Festival

Live Shots: Phono del Sol 2013 with Thee Oh Sees, Marnie Stern, Surf Club

Tony Robles
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John Dwyer stood holding his guitar, smiling and making small talk with the crowd, having been asked by a Phono del Sol staffer to hold off while, presumably, the band on the other stage finished up its set. “Alright, I think we’re just going to get started,” he said, seemingly without cue, and Thee Oh Sees began playing, giving the day a much needed jolt in energy.

Can you have too much control? Up until that point on Saturday, things were running smoothly. The musical acts were alternating without interruption on the two stages set up at the idyllic (and freeway adjacent) Potrero del Sol park, the weather was perfect, you could test drive an electric Fiat, and everyone seemed sated, even in the beer garden where the queue for Lagunitas and wine had started to resemble a Möbius strip, with patrons receiving a drink only to return to the back of the line to wait for another.

Everything was very under control, on the Potrero Street entrance where you could watch skateboarders try to confidently hustle their way past security, only to be directed to buy a ticket if they wanted to gain access to the park skating area during the festival. (“Just a tip,” Dwyer joked, “but if you show up at the skatepark tomorrow you can skate for free.”)

An hour earlier, during Marnie Stern’s set, I’d been wondering when things were going to pick up. The giddy guitar shredder and her band were speeding along at an energy level that seemed well above the stony, post-lunch crowd. Stern herself seemed rather high, hopping around bare-foot on the hot stage, delivering Woody Allen impressions and wondering whether her guitar overpowers her vagina (or vice versa) between finger-tapping blistering rhythms. But the response — polite applause from a largely reclining crowd — was typical for the day up to that point.

If anyone was gonna change that, it was San Francisco’s best live band, and a few songs in, the crowd was good and riled up. Not for lack of effort. I love watching this band play in part because of how animated they are, and half-way through a marathon version of “Contraption/Soul Desert” drummer Mike Shoun — his veins bulging out of his neck like a pissed off Ren and Stimpy character — was totally in control but with a look of effort somewhere between fighting off an epileptic fit and vomiting. Meanwhile, Dwyer was shifting around like he belonged on a Rat Fink t-shirt, changing gears but never slowing down. (The closest they came is during the middle dirge of “Strawberries 1+2” off Floating Coffin.)

With a sound that’s not punk, or garage, or surf, or psych, but rather a distillation of each’s best aspect, Thee Oh Sees have honed a distinctive sound over the last decade that’s totally affecting, so that when Dwyer invites everyone who wants to come up on stage, with the promise that Brigid Dawson has an extra tambourine for someone and the warning that they better not knock anything over, a lot of people take them up on the offer.

It’s not complete chaos, because Thee Oh Sees have enough control to make it work.

Notes on some bands:

Surf Club: I haven’t seen these guys in a while, but the tail end of their set sounded good, as they’ve loosened up on stage and gone a bit from the light surf rock influence that — coming out of Stockton — plagued them with an irony (there’s no beach there!) that writers (like myself) jumped on.

Cool Ghouls: Sorry Tim Cohen, I can’t save my Kinks references if a band is going to open their set with a song that sounds exactly like Muswell Hillbillies-era Ray Davies. But “Natural Life” was a swell opening and showcased the backup horn section right off the bat, and I subsequently enjoyed this band, and lolled at Pat McDonald’s Beefheart-like goofy rendition of “Eenie Meenie Sassaleenie” as stage banter. (Probably my biggest laugh of the day. The only real competition came from host Anna Seregina, who delivered commentary between bands in a Yakov Smirnoff-style Eastern European accent, probably in reaction to the uphill battle of being a host at a day-time music festival: “I like music like the Dixie Chicks, but they are not playing today.” “Thanks to Aaron Axelson of Live 105 and Popscene. I like Live 105 and I like Popscene. but they do not play the Gypsy Kings so I do not like them.”)

Social Studies: They sounded so much better than opening for Hot Chip the other week. Most likely because as a band it relies less on any sort of posture and attitude and more on a big multi-guitar sound that plays better out in the open. Ditto for singer Natalia Rogovin, whose vocals tend to hang in the air a bit. Shame she was having technical issues with her microphone just as it she was slowing down and coming to the front on “Developer”.

Radiation City: It reminded me off a bigger, less twee Hospitality, without a distinctive sound, but I may have just been hangry.

Painted Palms: These guys sound like “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” meets “Star Guitar,” and hearing them take their time getting into “Falling Asleep” from their Canopy EP, it was clear they know how to structure a song. Occasionally I felt like they could lay off the la-la-la’s, and various oh-oh-oh choruses, if only to let the light, whimsical rhythms float on a bit more.

Bleached: Black bean burger from Doc’s of the Bay. Bad name/pun, great burger, amazing ketchup.

