations in the Philippines.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-12. The Sound of Music (Wise, 1965), Wed-Thu and Sat-Sun, 7 (also Sat-Sun, 1pm). Presented sing-along style; tickets ($10-15) at www.ticketweb.com. “Good Vibrations Quickies: Erotic Short Film Competition,” Fri, 7 (pre-party); 8 (screening). These events, $10; visit www.brownpapertickets.com for advance tickets. I Am Divine (Schawarz, 2013), Mon, 7, 9. Gravity (Cuarón, 2013), Dec 10-11, 7, 9:15 (also Dec 11, 2:30, 4:45).

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-$10.75. The Armstrong Lie (Gibney, 2013), call for dates and times. Blue is the Warmest Color (Kechiche, 2013), call for dates and times. The Great Beauty (Sorrentino, 2013), call for dates and times. Richard II, Royal Shakespeare Company production starring David Tennant, Thu, 7; Sun, 1. Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago (Smith, 2013), Dec 6-12, call for times. Sweet Dreams (Fruchtman and Fruchtman, 2012), Sun, 7. Filmmakers Lisa and Rob Fruchtman in person; this event, $12.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $10. “Midnight Movies:” Labyrinth (Henson, 1986), Fri-Sat, midnight.

DAVIES SYMPHONY HALL 201 Van Ness, SF; www.sfsymphony.org. $25-80. “A Symphonic Night at the Movies:” Singin’ in the Rain (Donen and Kelly, 1952), Fri-Sat, 7:30.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; milibrary.org/events. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Dark Star: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck:” Remember the Night (Leisen, 1940), Fri, 6.

NEW PARKWAY 474 24th St, Oakl; www.thenewparkway.com. “Courtney Trouble’s Queer Porn Movie Party,” Thu, 7. This event, $10. “First Friday Shorts,” films by and about Bay Area Girls Rock Camp, Fri, 6. This event, free.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “The Resolution Starts Now: 4K Restorations from Sony Pictures:” “Grover Crisp: The Resolution Starts Now,” followed by Bonjour Tristesse (Preminger, 1958), Thu, 7; Alamo Bay (Malle, 1985), Sat, 6:30; Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976), Sat, 9; The Arch (Tang, 1969), Sun, 3; Picnic (Logan, 1956), Sun, 5:15. “Love Is Colder Than Death: The Cinema of Rainer Werner Fassbinder:” Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? (Fengler and Fassbinder, 1969), Fri, 7; Despair (1977), Fri, 8:50.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? (Gondry, 2013), Wed, 7:15, 9:15; Thu, 9:15. A Journey to Planet Sanity (Freeman, 2012), Wed, 7. This event, $12. Muscle Shoals (Camalier, 2013), Wed-Thu, 9. “Frameline Encore:” Seventh-Gay Adventists (Akers and Eyer, 2012), Thu, 7. This event, free. •Amal’s Garden (Shihab, 2012), and My Father Looks Like Abdel Nasser (Kassem, 2012), Thu, 7. At Berkeley (Wiseman, 2013), Dec 6-12, 6:45 (also Sat-Sun, 2). The Punk Singer (Anderson, 2013), Dec 6-12, 7, 8:45.

SOCIAL STUDY 1795 Geary, SF; www.socialstudysf.com. Free. Impresa! (Woldu, 2013), Tue, 6:30.

TEMESCAL ART CENTER 511 48th St, Oakl; www.shapeshifterscinema.com. Free. Intertidal, performance-based work by media artist Alex MacKenzie, inspired by the tidal zones and marine life of Western Canada, Sun, 8.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. “X: The History of a Film Rating:” Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession (Roeg, 1980), Thu, 7:30. “Films by Fassbinder:” Querelle (1982), Sun, 2. *

Theater Listings: December 4 – 10, 2013

Michael Redmond

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December 3, 2013

0

Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

Avenue Q New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Previews Fri/6-Sat/7 and Dec 13, 8pm; Sun/8, 2pm. Opens Dec 14, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Jan 12. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the Tony-winning comedy.

A Christmas Carol Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-95. Opens Fri/6, 7pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 7pm (no evening shows Dec 24, 26, or 28; also Sat/7, Dec 11, 14, 21, 23, 2pm; Dec 24 and 26-28, 1pm; Dec 27 evening show at 5:30pm); Sun, 5:30pm (also Sun/8, Dec 15, and 22, 1pm). Through Dec 28. American Conservatory Theater mounts its annual production of the Dickens classic, with James Carpenter as Scrooge and Ken Ruta as Jacob Marley’s ghost.

Cinderella Buriel Clay Theater, African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton, SF; www.african-americanskaes.org. $12.50-50. Opens Sat/7, 3pm. Runs Sat, 8pm (also Dec 21, 3pm); Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 22. African-American Shakespeare Company presents this fairy-tale production for the holidays.

The Golden Girls: The XMAS Episodes Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th, SF; www.trannyshack.com. $30. Opens Thu/5, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 22. Inspired by the classic sitcom, Miami’s feisty seniors (portrayed by Heklina, Cookie Dough, Matthew Martin, and Pollo Del Mar) return to spread holiday cheer and cheesecake.

BAY AREA

Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Previews Thu/5 and Dec 11-12, 7pm; Fri/6-Sat/7, 8pm; Sun/8, 5pm. Opens Dec 13, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Jan 11. Shotgun Players performs Anthony Neilson’s comic romp set in “a sensual Edwardian world of top hats, fantastical puppets, and flash powder.”

Little Women Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $19-79. Previews Wed/4-Fri/6, 8pm. Opens Sat/7, 2 and 8pm. Runs Tue-Wed and Dec 30, 7:30pm (no shows Dec 24-25; Dec 31, show at 2pm only; no show Jan 1); Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat and Dec 26 and Jan 4, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Jan 4. TheatreWorks performs the musical adaptation of the Louisa May Alcott tale.

Mame Hillbarn Theatre, 1285 East Hillsdale, Foster City; www.hillbarntheatre.org. $19-40. Previews Thu/5, 8pm. Opens Fri/6, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Dec 14 and 21, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 22. Hillbarn Theatre performs Jerry Herman’s classic musical.

ONGOING

Amaluna Big Top at AT&T Park, Third Street at Terry A. Francois Blvd, SF; www.cirquedusoliel.com. $50-175. Check website for schedule, including special holiday showtimes. Through Jan 12. Cirque de Soleil is back in town, this time bringing its Tempest-inspired Amaluna to the big top set up outside AT&T Park. Touted for being a celebration of “women [sic] power,” it seems initially odd that the design elements are so focused on the male peacock feather — all greens and blues and graceful, with curving “fronds” rising up from the stage. Jungle sounds chirp in the background as a bevy of Amazonian women in bejeweled headdresses and a mischievous lizard-man circulate the room until the show starts with the lovely abstraction of a floating red cloud of translucent fabric dancing in a single beam of light. The flimsy plotline is forgettable, a coming-of-age and courtship tale between the island’s young princess, Miranda (Iuliia Mykhailova) and a shipwrecked young Romeo (Evgeny Kurkin), though the parallel courtship between the two comic figures of Jeeves (Nathalie Claude) and Deeda (Shereen Hickman) provides a bit of levity and a novel use for footballs. The most realized character is probably Cali (Victor Kee), the half-lizard, whose prehensile tail and neon body paint give him an otherworldly allure, but it’s the aerialist goddesses and fierce embodiments of the storm that are most memorable from an acrobatic point-of-view, and Lara Jacobs’ unique balancing act from a meditative one. (Gluckstern)

Arlington Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, 2 Marina, Bldg D, Third Flr, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Wed/4-Sat/7, 8pm (also Wed/4, 2:30pm); Sun/8, 2:30pm. Magic Theatre performs Victor Lodato and Polly Pen’s world-premiere musical.

The Barbary Coast Revue Stud Bar, 399 Ninth St, SF; eventbrite.com/org/4730361353. $10-40. Wed, 9pm. Through Dec 18. Blake Wiers’ new “live history musical experience” features Mark Twain as a tour guide through San Francisco’s wild past.

The Book of Mormon Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market, SF; www.shnsf.com. $60-120. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 1 and 6:30pm. Through Jan 19. When approaching the oeuvre of South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, it’s best to check your political correctness at the door. That’s certainly no less true of their 2011 Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, co-penned with Robert Lopez (of Avenue Q fame), despite the clean-scrubbed appearance of their fumbling albeit well-intentioned missionary protagonists. Sent to Uganda for two years, top mission pupil Elder Price (Nic Rouleau) and his clumsy but affable partner Elder Cunningham (A.J. Holmes) are faced with a village oppressed by a scenery-chewing warlord, a demoralized coterie of fellow missionaries who have yet to have a successful conversion, and their own fraught, odd-couple dynamic. Rouleau’s Price is an appropriate blend of smarm, charm, and secret self-doubt while Holmes excels in his portrayal of a perennial-loser-turned-prophet (his power ballad-esque solo in “Man Up” is one of the show’s best). Of their hosts, the wry Mafala (James Vincent Meredith) and his sweet but strong-willed daughter Nabulungi (Syesha Mercado) get the most stage time, but it’s the crude and caustic General (David Aron Damane) who grabs the most attention. The gleefully profane “Hasa Diga Eebowai,” a Forbidden Zone-style “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream”, and the deliriously blasphemous “Joseph Smith, American Moses,” round out the entertaining, and strangely informative, score. Though it’s (very) unlikely to convert you to the Church of Latter-Day Saints, there’s a good chance you’ll want to convert to the church of Parker and Stone, if you haven’t already. (Gluckstern)

BoomerAging: From LSD to OMG Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Tue, 8pm. Extended through Dec 17. Will Durst’s hit solo show looks at baby boomers grappling with life in the 21st century.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $32-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess Golden Gate Theatre, One Taylor, SF; www.shnsf.com. $60-210. Wed/4-Sat/7, 8pm (also Sat/7, 2pm); Sun/8, 2pm. The Tony-winning Broadway revival launches its national tour in San Francisco.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $27-43. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. John Cameron Mitchell’s cult musical comes to life with director Nick A. Olivero’s ever-rotating cast.

Ideation Tides Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $10-20. Fri/6-Sat/7, 8pm (also Sat/7, 3pm). Next up in the San Francisco Playhouse “Sandbox Series” is this dark comedy from Aaron Loeb.

The Jewelry Box: A Genuine Christmas Story The Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-40. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Dec 28. Brian Copeland performs the world premiere of his new, holiday-themed work, an Oakland-set autobiographical tale that’s a prequel to his popular Not a Genuine Black Man.

My Beautiful Launderette New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 22. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Andy Gram and Roger Parsley’s adaptation of Hanif Kureishi’s award-winning screenplay.

The Oy of Sex Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-100. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Jan 18. Comedian Alicia Dattner performs her solo show, based on her stories from her own life and love addiction.

Peter/Wendy Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough, SF; www.custommade.org. $15-33. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 15. J.M. Barrie’s familiar and much-revisited children’s story, about a boy who refuses to grow up, has always had its darker aspects, including the violent streak in its hero, forever-child Peter (Sam Bertken). Unfortunately, any underlying social or psychological complexity in the story — originally published in 1902 in The Little White Bird — is of no consequence in adapter-director Jeremy Bloom’s relentlessly cheerful and quickly monotonous retelling. The production, which narrates and acts out the story in somewhat condensed form, says it’s designed for adults of all ages and children over 12, but it seems pitched to an audience much younger still. Custom Made Theater’s lackluster staging does little to make the time go faster. There’s a mischievous energy in Bertken’s Peter and a bright intelligence in Anya Kazimierski’s Tinker Bell that together produce the play’s only emotional heat, but it’s fleeting. As Wendy, Elissa Beth Stebbins is generally solid but too mild to elicit much sympathy for her unrequited affections for Peter. Clad exclusively in striped jammies, the uneven ensemble (which also includes Terry Bamberger, Jessica Rudholm, Kim Saunders, and Jeunee Simon in multiple roles) rarely encourages focus on the finer points of character and plot, which anyway come with a soporific dose of trifling detail amid generally awkward physical choreography. Indeed, any “happy thoughts” one walks in with would risk vanishing entirely, were it not that the cast harvests them immediately and writes them down for future reference on the stage floor. (Avila)

Snoopy!!! Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.42ndstmoon.org. $25-75. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm (family/student matinee Sat/7, 1pm); Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 15. 42nd Street Moon performs the sequel to You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

Urge For Going Z Below, 470 Florida, SF; www.goldenthread.org. $10-45. Thu/5-Sat/7, 8pm; Sun/8, 3pm. Jamila (Camila Betancourt Ascencio) is a bright student desperate to pass her college entrance examination — an unexceptional proposition in many places, but Jamila is a Palestinian raised in a Lebanese refugee camp. For her, even the right to take such an exam is in no way guaranteed and must be fought for. That Jamila’s struggles don’t end at the front door of her crowded home provides the basis for the drama in Mona Mansour’s 2011 play, Urge for Going, now receiving an uneven but sometimes moving West Coast premiere from Golden Thread (which last year produced The Letter, a short play co-written by Mansour, as part of its ReOrient Festival). Amid the makeshift walls, mismatched furniture, and exposed wiring of Kate Boyd’s evocative scenic design, Jamila lives with her austere father (Terry Lamb), a onetime literature scholar with a passion for Wordsworth; her supportive mother (Tara Blau); her father’s effusive loose-canon of a brother (Julian Lopez-Morillas); her mother’s brother (Munaf Alsafi); and her own big-hearted but haunted older brother (Wiley Naman Strasser), a once brilliant math student who suffered brain damage at the hands of a Lebanese soldier. But front and center is her father, whose barely cloaked disappointment and despair turn to recalcitrance and outright antagonism in the face of Jamila’s too-pointed desire to flee this hobbled world of exile for a wider world of possibilities. Directed by Evren Odcikin, the play’s sentimental naturalism (broken through at times by didactic direct address to the audience by the entire cast) makes what follows both too predictable and somewhat artificial. At the same time, Mansour carefully and revealingly couches her story in the political and existential limbo of multiple generations of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, deprived for over half a century of basic rights amid cramped poverty and deprivation. (Avila)

BAY AREA

A Bright New Boise Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $32-50. Wed/4-Sat/7, 8pm; Sun/8, 2 and 7pm. Faith can be a touchy subject among true believers and skeptics alike, and as long as the topic of religion is avoided (as it often is) you might not even know that your bus driver is Buddhist, or your checkout clerk born again. In Samuel D. Hunter’s A Bright New Boise, now playing at Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre, the line blurs between public face and private faith, as mysterious stranger Will (Robert Parsons) rolls into Boise and takes up employment at the Hobby Lobby, ostensibly to reconnect to his long-lost, given-up-for-adoption son, Alex (Daniel Petzhold). But when Will is revealed to be a former member of a disgraced Evangelical sect from “up North,” his sudden reappearance in Alex’ life appears to be motivated not by a long-standing remorse, but by a recent unmooring. Under Tom Ross’ direction, the other characters — a foul-mouthed store manager (Gwen Loeb), a painfully shy stock clerk (Megan Trout), and a confrontational sales associate (Patrick Russell) — appear similarly unmoored, careening into each other like jittery, neurotic pinballs, with about as much consideration. Only Parsons’ Will appears calm and deliberate in his actions, until he startlingly demonstrates otherwise. It’s an abrupt end to both the play and Will’s charade of normalcy, and neither Hunter nor Ross seem to know how to build up to his eventual fall naturally, ultimately allowing him to be defined only by his fanaticism rather than his humanity. (Gluckstern)

Can You Dig It? Back Down East 14th — the 60s and Beyond Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Dec 15. Don Reed’s new show offers more stories from his colorful upbringing in East Oakland in the 1960s and ’70s. More hilarious and heartfelt depictions of his exceptional parents, independent siblings, and his mostly African American but ethnically mixed working-class community — punctuated with period pop, Motown, and funk classics, to which Reed shimmies and spins with effortless grace. And of course there’s more too of the expert physical comedy and charm that made long-running hits of Reed’s last two solo shows, East 14th and The Kipling Hotel (both launched, like this newest, at the Marsh). Can You Dig It? reaches, for the most part, into the “early” early years, Reed’s grammar-school days, before the events depicted in East 14th or Kipling Hotel came to pass. But in nearly two hours of material, not all of it of equal value or impact, there’s inevitably some overlap and indeed some recycling. Reed, who also directs the show, may start whittling it down as the run continues. But, as is, there are at least 20 unnecessary minutes diluting the overall impact of the piece, which is thin on plot already — much more a series of often very enjoyable vignettes and some painful but largely unexplored observations, wrapped up at the end in a sentimental moral that, while sincere, feels rushed and inadequate. (Avila)

Harvey Barn Theatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.rossvalleyplayers.com. $10-22. Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 15. Ross Valley Players perform the Pulitzer-winning play by Mary Chase.

A Little Princess Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-60. Thu/5-Fri/6, 7pm; Sat/7, 1 and 6pm; Sun/8, noon and 5pm. Berkeley Playhouse opens its sixth season with Brian Crawley and Andrew Lippa’s musical adaptation of the Frances Hodgson Burnett story.

110 in the Shade Douglas Morrison Theatre, 22311 N. Third St, Hayward; www.dmtonline.org. $10-29. Thu/5-Sat/7, 8pm (also Sat/7, 2pm); Sun/8, 2pm. Douglas Morrison Theatre performs N. Richard Nash’s romantic musical, adapted from his classic play The Rainmaker.

The Pianist of Willesden Lane Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-89. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Thu/5 and Sat, 2pm; no shows Dec 24 or 31); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm; matinees only Dec 15, 22, and Jan 5; no show Dec 25). Extended through Jan 5. Mona Golabek stars in this solo performance inspired by her mother, a Jewish pianist whose dreams and life were threatened by the Nazi regime.

Troilus and Cressida La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 15. One of Shakespeare’s more difficult and under-produced plays, Troilus and Cressida does wax in popularity during protracted times of war, so it’s about the right time for Impact Theatre to tackle it. Set during the seventh year of the Trojan War, the players are all either soldiers or spoils of war, and both morale and morals are at a low ebb. So-called heroes hide in their tents, the fair Helen (Julie Kuwabara) is a callow bawd, and everyone just wants the war to be over. Troilus (Eric Kerr), a Trojan, and Cressida (Sarah Coykendall), a Greek, meet-cute thanks to the machinations of the flamboyant Pandarus (Shawn J. West), only to be quickly separated by circumstances beyond their control, and thrust abruptly to the sidelines of their own tragedy, their eventual betrayal of each other lost within the greater treacheries of the battlefield. It’s a problematic script, not least of all because the only truly moral character is the very innocent, very mad Cassandra (Akemi Okamura), whose prophecies are written off as mere ravings, subtly mirrored by the nihilistic fool, Thersites (Miyaka Cochrane), who delivers his frontline ravings as prophecies. Director Melissa Hillman makes some bold choices, however, including casting Lauren Spencer as the level-headed Ulysses, and father-son team Jon Nagel and Jonah McClellan as Aeneas and Antenor, turning the walk-on role of a pawn into a tragic symbol of war’s all too-human cost. (Gluckstern)

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Broadway Bingo” Feinstein’s at the Nikko, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.feinsteinssf.com. Wed, 7-9pm. Ongoing. Free. Countess Katya Smirnoff-Skyy and Joe Wicht host this Broadway-flavored night of games and performance.

“Buddy Club Children’s Shows” Randall Museum Theater, 199 Museum Wy, SF; www.thebuddyclub.com. Sun, 11am-noon. $8. “The Bubble Lady!” performs.

“Comedy Bottle with Kurtis Matthews” Purple Onion at Kells, 530 Jackson, SF; www.purpleonionatkells.com. Fri/6-Sat/7, 7pm. $15. Stand-up comedy.

“Comedy Returns to El Rio!” 3158 Mission, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Mon/9, 8pm. $7-20. Stand-up with Marga Gomez, Sammy Obeid, Bob McIntyre, Kevin Young, and Lisa Geduldig.

CounterPULSE 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Wed/4, 8pm: Risa Jaroslow’s NYC and the Bay: Dancers and Dances from Then and There and Here and Now, free. Fri/6-Sat/7, 8pm: Keith Hennessy, Hana Lee Erdman, and Jassem Hindi’s ALMOST, Enemy in the Figure, and These children singing in stones, $15-20. Dec 12-15, 8pm: Mica Sigourney, John Foster Cartwright, and Maryam Rostami’s Nicole Kidman is Fucking Gorgeous, $20.

“Dolores: The Temporary Life of a 220-Year-Old Bionic Woman” Stage Werx Theater, 446 Valencia, SF; www.stagewerx.org. Dec 10-11, 7:30pm. $15-20. On a bare floor, physical theater maker Carolina Duncan, as her Colombian grandmother, pops opens her cranium like a steamer trunk and retrieves the scrapbook of a boundless life. Here memory and imagination exist in equal measures, as Duncan traces key moments and fleeting images from an arc of days defined by family, romance, and at least one titanic battle between an Amazonian dinosaur and a new secret-agent boyfriend. Combining mime, scattered dialogue, physical comedy, and a live soundscape, this loving and whimsical homage comes gracefully delivered and almost always vividly expressed. All the while, Duncan (a graduate of SF’s Clown Conservatory and James Donlon and Leonard Pitt’s Flying Actor Studio) exudes an infectious enthusiasm for her subject, who proves as alive in a passing but concrete image of first childhood steps as she does in her final outing, a prolonged spacewalk into the familiar and unknown. Note: review from an earlier run of this show. (Avila)

“Encuentro de Canto Popular” Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; accionlatina.org/Encuentro2013. Sat/7, 7pm. $19. Music festival dedicated to the nuevo canción movement; this year’s theme, “Pasado y Futuro,” pays tribute to artists who have passed away, as well as artists on the rise.

“Fiesta Navidena” Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sat/7, Dec 15, 21-22, and 27-28, 6:15pm. $15-21. Carolina Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco performs a holiday show.

“Get Your Life Unity Mini Ball” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.dancemission.com. Sat/7, 7pm. $10. Dancing, vogueing, and other aspects of ballroom culture take the stage.

“Glide Annual Holiday Festival: Celebrate50” War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.glide.org. Wed/4, 7pm. $65-250. Maya Angelou, Judith Hill, Tom Johnston, and other luminaries lead this evening honoring Janice Mirikitani and Rev. Cecil Williams’ 50 years at Tenderloin community beacon Glide.

“Hand to Mouth Comedy” Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; www.handtomouthcomedy.com. Fri/6, 10pm. $8. Comedians Kellan Erksine, Kelly Anneken, Jules Posner, and others join host Trevor Hill in presenting all-new material on one specific topic: “fantasy.”

“Hysterical Historical San Francisco, Holiday Edition” Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.org. Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 29. $30-40. Comic Kurt Weitzman performs.

“I Eat People Like YOU For Breakfast!” Marsh, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. Wed/4, 7:30pm. $10-15. Comedian Steven Alan Green performs his solo show inspired by Jerry Lewis.

“The Jewish Nutcracker” Theater at Children’s Creativity Museum, 221 Fourth St, SF; www.jewishnutcracker.com. Fri/6-Sun/8, 2pm (also Fri/6-Sat/7, 6:30pm). $18-32. The Hanukkah story is interpreted via authentic cultural dance from Spain, India, China, Russia, and more.

“Mark Foehringer’s Nutcracker Sweets” Southside Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat/7-Sun/8, Dec 14-15, Dec 20-24, 11am and 2pm (also Dec 14-15 and Dec 21-22, 4pm). $18-28. Contemporary ballet company Mark Foehringer Dance Project SF performs its fifth annual production of this Nutcracker-inspired work aimed at families with young children.

“The Metrics of Intimacy” Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Wed/4-Thu/5, 8pm. $10-20. Contemporary dance performers Hope Mohr and Christian Burns collaborate with visual designer David Szlasa.

“Mine” Joe Goode Annex, 401 Alabama, SF; www.rawdance.org. Fri/6-Sun/8 and Dec 11-15, 8pm. $21-25. RAWdance performs a world premiere by company founders Ryan T. Smith and Wendy Rein.

“Okeanos Intimate” Aquarium of the Bay, Pier 39, SF; www.capacitor.org. Sat, 8pm. $20-30 (free aquarium ticket with show ticket). Extended through Dec 28. Choreographer Jodi Lomask and her company, Capacitor, revive 2012’s Okeanos — a cirque-dance piece exploring the wonder and fragility of our innate connection to the world’s oceans — in a special “intimate” version designed for the mid-size theater at Pier 39’s Aquarium of the Bay. The show, developed in collaboration with scientists and engineers, comes preceded by a short talk by a guest expert — for a recent Saturday performance it was a down-to-earth and truly fascinating local ecological history lesson by the Bay Institute’s Marc Holmes. In addition to its Cirque du Soleil-like blend of quasi-representational modern dance and circus acrobatics — powered by a synth-heavy blend of atmospheric pop music — Okeanos makes use of some stunning underwater photography and an intermittent narrative that includes testimonials from the likes of marine biologist and filmmaker Dr. Tierney Thys. The performers, including contortionists, also interact with some original physical properties hanging from the flies — a swirling vortex and a spherical shell — as they wrap and warp their bodies in a kind of metamorphic homage to the capacity and resiliency of evolution, the varied ingenuity of all life forms. If the movement vocabulary can seem limited at times, and too derivative, the show also feels a little cramped on the Aquarium Theater stage, whose proscenium arrangement does the piece few favors aesthetically. Nevertheless, the family-oriented Okeanos Intimate spurs a conversation with the ocean that is nothing if not urgent. (Avila)

“One Man Band Extravaganza” Great Star Theater, 636 Jackson, SF; www.jordanbwilson.com. Sat/7, 8pm. $5. One-man bands, including Jordan B. Wilson, One Man Banjo, Shovelman, Slow Poisoner, and Cello Joe, perform.

“La Posarela” Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.sfcmc.org. Sun/8, 1 and 5pm. $7. Community Music Center presents a Mexican Christmas musical tailored to the Mission.

“Point Break Live!” DNA Lounge, 373 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. Fri/6 and Jan 3, Feb 7, March 7, and April 4, 7:30 and 11pm. $25-50. Dude, Point Break Live! is like dropping into a monster wave, or holding up a bank, like, just a pure adrenaline rush, man. Ahem. Sorry, but I really can’t help but channel Keanu Reeves and his Johnny Utah character when thinking about the awesomely bad 1991 movie Point Break or its equally yummily cheesy stage adaptation. And if you do an even better Keanu impression than me — the trick is in the vacant stare and stoner drawl — then you can play his starring role amid a cast of solid actors, reading from cue cards from a hilarious production assistant in order to more closely approximate Keanu’s acting ability. This play is just so much fun, even better now at DNA Lounge than it was a couple years ago at CELLspace. But definitely buy the poncho pack and wear it, because the blood, spit, and surf spray really do make this a fully immersive experience. (Steven T. Jones)

“A Renaissance Christmas” St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal, 500 De Haro, SF; www.baychoralguild.org. Sat/7, 8pm. $5-25. Bay Choral Guild performs “familiar and unusual” Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany music.

“San Francisco Magic Parlor” Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

“she’s near she’s now she’s nowhere” Margaret Jenkins’ Dance Lab, 301 Eighth St, Studio 200, SF; www.funschdance.org. Thu/5, 7pm. Free. Also Fri/6, 8pm and Sat/7, 2pm, free, Studio LP, ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; and Sun/8, 3pm, Feintech Studio, ODC Dance Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF. Christy Funsch’s trio/quintet “reveals the impact of a mover on spaces by playing with her presence and absence from them.”

“Shine! Our Brightest Holiday Show Ever!” War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.sfgmc.org. Fri/6, 8pm. $25-75. The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus performs season favorites and “outrageous surprises.”

“Soul+Mates” Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. Wed/4-Sat/7, 8pm (also Sat/7, 2pm). $22-25. Printz Dance Project presents the world premiere of an immersive dance performance, photography exhibit, and short film exploring the concept of soul mates.

“The Velveteen Rabbit” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Lam Research Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.odcdance.org. Thu/5-Fri/6 and Dec 12-13, 11am; Sat/7 and Dec 15, 1 and 4pm; Sun/8 and Dec 15, 2pm. $20-75. ODC/Dance performs its popular holiday show, directed with fresh perspective this year by ODC founder Brenda Way.

“Zambomba Gitana!” Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.bayareaflamenco.org. Fri/6, 8pm. $25-65. Also Sat/7, 8pm, $25-45, La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck, Berk; and Sun/8, 6pm, $25-45, Kuumbwa Jazz Center, 320 Cedar, Santa Cruz. Traditional flamenco holiday celebration, with artists from Jerez de la Frontera, Spain.

BAY AREA

“Buddy Club Children’s Shows” JCC of the East Bay Theater, 1414 Walnut, Berk; www.thebuddyclub.com. Sun/8, 11am-noon. $8. Comedy improv with Kenn Adams Adventure Theater. Also Sun/8, 11am-12:30pm, $8, Kanbar Center for the Performing Arts Theater, 200 North San Pedro, San Rafael; www.thebuddyclub.com. The Juggling Genius, Daniel DaVinci, performs.

“Following the Wrong God Home” Osher Studio in the Arts Passage of Berkeley Central, 2055 Center, Berk; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat/7 and Dec 16, 8pm; Sun/8, 5pm. $15-25. Company 212 presents a physical theater piece choreographed and directed by MaryBeth Cavanaugh that imagines six Shakespeare characters on alternate journeys beyond the plays they appear in.

“Noel, Noel” First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing, Berk; www.cityboxoffice.com. Fri/6, 8pm. $18-65. The San Francisco Girls Chorus performs “Carol of the Bells” and other holiday favorites.

“Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir 28th Annual Holiday Concert” Paramount Theatre, 2025 Broadway, Oakl; www.oigc.com. Sat/7, 7:30pm. $12-42. The choir performs its popular annual concert, led by director Terrance Kelly and featuring guests Tuck and Patti, and Imani Ya Watume Liturgical Dance Company.

“Once Upon a Christmas” Lesher Center for the Arts, Hoffman Theatre, 1601 Civic, Walnut Creek; www.leshercenter.org. Fri/6-Sat/7, 7:30pm (Sat/7, 2pm). $20-25. Lareen Fender’s Ballet Joyeux performs.

“The Shout: Life’s True Stories” Grand Lake Coffee House, 440 Grand, Oakl; www.theshoutstorytelling.com. Mon/9, 7:30pm. $5-20. Live storytelling event featuring 10-minute true tales.

“XXmas: The Christmas Ballet, 2013 Edition” Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.smuinballet.org. Dec 11-14, 8pm (also Dec 14, 2pm); Dec 15, 2pm, $49-65. Also Dec 18-28, $24-64, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Lam Research Theater, 700 Howard, SF. Smuin Ballet’s annual holiday show boasts festive ballet, tap, and swing-dance numbers. *

Events: December 4 – 10, 2013

Michael Redmond

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December 3, 2013

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Listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Selector.

THURSDAY 5

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz City Lights Books, 261 Columbus, SF; www.citylights.com. 7pm, free. The author reads from The Great Sioux Nation: Sitting in Judgment on America.

IlluminArts Walk North Beach to Embarcadero/Pier 15 via Filbert Steps, SF; www.blackrockarts.org. 5:30-8:30pm, free. Grab some glow sticks and put on your finest illuminated gear, and bam! You’re part of this “strolling light-up installation.”

Jack London Square Lights Up for the Holidays! Jack London Square, Broadway at Embarcadero, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. 5-7:30pm, free. Jack London Square lights up its 55-foot Christmas tree — with entertainment by tap-dancing Christmas trees, among other luminaries.

Playland at the Beach: The Golden Years Books Inc., 2251 Chestnut, SF; www.booksinc.net. 7pm, free. California historian James R. Smith shares rare historic photos from his new book about the legendary San Francisco amusement park.

Zarina Zabrisky Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck, Berk; www.pegasusbookstore.com. 7:30pm, free. The author and special guests read from her debut novel, We, Monsters.

FRIDAY 6

Holiday Art Sale at Creativity Explored Creativity Explored Gallery and Studio, 3245 16th St, SF; www.creativityexplored.org. Opening reception tonight, 6-9pm, free. Exhibit runs through Dec 30. Support artists with developmental disabilities and add some unique artwork to your home at this popular annual sale. As a bonus, Creativity Explored celebrates its 30th anniversary this year by offering 30 percent discount off all original works.

SATURDAY 7

Babylon Salon Cantina SF, 580 Sutter, SF; www.babylonsalon.com. 6:30pm, free. Reading with authors Steve Almond (Candyfreak), Tom Barbash (Stay Up With Me), and others.

Holiday Crafts Day Randall Museum, 199 Museum Wy, SF; www.randallmuseum.org. 10am-2pm, craft activities (prices vary); 2pm, performance by Daniel DaVinci Comedy Circus Show, $3. Learn how to roll beeswax candles, make scented soaps, and other crafts that make great gifts. A kid-friendly comedy performance follows. Suitable for all ages, through children must be accompanied by an adult.

Jingletown Winter ArtWalk Between Park and Fruitvale, Oakl; www.jingletown.org. 11am-6pm. Open studios event featuring over 50 artists who live or work in the Jingletown neighborhood, near the estuary separating Oakland and Alameda.

Mexican Museum events Mexican Museum, Fort Mason Center, Bldg D, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.mexicanmuseum.org. Free. The museum hosts La Tienda Holiday Sale (today, 10am-4pm), featuring handmade crafts made from ceramic, copper, and wood; and a Family Sunday celebration in honor of what would have been artist Diego Rivera’s 127th birthday (Sun/8, noon-3:30pm).

Middle East Crafts Bazaar Middle East Children’s Alliance, 1101 Eighth St, Berk; www.mecaforpeace.org. 10am-5pm, free. Also Sun/8. Handcrafted gifts from the Middle East, including Palestine, Lebanon, and Turkey.

San Francisco Bazaar Concourse Exhibition Center, East Hall, 635 Eighth St, SF; www.sanfranciscobazaar.org. 11am-6pm, free. Also Sun/8. Featuring a large selection of handmade gifts made by local artists who live and work in the Bay Area.

SFMade’s Annual Holiday Gift Fair Fleet Room, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.sfmade.org. 10am-5pm, free. Also Sun/8. Every item at this gift fair is guaranteed made in San Francisco.

Union Street Fantasy of Lights Union between Van Ness and Steiner, SF; www.unionstreetsf.com. 3-7pm, free. Union Street lights up at this neighborhood holiday festival, with cupcake decorating, pony rides, jugglers, face painting, and other kid-friendly fun. Future Union Street events include the Ugly/Creative Holiday Sweater Contest (Dec 21, 2-4pm), and holiday caroling (Dec 21, 1pm); check out the online calendar for details.

Winter Faire Golden Gate Spiritualist Church, 1901 Franklin, SF; facebook.com/spiritualistchurch. 11am-4pm, free. Holiday gifts for sale including pottery, canned fruits and jams, gently used books, baked goods, and more.

SUNDAY 8

“Snow Day in the Gourmet Ghetto” Parking lot, 1673 Shattuck, Berk; www.anotherbullwinkelshow.com. 10am-3pm, free. Pony rides, craft projects, holiday vendors, and, yes, actual snow.

MONDAY 9

Holiday Toy Drive Bayview YMCA, 1601 Lane, SF; www.urbanedacademy.com; www.ymca.net. 5pm, free. Bring books, games, and sneakers to brighten the holidays for kids at this drive hosted by San Francisco 49er Navorro Bowman. *

Riot acts

Michael Redmond

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December 3, 2013

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arts@sfbg.com

FILM It was strange when Kathleen Hanna — riot grrrl activist, iconic Bikini Kill battle cry leader, electro-popping Le Tigre singer — went silent.

Though she was not entirely absent from the public eye, she did not make any new music or tour for nearly a decade. Beat down by a mysterious illness, she seemingly tumbled into hardcore self-preservation mode, contributing her personal files of zines, show flyers, and lyrics to the “Riot Grrrl Collection” at New York University’s Fales Library.

This archival material would prove key to Sini Anderson’s new documentary about Hanna, The Punk Singer. The film includes many lesser-seen clips from the early days of Bikini Kill, the band’s tours through Europe, and rare early moments with Hanna’s husband, Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz.

“There’s some unfortunate and there’s some fortunate in this,” says Anderson, speaking to me in a hotel in San Francisco ahead of the film’s Bay Area premiere at the Oakland Underground Film Festival in September. “The unfortunate is that Kathleen started getting incredibly sick, and she was getting worse and worse. [But then] she decided to pull all her materials together and start archiving them. So she had a few interns and for a couple of years they just pulled all this stuff from all over the place, so by the time we started the film project, a lot of this was in one place.”

Anderson is a Portland, Ore.-based feminist artist who co-founded Sister Spit while living in SF and has worked in film for a decade, though this is her first documentary. She suggested the idea to Hanna while Le Tigre was making 2011 doc Who Took The Bomp? Le Tigre on Tour. While Hanna became the reluctant face of the riot grrrl movement in the ’90s, she’d never granted the media access to her whole story, at least partially because she didn’t want to be misunderstood.

“She had been out of music for six years at that point, and in [the realms of feminism and politics], there just didn’t seem to be any kind of action going on. Things seemed complacent,” Anderson says. “I said, ‘Kathleen, people need to hear your story, and they need to hear it now.'”

Using archival footage and present-day interviews, the doc covers Hanna’s childhood, the beginning of the riot grrrl movement, Le Tigre, and the resurrection of her post-Bikini Kill solo project, the Julie Ruin. Anderson interviewed Hanna in a series of intimate, enlightening sit-downs at her lake house, which are delicately spliced throughout the film between older clips and interviews with Hanna’s contemporaries: Bikini Kill’s Tobi Vail, Billy Karren, and Kathi Wilcox (now of the Julie Ruin); Kim Gordon; Joan Jett; Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker; and teenage Rookie Magazine editor Tavi Gevinson, who wears the colorful “Feminist” sweater gifted to her by Hanna.

The main bulk of filming was done over the course of a year — and it was a momentous one. Countless doctors had misdiagnosed Hanna by the time Anderson began filming, without an end in sight. Halfway through filming, she finally had a name for her illness: late-stage neurological Lyme disease. When she began treatments, filmmaker and subject decided not to shy away from the vulnerability of moments like Hanna taking her meds and experiencing their uncomfortable after-effects.

“Once she started treatment, it was a roller coaster — she got worse, and then she got better, then she got worse. We had to plan the interviews around when she was up for it,” — explains Anderson, who, incredibly, was also diagnosed with Lyme disease during filming, from an unrelated incident. “I really believe there’s so much power and strength in that vulnerability. It really is important for other women to see that we can tell our truth, we can let people see what’s going on — that doesn’t make us weak, that makes us stronger.” Anderson is now working on another documentary specifically about Lyme disease.

During filming for The Punk Singer, Hanna decided to put together the Julie Ruin, her first new musical act since the end of Le Tigre. This year, the band released its full-length, Run Fast, on Dischord Records.

“She says it really eloquently in the film: when she realized that she may never again be able to do this thing she loves, she realized she wanted it more than ever,” Anderson says.

For the director, one of the biggest moments during filming came from this realization. Hanna sits by her fireplace, surprising herself as she talks about why she quit music — why it was easier to just say she’d already said everything she’d needed to sing. She didn’t want to admit to anyone, including herself, that she was quitting because she was sick. In the doc, Hanna seems taken aback and tears up a bit, but gives the go-ahead to keep filming.

The Punk Singer‘s other epiphany comes at the very end, on the last day of filming, in what became the last scene of the film. Hanna asks, “What is my story? I have no idea,” and begins mentioning moments from her life. “I thought, who is going to believe me? Other women will believe me.”

Says Anderson, “It was about being believed, and being heard, and having her truth be validated. That’s [her] story.” *

THE PUNK SINGER opens Fri/6 in San Francisco.

Last stand at the Bulb

Michael Redmond

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December 3, 2013

8

news@sfbg.com

As the squatter residents of Albany Bulb make one final push against being evicted from their home in a former landfill, the city of Albany is pushing forward with its plan to change the untamed space into a waterfront state park (see “Battle of the bulb,” Sept. 24).

The first signs of the transition came on Nov. 22, when a temporary shelter was set up for residents whose camps would be cleared. The shelter came after a disappointing week in court left the 50 to 60 residents of the Bulb without the stay-away order their advocates had sought, which they intended to use to keep the city and police at bay during the winter.

On Nov. 18, the residents and their attorneys received word that the stay-away order was denied by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer. After the decision and an Albany City Council meeting later that evening, campers and area activists set up a permanent settlement against the eviction after marching through the streets of Albany.

Barricades made of rocks were set up at the Bulb to resist police getting into the camps. However, the rain that followed for a few nights inhibited their efforts, according to activists involved in the action. And the police, using a backhoe, destroyed the rock barricades. The city of Albany, according to a press release, is calling the transition “ACT” which includes, “Assistance to homeless, including housing-centered outreach, transitional services, support, and shelter; Cleanup and maintenance of the Bulb; and Transfer of the Bulb to McLaughlin Eastshore State Park.” “As part of the City Council’s Strategic Planning Process conducted in 2012, the City Council identified key goals for the City,” Albany City Clerk Nicole Almaguer wrote in an email to the Guardian. “One of which is to ‘Maximize Park and Open Space’ including developing a plan to transition the Bulb into Eastshore State Park, and to improve accessibility for general public use of all of the Albany Bulb as a waterfront park.” Almaguer stated that part of the plan included a temporary shelter and support services, which started this summer and is headed by Berkeley Food and Housing Project. The BFHP also provides case management for the Albany campers interested in securing housing outside of the Bulb.

While the city has provided a housing subsidy program to help Bulb residents with rent, a portion of it will also need to be covered by the tenant. Many of the Bulb residents are only supported through government programs such as SSI, and cannot afford housing costs.

In addition, most residents, and their attorney Osha Neumann, who is also a longtime contributor to art at the Bulb, say that the city does not have any affordable housing in which the residents can transition into. Managed by Operation Dignity, a nonprofit designed to help homeless veterans, the transitional shelter is set up by Golden Gate Fields racetrack near the entryway into the Bulb.

“I was out… talking to people and was overwhelmed by the fragility and vulnerability of many of them, as well as their strengths,” Neumann said of the residents in an email to the Guardian. “The portables are awful. You look at the Bulb and all the life and beauty that’s out there, and then you look at those anonymous utilitarian boxes, and really you expect it all to be stuffed into those containers? 22 men in one, eight women in the other? It’s all really appalling.” According to the shelter’s posted rules, the doors for the shelter open at 5:30pm and close at 8:30am. Showers may be taken 8:30-9:30pm, and breakfast is served 7-8am. The sexes are separated, and pets must stay in kennels outside of the shelter. There are also no “in and out privileges” and if a person doesn’t return by 8pm they are not admitted into the shelter. No one stayed in the shelter the first three nights it was available, according to city reports. Amber Lynn Whitson, a Bulb resident, said that access to the shelter is difficult for people, and doesn’t address the need for people with disabilities to access a bed during the day. “At least two individuals were turned away at the door to the shelter, due to their names not being on ‘the list’, she said in an email. “Both were told that they could stay in the shelter, despite their names not currently being on ‘the list,’ but only after getting ‘a voucher’ from BFHP.” The transitional shelter came to the residents’ lives after Breyer rejected the campers’ request for an injunction to block the eviction with a temporary restraining order. A lawsuit also filed by the residents against the eviction remains open, according to Neumann.

Based on information obtained in court documents, $570,000 was allocated to remove the Bulb residents, based on a Albany City Council decision made on Oct. 21, with $171,000 spent on the cleanup of the campsites and the remainder spent on the two portable trailers with bunk beds to serve as transitional housing for six months. As of now, the shelter’s efficacy to get the campers off the Bulb, as well as the residents’ efforts to resist the transition, remains unclear.

BULB ART TO BE CLEARED

The Albany Bulb, a wild shoreline space near Golden Gate Fields and a former landfill for BART construction and other industries, is well known for its art. Now that a transitional shelter looms over the entrance as part of the city’s plan to remove the residents from the Bulb, campers, activists, and artists came together this past weekend for a festival of resistance against the eviction.

The rubble and sculpture filled space will soon be transformed into part of the Eastshore State Park system. The event drew around 60 people, according to resident Amber Whitson. She led an art walk on Nov. 29, giving the history of the art at the Bulb and explaining why it’s important to preserve it as a cultural resource.

“Some things should remain sacred, and Sniff paintings are out on the Albany Bulb,” she said, referencing works by a group of Oakland-based artists.

Other prominent Bulb artists, such as Osha Neumann and Jason DeAntonis, who built massive sculptures made of found wood and parts along the shoreline, were on hand to speak about their contributions and the personal significance the Bulb holds for them.

While residents have come and gone throughout the years, the art has remained a constant draw. Graffiti artists practice their craft, and sculptors work undisturbed, using debris that is scattered around. Even some of the campers’ shelters, makeshift shanties of concrete, wood and tarp, could be considered artistic.

Once the transition of the Bulb from untamed outcrop to a state park of well-kept trails is further along, the city plans to remove most of the art currently installed there.

The campers and activists organized the art walk as part of a three-day festival of trainings, workshops, and music, to enjoy the space, but also to educate residents and others about how the space could be kept in its current state. “I know that organizing is continuing, and again, the shape it takes will depend on how the city goes about the planned evictions,” said Neumann in an email to the Guardian.

For now though, the art stands, in between garbage, rubble, trees and shrubs, a constant reminder that artists and Bulb dwellers are still around.

Rep Clock: November 27 – December 3, 2013

Michael Redmond

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November 27, 2013

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Schedules are for Wed/27-Tue/3 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

“ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD FILM FESTIVAL” Balboa Theater, 3630 Balboa, SF; New People Cinema, 1746 Post, SF; www.sfindie.com. $12. Now in its 10th year, the festival highlights indie horror, sci-fi, and fantasy films, Nov 29-Dec 19.

ATA GALLERY 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $4-10. “Other Cinema:” “Synth Britannia,” videos by Gary Numan, Human League, and others, plus live performances, Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA THEATRE 3630 Balboa, SF; cinemasf.com/balboa. $10. “Popcorn Palace:” Hugo (Scorsese, 2011), Sat, 10am. Matinee for kids.

BAY MODEL 2100 Bridgeway, Sausalito; www.tiburonfilmfestival.com. Free. Circus Dreams (Taylor, 2011) Tue, 6.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-12. •Band of Outsiders (Godard, 1964), Wed, 7, and Buffalo ’66 (Gallo, 1997), Wed, 9:20. The Sound of Music (Wise, 1965), Nov 29-Dec 8, 7 (no evening show Sun/1; also Sat-Sun 1pm; no shows Mon/2-Tue/3 or Dec 6). Presented sing-along style; tickets ($10-15) at www.ticketweb.com. We Were Here (Weissman and Weber, 2011), Sun, 7. Screening in honor of World AIDS Day, with David Weissman and cast members in person.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-$10.75. The Armstrong Lie (Gibney, 2013), call for dates and times. Blue is the Warmest Color (Kechiche, 2013), call for dates and times. Running from Crazy (Kopple, 2013), call for dates and times. The Great Beauty (Sorrentino, 2013), Nov 29-Dec 5, call for times.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $10. “Midnight Movies:” The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Sharman, 1975), Sat, midnight.

NEW PARKWAY 474 24th St, Oakl; www.thenewparkway.com. Free. Keep the Promise: The Global Fight Against AIDS (Fockele and Smolowitz, 2013), Sun, 2.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Beauty and Sacrifice: Images of Women in Chinese Cinema:” Center Stage (Kwan, 1992), Fri, 7; In the Mood for Love (Wong, 2000), Sat, 6:30. “Love Is Colder Than Death: The Cinema of Rainer Werner Fassbinder:” Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven (1975), Sat, 8:30. “The Resolution Starts Now: 4K Restorations from Sony Pictures:” Lawrence of Arabia (Lean, 1962), Sun, 3.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? (Gondry, 2013), Nov 29-Dec 5, call for times. Keep the Promise: The Global Fight Against AIDS (Fockele and Smolowitz, 2013), Sun, 7.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. San Francisco Cinematheque presents: anders, Molussien (Rey, 2012), Fri, 7:30. With Nicolas Rey in person. “Films by Fassbinder:” Martha (1974), Sun, 2. *

Theater Listings: November 27 – December 3, 2013

Michael Redmond

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November 27, 2013

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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

Snoopy!!! Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.42ndstmoon.org. $25-75. Previews Wed/27, 7pm and Fri/29, 2 and 8pm. Opens Sat/30, 6pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm (family/student matinee Dec 7, 1pm); Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 15. 42nd Street Moon performs the sequel to You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

ONGOING

Amaluna Big Top at AT&T Park, Third Street at Terry A. Francois Blvd, SF; www.cirquedusoliel.com. $50-175. Check website for schedule, including special holiday showtimes. Through Jan 12. Cirque de Soleil is back in town, this time bringing its Tempest-inspired Amaluna to the big top set up outside AT&T Park. Touted for being a celebration of “women [sic] power,” it seems initially odd that the design elements are so focused on the male peacock feather — all greens and blues and graceful, with curving “fronds” rising up from the stage. Jungle sounds chirp in the background as a bevy of Amazonian women in bejeweled headdresses and a mischievous lizard-man circulate the room until the show starts with the lovely abstraction of a floating red cloud of translucent fabric dancing in a single beam of light. The flimsy plotline is forgettable, a coming-of-age and courtship tale between the island’s young princess, Miranda (Iuliia Mykhailova) and a shipwrecked young Romeo (Evgeny Kurkin), though the parallel courtship between the two comic figures of Jeeves (Nathalie Claude) and Deeda (Shereen Hickman) provides a bit of levity and a novel use for footballs. The most realized character is probably Cali (Victor Kee), the half-lizard, whose prehensile tail and neon body paint give him an otherworldly allure, but it’s the aerialist goddesses and fierce embodiments of the storm that are most memorable from an acrobatic point-of-view, and Lara Jacobs’ unique balancing act from a meditative one. (Gluckstern)

Arlington Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, 2 Marina, Bldg D, Third Flr, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Wed-Sat, 8pm (no show Thu/28; also Dec 4, 2:30pm); Sun and Tue, 7pm (also Sun, 2:30pm; no 7pm show Dec 8); Through Dec 8. Magic Theatre performs Victor Lodato and Polly Pen’s world-premiere musical.

The Barbary Coast Revue Stud Bar, 399 Ninth St, SF; eventbrite.com/org/4730361353. $10-40. Wed, 9pm (no show Wed/27). Through Dec 18. Blake Wiers’ new “live history musical experience” features Mark Twain as a tour guide through San Francisco’s wild past.

BoomerAging: From LSD to OMG Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Tue, 8pm. Extended through Dec 17. Will Durst’s hit solo show looks at baby boomers grappling with life in the 21st century.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $32-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess Golden Gate Theatre, One Taylor, SF; www.shnsf.com. $60-210. Tue-Sat, 8pm (no show Thu/28; check website for matinee schedule); Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 8. The Tony-winning Broadway revival launches its national tour in San Francisco.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $27-43. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. John Cameron Mitchell’s cult musical comes to life with director Nick A. Olivero’s ever-rotating cast.

Ideation Tides Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $10-20. Wed-Thu, 7pm (no shows Thu/28 or Dec 4-5); Fri-Sat, 8pm (additional shows Sat/30 and Dec 7, 3pm). Through Dec 7. Next up in the San Francisco Playhouse “Sandbox Series” is this dark comedy from Aaron Loeb.

The Jewelry Box: A Genuine Christmas Story The Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-40. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Dec 28. Brian Copeland performs the world premiere of his new, holiday-themed work, an Oakland-set autobiographical tale that’s a prequel to his popular Not a Genuine Black Man.

My Beautiful Launderette New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 22. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Andy Gram and Roger Parsley’s adaptation of Hanif Kureishi’s award-winning screenplay.

The Oy of Sex Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-100. Thu-Fri, 8pm (no show Thu/28); Sat, 8:30pm. Through Jan 18. Comedian Alicia Dattner performs her solo show, based on her stories from her own life and love addiction.

Peter and the Starcatcher Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF; www.shnsf.com. $40-160. Wed/27 and Fri/29-Sat/30, 8pm (also Wed/27 and Sat/30, 2pm); Sun/1, 2pm. Fanciful, Tony-winning prequel to Peter Pan.

Peter/Wendy Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough, SF; www.custommade.org. $15-33. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 15. J.M. Barrie’s familiar and much-revisited children’s story, about a boy who refuses to grow up, has always had its darker aspects, including the violent streak in its hero, forever-child Peter (Sam Bertken). Unfortunately, any underlying social or psychological complexity in the story — originally published in 1902 in The Little White Bird — is of no consequence in adapter-director Jeremy Bloom’s relentlessly cheerful and quickly monotonous retelling. The production, which narrates and acts out the story in somewhat condensed form, says it’s designed for adults of all ages and children over 12, but it seems pitched to an audience much younger still. Custom Made Theater’s lackluster staging does little to make the time go faster. There’s a mischievous energy in Bertken’s Peter and a bright intelligence in Anya Kazimierski’s Tinker Bell that together produce the play’s only emotional heat, but it’s fleeting. As Wendy, Elissa Beth Stebbins is generally solid but too mild to elicit much sympathy for her unrequited affections for Peter. Clad exclusively in striped jammies, the uneven ensemble (which also includes Terry Bamberger, Jessica Rudholm, Kim Saunders, and Jeunee Simon in multiple roles) rarely encourages focus on the finer points of character and plot, which anyway come with a soporific dose of trifling detail amid generally awkward physical choreography. Indeed, any “happy thoughts” one walks in with would risk vanishing entirely, were it not that the cast harvests them immediately and writes them down for future reference on the stage floor. (Avila)

Urge For Going Z Below, 470 Florida, SF; www.goldenthread.org. $10-45. Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show Thu/28); Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 8. Jamila (Camila Betancourt Ascencio) is a bright student desperate to pass her college entrance examination — an unexceptional proposition in many places, but Jamila is a Palestinian raised in a Lebanese refugee camp. For her, even the right to take such an exam is in no way guaranteed and must be fought for. That Jamila’s struggles don’t end at the front door of her crowded home provides the basis for the drama in Mona Mansour’s 2011 play, Urge for Going, now receiving an uneven but sometimes moving West Coast premiere from Golden Thread (which last year produced The Letter, a short play co-written by Mansour, as part of its ReOrient Festival). Amid the makeshift walls, mismatched furniture, and exposed wiring of Kate Boyd’s evocative scenic design, Jamila lives with her austere father (Terry Lamb), a onetime literature scholar with a passion for Wordsworth; her supportive mother (Tara Blau); her father’s effusive loose-canon of a brother (Julian Lopez-Morillas); her mother’s brother (Munaf Alsafi); and her own big-hearted but haunted older brother (Wiley Naman Strasser), a once brilliant math student who suffered brain damage at the hands of a Lebanese soldier. But front and center is her father, whose barely cloaked disappointment and despair turn to recalcitrance and outright antagonism in the face of Jamila’s too-pointed desire to flee this hobbled world of exile for a wider world of possibilities. Directed by Evren Odcikin, the play’s sentimental naturalism (broken through at times by didactic direct address to the audience by the entire cast) makes what follows both too predictable and somewhat artificial. At the same time, Mansour carefully and revealingly couches her story in the political and existential limbo of multiple generations of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, deprived for over half a century of basic rights amid cramped poverty and deprivation. (Avila)

BAY AREA

A Bright New Boise Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $32-50. Tue, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Dec 8. Faith can be a touchy subject among true believers and skeptics alike, and as long as the topic of religion is avoided (as it often is) you might not even know that your bus driver is Buddhist, or your checkout clerk born again. In Samuel D. Hunter’s A Bright New Boise, now playing at Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre, the line blurs between public face and private faith, as mysterious stranger Will (Robert Parsons) rolls into Boise and takes up employment at the Hobby Lobby, ostensibly to reconnect to his long-lost, given-up-for-adoption son, Alex (Daniel Petzhold). But when Will is revealed to be a former member of a disgraced Evangelical sect from “up North,” his sudden reappearance in Alex’ life appears to be motivated not by a long-standing remorse, but by a recent unmooring. Under Tom Ross’ direction, the other characters — a foul-mouthed store manager (Gwen Loeb), a painfully shy stock clerk (Megan Trout), and a confrontational sales associate (Patrick Russell) — appear similarly unmoored, careening into each other like jittery, neurotic pinballs, with about as much consideration. Only Parsons’ Will appears calm and deliberate in his actions, until he startlingly demonstrates otherwise. It’s an abrupt end to both the play and Will’s charade of normalcy, and neither Hunter nor Ross seem to know how to build up to his eventual fall naturally, ultimately allowing him to be defined only by his fanaticism rather than his humanity. (Gluckstern)

Can You Dig It? Back Down East 14th — the 60s and Beyond Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Dec 15. Don Reed’s new show offers more stories from his colorful upbringing in East Oakland in the 1960s and ’70s. More hilarious and heartfelt depictions of his exceptional parents, independent siblings, and his mostly African American but ethnically mixed working-class community — punctuated with period pop, Motown, and funk classics, to which Reed shimmies and spins with effortless grace. And of course there’s more too of the expert physical comedy and charm that made long-running hits of Reed’s last two solo shows, East 14th and The Kipling Hotel (both launched, like this newest, at the Marsh). Can You Dig It? reaches, for the most part, into the “early” early years, Reed’s grammar-school days, before the events depicted in East 14th or Kipling Hotel came to pass. But in nearly two hours of material, not all of it of equal value or impact, there’s inevitably some overlap and indeed some recycling. Reed, who also directs the show, may start whittling it down as the run continues. But, as is, there are at least 20 unnecessary minutes diluting the overall impact of the piece, which is thin on plot already — much more a series of often very enjoyable vignettes and some painful but largely unexplored observations, wrapped up at the end in a sentimental moral that, while sincere, feels rushed and inadequate. (Avila)

The Dining Room Piedmont Center for the Arts, 801 Magnolia, Piedmont; www.piedmontcenterforthearts.org. $25. Fri/29-Sat/30, 8pm; Sun/1, 7pm. Piedmont Avenue Repertory Theatre performs A.R. Gurney’s family dramedy, which features six actors playing 57 parts.

Harvey Barn Theatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.rossvalleyplayers.com. $10-22. Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 15. Ross Valley Players perform the Pulitzer-winning play by Mary Chase.

A King’s Legacy Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-35. Thu/21-Sat/23, 8pm; Sun/24, 2pm. Pear Avenue Theatre performs Elyce Melmon’s world premiere, a drama about King James VI of Scotland.

A Little Princess Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-60. Thu-Fri, 7pm (Thu/28, shows at 1 and 6pm); Sat, 1 and 6pm; Sun, noon and 5pm (no 5pm show Sun/1). Through Dec 8. Berkeley Playhouse opens its sixth season with Brian Crawley and Andrew Lippa’s musical adaptation of the Frances Hodgson Burnett story.

110 in the Shade Douglas Morrison Theatre, 22311 N. Third St, Hayward; www.dmtonline.org. $10-29. Fri-Sat and Dec 5, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 8. Douglas Morrison Theatre performs N. Richard Nash’s romantic musical, adapted from his classic play The Rainmaker.

The Pianist of Willesden Lane Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-89. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Dec 5 and Sat, 2pm; no shows Thu/28, Dec 24, or Dec 31); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm; matinees only Dec 15, 22, and Jan 5; no show Dec 25). Extended through Jan 5. Mona Golabek stars in this solo performance inspired by her mother, a Jewish pianist whose dreams and life were threatened by the Nazi regime.

Troilus and Cressida La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 15. One of Shakespeare’s more difficult and under-produced plays, Troilus and Cressida does wax in popularity during protracted times of war, so it’s about the right time for Impact Theatre to tackle it. Set during the seventh year of the Trojan War, the players are all either soldiers or spoils of war, and both morale and morals are at a low ebb. So-called heroes hide in their tents, the fair Helen (Julie Kuwabara) is a callow bawd, and everyone just wants the war to be over. Troilus (Eric Kerr), a Trojan, and Cressida (Sarah Coykendall), a Greek, meet-cute thanks to the machinations of the flamboyant Pandarus (Shawn J. West), only to be quickly separated by circumstances beyond their control, and thrust abruptly to the sidelines of their own tragedy, their eventual betrayal of each other lost within the greater treacheries of the battlefield. It’s a problematic script, not least of all because the only truly moral character is the very innocent, very mad Cassandra (Akemi Okamura), whose prophecies are written off as mere ravings, subtly mirrored by the nihilistic fool, Thersites (Miyaka Cochrane), who delivers his frontline ravings as prophecies. Director Melissa Hillman makes some bold choices, however, including casting Lauren Spencer as the level-headed Ulysses, and father-son team Jon Nagel and Jonah McClellan as Aeneas and Antenor, turning the walk-on role of a pawn into a tragic symbol of war’s all too-human cost. (Gluckstern)

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. $20. This week: “DuoProv Championship,” Fri/29, 8pm; “Family Drama,” Sat/30, 8pm.

“Broadway Bingo” Feinstein’s at the Nikko, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.feinsteinssf.com. Wed, 7-9pm. Ongoing. Free. Countess Katya Smirnoff-Skyy and Joe Wicht host this Broadway-flavored night of games and performance.

“Buddy Club Children’s Shows” Randall Museum Theater, 199 Museum Wy, SF; www.thebuddyclub.com. Sun, 11am-noon. $8. Sun/1: Comedy improv with Kenn Adams Adventure Theater; Dec 8: “The Bubble Lady!”

“Cynic Cave” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; facebook.com/cyniccave. $10-12. This week: Dave Thomason, Emily Maya Mills, Sean Keane, Christian Duguay, and more, Fri, 8 and 10pm; Emily Heller and Jules Posner, Sat, 8 and 10pm.

“Fiesta Navidena” Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sun/1, Dec 7, 15, 21-22, and 27-28, 6:15pm. $15-21. Carolina Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco performs a holiday show.

“Guardianas de la Vida” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.dancemission.com. Sat/30, healing session 6pm; performance, 7pm. $15. Music, flamenco dance, and poetry performance in honor of San Francisco’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls.

“Hysterical Historical San Francisco, Holiday Edition” Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.org. Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 29. $30-40. Comic Kurt Weitzman performs.

“Misery Index” Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.miseryindexcomedy.com. Mon, 8pm. Free. “Maladjusted mirth making” with comedians Matt Gubser, Natasha Muse, Ivan Hernandez, and others.

“The News: Fresh Queer Performance” SOMArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan, SF; somarts.org/thenews. Tue/3, 7:30-9pm. $5. Fresh queer performances by Bay Area artists.

“Okeanos Intimate” Aquarium of the Bay, Pier 39, SF; www.capacitor.org. Sat, 8pm. $20-30 (free aquarium ticket with show ticket). Extended through Dec 28. Choreographer Jodi Lomask and her company, Capacitor, revive 2012’s Okeanos — a cirque-dance piece exploring the wonder and fragility of our innate connection to the world’s oceans — in a special “intimate” version designed for the mid-size theater at Pier 39’s Aquarium of the Bay. The show, developed in collaboration with scientists and engineers, comes preceded by a short talk by a guest expert — for a recent Saturday performance it was a down-to-earth and truly fascinating local ecological history lesson by the Bay Institute’s Marc Holmes. In addition to its Cirque du Soleil-like blend of quasi-representational modern dance and circus acrobatics — powered by a synth-heavy blend of atmospheric pop music — Okeanos makes use of some stunning underwater photography and an intermittent narrative that includes testimonials from the likes of marine biologist and filmmaker Dr. Tierney Thys. The performers, including contortionists, also interact with some original physical properties hanging from the flies — a swirling vortex and a spherical shell — as they wrap and warp their bodies in a kind of metamorphic homage to the capacity and resiliency of evolution, the varied ingenuity of all life forms. If the movement vocabulary can seem limited at times, and too derivative, the show also feels a little cramped on the Aquarium Theater stage, whose proscenium arrangement does the piece few favors aesthetically. Nevertheless, the family-oriented Okeanos Intimate spurs a conversation with the ocean that is nothing if not urgent. (Avila)

“Point Break Live!” DNA Lounge, 373 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. Dec 6 and Jan 3, 7:30 and 11pm. $25-50. Interactive interpretation of Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 classic. (Some tickets include meatball sandwiches!)

“The Romane Event Comedy Show” Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St, SF; www.pacoromane.com. Wed/27, 8-10pm. $10. Paco Romane hosts performances by Johnny Taylor, Mary-Alice McNab, Chris Riggins, and more.

“San Francisco Magic Parlor” Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

“So You Think You Can Dance” Warfield, 982 Market, SF; fox.com/dance. Sat/30, 8pm. $52-68. Dancers from the Emmy-winning dance competition show perform.

“The Velveteen Rabbit” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Lam Research Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.odcdance.org. Fri/29-Sun/1 and Dec 8 and 15, 2pm; Dec 5-6 and 12-13, 11am; Dec 7 and 15, 1 and 4pm. $20-75. ODC/Dance performs its popular holiday show, directed with fresh perspective this year by ODC founder Brenda Way.

BAY AREA

“XXmas: The Christmas Ballet, 2013 Edition” This week: Bankhead Theater, 2400 First St, Livermore; www.smuinballet.org. Fri/29-Sat/30, 7:30pm (also Sat/30, 2pm). $40-60. Also Dec 11-14, 8pm (also Dec 14, 2pm); Dec 15, 2pm, $49-65, Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; and Dec 18-28, $24-64, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Lam Research Theater, 700 Howard, SF. Smuin Ballet’s annual holiday show boasts festive ballet, tap, and swing-dance numbers. *

This stuff’ll kill ya

Michael Redmond

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November 27, 2013

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cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM Clad only in a dingy T-shirt and tighty-whities, with an overgrown beard and a hollow look of defeat in his eyes, shut-in Ian (Adrian DiGiovanni) spends his days channel-surfing and plotting ways to commit suicide. When his beloved vintage TV (“His name was Kent,” he tells the camera, in the first of many direct addresses) fizzles, smokes, and goes dark, he finally takes action.

But after he’s lurched off the couch and dumped enough household chemicals into his bathtub to kill several hundred depressed agoraphobics, he falls and hits his head. When he wakes up some time later, groggy and bleeding from the mouth, he realizes his grimy bathroom has a new inhabitant: a talking pile of mold that immediately starts spouting Tony Robbins-like encouragement at our sad-sack hero.

A lot happens in the opening act of first-time feature director Don Thacker’s Motivational Growth. Delightfully, and sometimes gruesomely, the rest of the film keeps pace, even though we never leave Ian’s apartment. Unwelcome visitors (a wacked-out TV repairman; a snarky delivery girl; Ian’s angry landlord) and a series of surreal hallucinations, in which Ian imagines he’s appearing in the shows he used to watch on Kent’s screen (the best one: an alien buddy-cop drama that looks straight outta Troma), are troubling — though the pretty neighbor he glimpses through his apartment peephole offers brief moments of relief.

But Ian’s main focus, of course, is Motivational Growth‘s title character (voiced with purring bravado by the great Jeffrey Combs). The mold — it insists on referring to itself in the third person — looks like a Krofft Superstar Hour prop that fell into a sewage tank; it has barely-discernable features beyond an expressive mouth that never stops talking (and “when the mold talks, you listen,” it says, sternly). Though the mold encourages Ian — who hasn’t left his apartment in over a year, to tidy up and set a course for “Successville” — there’s also something undeniably sinister about Ian’s increasingly bossy new buddy.

With its pleasingly retro vibe, including a bleep-blorp video game-y soundtrack, Motivational Growth is quirky without getting in your face about it — though it may inspire you to rush home and scrub every inch of your bathroom. It’s a high point in the 10th annual Another Hole in the Head Film Festival, produced by SF IndieFest and stuffed tighter than a turducken with indie horror, sci-fi, and fantasy flicks.

The fest offers a sprinkling of classics (for all you Room 237 obsessives out there, it features screenings of both 1980’s The Shining and projection-booth stunt “The Shining Forwards and Backwards” — talk about a labyrinth). But mostly, it’s a showcase of new films that might be having their only local theatrical screenings, including several intriguing imports.

Billed as the Philippines’ first-ever indie zombie movie, T.A. Aderto’s The Grave Bandits has a few major flaws, including an overload of bodily-function jokes and some of the worst mad-scientist acting ever captured on film. But its young leads — particularly Marti Sandino San Juan as the slingshot-wielding Peewee — and some gushing gore effects mitigate most of The Grave Bandits‘ more unfortunate elements.

The premise: Two scrappy ragamuffins (Peewee and his slightly older buddy, played by Ronald Pacifico) make their living robbing corpses, a survival strategy that makes them unpopular enough to be chased by angry mobs. They’re able to steal a small boat and escape to one of the country’s tiny islands — unluckily, it happens to be the same place a gang of pirates acted the wrong way around a giant gemstone tainted by “an alien virus, dormant for over 100 years.” Ergo, a new angry mob to evade — one made up of flesh-ripping zombies.

Elsewhere among the international selections is French Canadian filmmaker Renaud Gauthier’s Discopath. The writer-director is clearly a fan of cult-horror nasties — 1980’s Maniac and 1979’s Don’t Go in the House, and to a lesser extent 1977’s Suspiria, seem to have influenced this stylish, self-assured creepfest. After witnessing a terrible tragedy as a child, shy loner Duane (Jeremie Earp) can’t stand music, particularly that newfangled genre called disco. For whatever reason, he agrees to go to a dance club with a girl he’s just met — with disastrously bloody results. Fast-forward a few years, and he’s fled New York City for Montreal. Living under a fake name, he’s working as a handyman at a Catholic girl’s school and wearing hearing aids that mute out the dreaded sound of music (insert your own “Disco sucks!” joke here).

But once a psychopath, always a psychopath, and heads soon start rolling (and spinning on turntables, in fact). If Discopath‘s plot is familiar to the point of homage, its synth-scored commitment to detail reaches exceptional heights: period-perfect clothes, cars, tabloid newspapers, décor (including a giant remote control that Motivational Growth‘s Ian would covet), and carefully-calibrated amounts of garbage scattered on NYC’s Me Decade sidewalks. *

ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD FILM FESTIVAL

Nov 29-Dec 12, $12

Balboa Theater, 3630 Balboa, SF

New People Cinema, 1746 Post, SF

www.sfindie.com

From the ground up

Michael Redmond

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November 27, 2013

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arts@sfbg.com

DANCE Conceptual French choreographer Jérôme Bel thrives on conversation. Sometimes, he participates directly, as he did in Pichet Klunchun and Myself, in which he and Thai dancer Klunchun talked on stage. Performed at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in 2009, the piece enchanted me with its daring theatricality and enraged me with its faux naïveté. Pichet was both sturdy like a rock and evanescent like a passing thought.

Bel has made it his task to ask questions and shake up concepts around performance. It’s the lingua franca in today’s academia, but Bel is an artist. After stripping away the hoopla around art making, what are we left with? What do we as an audience expect? What is a performer, both from our and his or her perspective? Is there room for virtuosity, or is that something to hide behind? Marcel Duchamp asked similar questions in the visual art realm 100 years ago; choreographer Pina Bausch engaged with them for most of her career.

Two performances during Stanford University’s current Festival Jérôme Bel opened a perspective on the way Bel deals with his dissecting knife — with utter skill, and yet also with a smile and an easy mind. Bel may not like creating steps for his performers because he wants to see the moving body stripped down to its laconic essence. Yet he is one hell of a choreographer.

As a backbone and a trajectory for his The Show Must Go On (presented at Stanford’s Memorial Auditorium Nov. 13), Bel — actually, his assistants — chose 20 non-dancers, plus a few professionals to spice up the mix. They gave them a series of Bel-chosen popular music selections on which to develop movement material; the songs often skirted that tenuous line between sentiment and sentimental.

The dancers carried themselves anonymously, looking as they would if you were to encounter them on the street. But at the musical cue, they jumped into action with individualized physical responses. Yet the parameters were as tightly set as anything you might want to see on a ballet stage. These performers may have appeared untrained, but they had 55 hours of rehearsal to look as ordinary as they did.

Much of Show’s appeal arose from its simple, even simpleminded sense of humor of acting out song lyrics — normally, an absolute taboo in dance. For “Let the Sunshine In,” the stage lights came up; for “La Vie en Rose,” the audience was bathed in rose hues; during “Private Dancer,” the DJ jumped into the limelight. You could feel the audience gradually relax into the setup. (I fully expected some to join in on “Macarena.“) But they needed more time. When the volume of “The Sound of Silence” repeatedly dropped off, the audience’s humming filled in the gap; they had entered the performance. Toward the end, each dancer expressed a piece of individually chosen music, heard over a headset. In the back, a group belted out “We Are the World,” while downstage, French-born Muriel Maffre croaked out a hoarse “Born in the USA” and Jesselito Bie moaned “Oops … I Did It Again.” Perhaps most surprising was that for all its easy viewing and entertainment values, The Show Must Go On rode on an undercurrent of wistfulness and melancholy.

On Nov. 18, the festival moved to the beautifully appointed Bing Concert Hall. It was not a good decision. Sitting toward the front center, I had to strain to hear former Merce Cunningham dancer Cédric Andrieux’s contemplation on both the man and the dancer called Cédric Andrieux. After the performance, I spoke with other audience members and learned that they’d also had difficulty following the dancer. Cédric Andrieux is an intimate show; it belonged into a more supportive environment.

Performances exist in time, and Andrieux (with Bel?) controlled every last second of his: the way he made eye contact with us and paced his narration; the time he took to change clothes or reenact a painful modeling gig. His life, loves, and professional stories became part of him, whether he danced excerpts from Cunningham or contrasting ones by Trisha Brown. He complained about the tediousness of a Cunningham class, yet he looked gorgeous in the exercise. His regret about “not ever getting it right” — which eventually he admitted to having figured out — was contradicted by what he showed. Awkwardness and difficulties are as part of art as they are of life. I think most artists know that; Andrieux showed it. *

PICHET KLUNCHUN AND MYSELF (A FILM)

Mon/2, 7:30pm, $10-20

Bing Concert Hall

Stanford University, Palo Alto

live.standford.edu

THE THINGS I HAVE DONE WITH DANCE: A CONVERSATION WITH JÉRÔME BEL

Tue/3, 11am, free

Pigott Theatre, Memorial Hall

Stanford University, Palo Alto

events.stanford.edu

San Francisco Color Fight 5K

Maria Poblet

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November 26, 2013

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The Color Fight celebrates health and happiness, to create a three-mile canvas of colorful fun where thousands of participants are doused from head to toe in various colors.

Participation and buzz for The Color Fight has exploded since its debut last year on Facebook. While the event brings together friends and family in a unique, healthy, and relaxed environment, there’s only one rule: you’ve got wear white!

About the Color Fight: The Color Fight is a feel-good, happy, colorful event. “Color Fighters” of all shapes and sizes happily go from wearing pristine white clothing, to being covered in prismatic color. At each stage (kilometer), a different color of powder fills the air and covers the participants, creating an ever-increasing spectrum of color and beauty. At the finish line, the color festival kicks off and the air is filled with millions of vivid color combinations as participants get in on the color throwing fun as well. For more information follow this link.

Saturday, December 7 at 11am @ Candlestick Park, SF

Who dares challenge Katniss for box-office supremacy? New movies!

Sue Vaughan

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November 22, 2013

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Who dares challenge Katniss for box-office supremacy? New movies!

This week, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire stands poised to crush all who dare step to it, but there are some alternatives out there. There’s the San Francsico Film Society’s weekend-long Cinema By the Bay festival (my overview here), as well as the latest from acclaimed director Alexander Payne, the small-scale but still very moving Nebraska (Dennis Harvey’s review here.)

Plus: a festival favorite from Belgium, and Vince Vaughn’s sperm-bank comedy. Reviews for both (plus guaranteed big kahuna Catching Fire) below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a50DJkCxqw

Broken Circle Breakdown This Belgian movie by director Felix Van Groeningen arrives bearing major awards (from the Berlin and Tribeca festivals) and promising to nab plenty more of them. Why, you ask? I haven’t the faintest idea. Didier (Johan Heldenbergh) is leader of a bluegrass group; Elise (Veerle Baetens) is a tattoo artist until she meets him, they get together, and it’s discovered that when she opens her mouth Alison Krauss falls out. They have a child, Maybelle (Nell Cattrysse), who develops cancer at age six or so, and whose prospects are grim. So far, so ordinary — Once (2007) meets Lorenzo’s Oil (1992), a tearjerker in which people sing high lonesome American roots music (in English, too) well enough, but not so well that you ever stop wondering “Why are these Belgians doing this?” The expected tragedy hits halfway through, and that’s when the movie really gets into trouble. Its protagonists fall apart, understandably, but in irksome ways — mostly picking on each other — with particularly annoying sequences occurring in both past and present tense. It’s hard to tell which one is worse, the arch flashback wedding scene, her deciding to rename herself “Alabama,” his endless onstage outburst about Yahweh, the climactic psychedelic flashback crisis montage, or the wholly gratuitous final … well, never mind. This was originally a stage play, and in the usual way that seeing musicians act and actors play instruments live is exciting, it probably worked well in that medium. But on film it seems like a contrived pileup of ill-matched ideas and plot devices. Don’t take my word for it, though: From Seattle to Osaka, apparently there’s been nary a dry eye in the house. So knock yerself out. (1:50) (Dennis Harvey)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocMnYUSzniU

Delivery Man Twenty years ago David Wozniak (Vince Vaughn) “put love in a cup” 600-plus times to finance a family trip to Italy. His mother was sick, his father couldn’t afford it, and with time running out, David embarked on a harebrained scheme to make (a lot of) “it” happen. The sperm bank that paid him $23K for his “seed” overused it, and 18 years later he has 533 kids, 143 of which are on a hunt to find their biological father, “Starbuck.” (This also the name of the 2011 Canadian comedy on which Delivery Man is based.) With a premise this quirky you’ll have a hard time finding something to hate, even if this is technically a film about runaway jizz. This heartwarming Thanksgiving release isn’t really appropriate for youngsters (unless you’re been trying to find a entrée to explain sperm banks) but the way Delivery Man deals with the seemingly limitless generosity contained in each of us is both touching and inspiring. Maybe David’s contribution to “Starbuck’s Kids” doesn’t obligate him to reveal his identity, but he’s desperately attached, and goes embarrassingly far outside his comfort zone to interact. The kids’ emotional stake in this is murky, but the way their search for identity finds a voice in tune with the current tech-confident yet socially-confused younger generation could make Delivery Man relevant to more generations than X or Y. (1:45) (Sara Maria Vizcarrondo)

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Before succumbing to the hot and heavy action inside the arena (intensely directed by Francis Lawrence), The Hunger Games: Catching Fire force-feeds you a world of heinous concept fashions that’d make Lady Gaga laugh. But that’s ok, because the second film about one girl’s epic struggle to change the world of Panem may be even more exciting than the first. Suzanne Collins’ YA novel The Hunger Games was an over-literal metaphor for junior high social survival and the glory of Catching Fire is that it depicts what comes after you reach the cool kids’ table. Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) inspired so much hope among the 12 districts she now faces pressures from President Snow (a portentous Donald Sutherland) and the fanatical press of Capital City (Stanley Tucci with big teeth and Toby Jones with big hair). After she’s forced to fake a romance with Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), the two watch with horror as they’re faced with a new Hunger Game: for returning victors, many of whom are too old to run. Amanda Plummer and Jeffrey Wright are fun as brainy wackjobs and Jena Malone is hilariously Amazonian as a serial axe grinder still screaming like an eighth grader. Inside the arena, alliances and rivalries shift but the winner’s circle could survive to see another revolution; to save this city, they may have to burn it down. (2:26) (Sara Maria Vizcarrondo)

Promo: Another Hole in the Head Film Festival

Maria Poblet

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November 20, 2013

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Promo: Another Hole in the Head Film Festival

Returning for its tenth year, SF IndieFest presents Another Hole In The Head Film Festival. Celebrating three weeks of Independent Horror, Sci-Fi and Fantasy films, the festival will celebrate its tenth year with 57 feature films, 30 short films, new venues, extended dates, and a theatrical play to fill all your genre film needs. The festival kicked off on last Wednesday with a production of Top Guys at Stage Werx in San Francisco which will continue to run until December 14. The official kick off for the film festival is November 29 (BLACK FRIDAY) at the Balboa Theater. The festival will continue at the Balboa until December 5, then it will move to the New People Cinema until December 19. For more information and tickets, please visit sfindie.com.

On the Cheap: November 20 – 26, 2013

Michael Redmond

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November 19, 2013

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Listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Selector.

WEDNESDAY 20

“The Diversity of Habitable Zones and Their Planets” Randall Museum, 199 Museum Wy, SF; www.randallmuseum.org. 7:30pm, free. San Francisco State astrophysicist Dr. Stephen R. Kane discusses, among other things, advancements in knowledge about “planets in highly eccentric orbits” and “super-Earths.” Geared for adults but all ages are welcome.

“Lyrics and Dirges” Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 649-1320. 7:30pm, free. Reading with a mix of prominent, emerging, and beginning writers, including Charles Kruger, Monica Wesolowska, Airial Clark, and others.

Michael McClure City Lights, 261 Columbus, SF; www.citylights.com. 7pm, free. The legendary Beat author reads from his recently reissued Ghost Tantras.

THURSDAY 21

Bay Street Tree Lighting Bay Street Emeryville, 5616 Bay, Emeryville; www.baystreetemeryville.com. 6-8pm, free. The shopping center ushers in the winter-holiday season with the lighting of its 34-foot tree, plus a light and sound show, photos with Santa, hot chocolate, and more.

Holiday Craft Fair Simple Family Health, One Rio Vista, Oakl; www.simplefamilyhealth.com. 6-9pm, free. Nine different craft artists — fleece hats, cute polka-dot items, fascinators and headbands, and more! — share their wares.

Paul Koudounaris Bone Room Presents, 1573 Solano, Berk; www.boneroompresents.com. 7pm, free. The author discusses and signs copies of his macabre, beautifully-photographed books The Empire of Death and Heavenly Bodies: Cult Treasures and Spectacular Saints from the Catacombs.

Karen Luk Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission, SF; thirdthursdaysf.wordpress.com. 5-8pm, free. The author and illustrator discusses her new release, Steampunk ABCs, at an appropriately steampunk-y event (hint: costumes encouraged!)

“Survival Not Extinction: A Fundraiser for Tribal Rights” Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, 2323 Mission, SF; (415) 503-1254. 6pm, free. A gallery, short film, raffle, photo booth, and other activities highlight this happy-hour fundraiser for Survival International, an international rights organization working to assist the Awá tribe of Brazil. The bar will donate 10 percent of its proceeds from the evening, so show up thirsty.

FRIDAY 22

“Pancakes and Booze Art Show” Minna Gallery, 111 Minna, SF; www.pancakesandbooze.com. 8pm, $5. Through Sat/23. Over 75 underground and emerging artists display their works — plus a performance by Xpander Xperience, a photo booth, body painting, and an all-you-can-eat pancake bar.

“Rude, Glued, and Screwed” Red Door Studios, 50-A Bannam Place, SF; www.collagemuseumsf.com. 7-10pm, free. Opening exhibition celebrating the launch of the Collage Museum of San Francisco, curated by Winston Smith.

SATURDAY 23

“Art and Ideas Day Festival” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Noon-9pm, free. In conjunction with its current “Dissident Futures” exhibit, YBCA hosts a festival aiming to inspire explorations of “possible futures,” with workshops, lectures, performances, interactive media and more presented by robotic experts, food activist, designers, environmentalists, and other experts.

“Magic Makers: The Bay Area’s Queer Art and Craft Fair” Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th Ave, Oakl; themagicmakers.wordpress.com. 1-8pm, free. A marketplace and showplace for Bay Area queer artists. Hey, the gift-giving season is approaching — and what better presents than jewelry, prints, body-care products, candles, and other items created by local makers?

“Operation: Fork 4!” Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph, Oakl; (510) 444-6174. 6pm-midnight, five cans of food or $10. Cobra 1st Legion hosts this costume party-dance party-food drive (with help from the Bay Area Ghostbusters). The Alameda County Community Food Bank benefits from donations, and Disastroid, Victoria and the Vaudevillians, MHA, and Maritime Wilderness provide the tunes. Costumes are encouraged.

“Ukranian Holodomer: Genocidal Famine of 1932-33 (80th Anniversary)” Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin, SF; (650) 281-6927. 2pm, free. Speakers, including survivors and witness accounts; music; and a documentary screening highlight this historical commemoration of the Ukraine’s tragic famine.

SUNDAY 24

“Patchwork Indie Art and Craft Festival” Jack London Market Building, 55 Harrison, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. 11am-5pm. Over 140 local artists gather to sell handmade goods, including art, housewares, paper crafts, and clothing. Plus: food trucks, free DIY craft stations, a DIY gift-wrap booth, and more.

“Thangs Taken: Rethinking Thanksgiving” La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck, Berk; www.lapena.org. 7pm, $10-25 sliding scale. Artists and activists come together to explore Thanksgiving’s complex history through music, dance, spoken word, and other avenues. Produced by the Free Land Project and curated and hosted by Ariel Luckey. *

Rep Clock: November 20 – 26, 2013

Michael Redmond

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November 19, 2013

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Schedules are for Wed/20-Tue/26 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ATA GALLERY 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $4-10. “Periwinkle Cinema: Smoke and Ruin,” short films, Wed, 8. “Double Feature,” two short films by Lawrence Rickford, Thu, 8. “GAZE #6: Luminous Impulse,” all-animation show, Fri, 8. “Other Cinema,” works about the “(no-zones) of the American West” by Jeanne Finley, Katherin McInnis, and others, Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA THEATRE 3630 Balboa, SF; cinemasf.com/balboa. $10. “Popcorn Palace:” The Iron Giant (Bird, 1999), Sat, 10am. Matinee for kids.

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS’ HALL 1924 Cedar, Berk; www.bfuu.org. $5-10 suggested donation. JFK: The Case for Conspiracy (Groden, 2003), Thu, 7.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-12. Contempt (Godard, 1963), Wed, 4:45, 7, 9:15. •Rebel Without a Cause (Ray, 1955), Thu, 7, and Rumble Fish (Coppola, 1983), Thu, 9:05. “Happy 100th Birthday to Benjamin Britten,” Fri, 7:30. This event ($20) presented by the Asawa SOTA Instrumental Music Department; more info at sfsota.org/britten. “Peaches Christ Productions presents:” 9 to 5 (Higgins, 1980), with stage show premiere of Work!, starring Pandora Boxx, Heklina, and Peaches Christ, Sat, 8. More info for this event ($25-55) at www.peacheschrist.com. The Wizard of Oz (Fleming, 1939), presented in 3D, Sun, 1, 3:30, 5:45, 8.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-$10.75. The Armstrong Lie (Gibney, 2013), call for dates and times. Blue is the Warmest Color (Kechiche, 2013), call for dates and times. Running from Crazy (Kopple, 2013), call for dates and times. Persistence of Vision (Schreck, 2012), Thu, 7. The Singularity (Wolens, 2013), Sun, 7. Filmmaker Doug Wolens in person.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $10. “Midnight Movies:” Oldboy (Park, 2003), Fri-Sat, midnight.

COPPOLA THEATER Fine Arts Building, SF State University, 1600 Holloway, SF; creativestate.sfsu.edu. Free. “Hungarian Film Festival,” documentary and narrative films, Fri, 4-10; Sat, 9am-10pm; Sun, 5-10.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; milibrary.org/events. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Dark Star: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck:” Forty Guns (Fuller, 1957), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Alternative Visions:” Your Day Is My Night (Sachs, 2013), Wed, 7. “Behind the Scenes: The Art and Craft of Cinema with Randy Thom, Sound Designer:” Wild at Heart (Lynch, 1990), Thu, 7; Colors (Hopper, 1988), Sat, 6; The Incredibles (Bird, 2004), Sun, 3. “Fassbinder’s Favorites:” Vivre sa vie (Godard, 1962), Fri, 7. “Afterimage: Agnès Varda on Filmmaking:” Cléo From 5 to 7 (1961), Fri, 8:45. “Love Is Colder Than Death: The Cinema of Rainer Werner Fassbinder:” Lola (1981), Sat, 8:45; Veronika Voss (1982), Sun, 6.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. American Promise (Brewster and Stephenson, 2013), Wed-Thu, 6:15, 9. The Counselor (Scott, 2013), Wed, 7, 9:15. City College of San Francisco’s Festival of the Moving Image, two different showcases of student films, Thu, 7, 8:45. “SF Film Society’s Cinema By the Bay Festival:” Holy Ghost People (Altieri, 2013), Fri, 7 and 9:30; The Genius of Marian (Fitch, 2013), Sat, noon; Redemption Trail (Sjogren, 2013), Sat, 2:15; American Vagabond (Helke, 2013), Sat, 4:30; Along the Roadside (Lisinac, 2013), Sat, 6:45; “Street Smarts: YAK Films’ Dance Then and Now,” Sat, 9:30; “The SF State of Cinema: Shorts from SFSU Alumni,” Sun, noon; The Other Side of the Mountain (Jang, 2012), Sun, 2:15; “Essential SF,” honoring the Bay Area film community, Sun, 5; The Illness and the Odyssey (Minott, 2013), Sun, 7; Dear Sidewalk (Oelman, 2013), Sun, 9:15.

SWEDISH AMERICAN HALL 2174 Market, SF; www.cafedunord.com. $30-60. “The Invisible Lighthouse,” live music and film with Thomas Dolby, Thu, 8.

TANNERY 708 Gilman, Berk; berkeleyundergroundfilms.blogspot.com. Donations accepted. “Berkeley Underground Film Society:” Holy Ghost People (Adair, 1967), Sun, 7:30.

VICTORIA 2961 16th, SF; www.savethewaves.org. $5-50. “Save the Waves Film Festival,” docs about ocean conservation and surfing, plus live music and speakers, Fri, 6.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. “Films by Fassbinder:” Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? (1970), Thu, 7:30. *