YACHT: Having caught the band recently at Noise Pop, and having just emerged from the pit of Thee Oh Sees, I didn’t make to the end of YACHT’s set. But the duo looked great, obviously.

Nothing could be more super duper than ‘So Super Duper’

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Nothing could be more super duper than ‘So Super Duper’

On Saturday evening in the Castro at 7pm, quite possibly one of the gayest things ever will occur, as queer comics artist Brian Andersen debuts his colorful new teen-friendly, straight-friendly, unabashedly queer So Super Duper volume, which stars “a little gay empathic hero (he can read emotions) named Psyche who doesn’t quite know he’s gay yet – even though it’s painfully obvious to everyone around him.”

It is so cute. And gloriously upping the pink quotient at the book launch, nationally televised diva Jason Brock will be hitting some high notes (he basically ruled the Bike Music Festival a few weeks back). Comics, superheroes, man-divas: It’s a gaysplosion.

I asked the infectiously smiley Brian to talk a little about the So Super Duper‘s inspiration, and he had some very interesting things to say about being a proud femme-y gay guy in a world of macho stereotypes. 

SF Bay Guardian Can you tell me a bit about what inspired you to create such a “super duper” gay hero?

Brian Andersen I’m inspired by my love of comic books, an everlasting and unwavering love for the medium since I was a skinny, gawky, goobery eight-year-old boy saving his recycling money to pick up the latest issue of the X-Men. I still live, breath, and love comic books 30 years and 100 pounds later. 

As for the hero, Psyche, himself, there does seem to be a backlash in the gay community on femme guys. So much attention is put on being “masculine” that often I get online trolls attacking me because my lead character is too “stereotypically gay.” Which is ironic because he’s based off myself! I’m a fruity gay. And so what? I don’t try to be; I’m not putting on some affectation or playing a role in an effort to be more “gay” (whatever that means).

I’m just me. If people can tell I’m gay from space I don’t care! I like being me and I don’t feel the need to try to put on a false masculine identity in order for me to “fit in” with what’s considered sexy and hot in my community. I’d rather be a sexy and hot slightly effeminate gay dude with a few extra pounds and a heart of gold! Just like Julia Roberts in ‘Pretty Woman.’ (She was a gay dude in that movie, right?)

SFBG Is this a “steamy” comic?

BA Although most local indie gay comics revolve around the erotic side of the spectrum (a side I fully and literally embrace) “So Super Duper” isn’t a gay comic based on gay sex (which I also fully and literally embrace. Often.). In fact, there is nary a sex scene at all in “So Super Duper.” There be smooches, oh yes, there be smooches, but overall the gayness of my character isn’t tied solely on whom he likes to sleep with.

SFBG Psyche is based on yourself — do you consider yourself a bit of a superhero?

BA Well, I’m actually a wanted felon from the Shi’ar interplanetary space system. OK, I grew up in small three-bedroom home in Northern California, I don’t presently have superpowers but as a boy I kept diving into toxic waste in the hopes it would eventually bear fruition, I went to Brigham Young University – so yes, I’m another one of those gay Mormons that keep popping up in SF. I didn’t come out as full-fledged homo until I was 26 (a lifetime in modern gay years), and I’ve been with the same man – my first boyfriend ever – for 12 years and we’re still not sick of each other. Yet.

SFBG That’s definitely something super duper!

SO SUPER DUPER LAUNCH PARTY

Sat/13, 7pm-8:30pm, free

Whatever Comics

548 Castro, SF.

www.sosuperduper.com

 

 

Unfinished business

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Unfinished business

THEATER About two years ago, a small band of Brits came on an exploratory mission from the South of England to the Bay Area. They wanted to discover what, if anything, they had in common with their American counterparts in the theater world. The trip ended with a party in the Mission, where UK performance duo Action Hero performed A Western for their new friends way out West.

And that might have been that. But a year later, in 2012, Action Hero (Gemma Paintin and James Stenhouse) was back, this time leading a workshop-residency at CounterPULSE. This collaboration with local artists (six people drawn mostly from the experimental dance and performance world) produced a one-night smorgasbord of performance, complete with a dining area, a menu, and a wait staff to bring you to your performance when it was ready.

The evening was also a lively mixer, in which a friendly, jocular man named Ben Francombe — head of the pedagogically radical theater department at the small arts-focused University of Chichester in West Sussex — was an enthusiastic participant.

As Francombe explained at the time, the school of performing arts at his university was eager to maintain contact with places like CounterPULSE as a partner in creative exchanges. “We share a commitment to the idea of ‘exchange’ in creative processes,” he wrote, in an email correspondence shortly before arriving in San Francisco, “and how artists develop methods of working through sharing ideas that are ‘foreign’ and different from their established practice. As an arts-based university, we are very interested in exploring ways in which our international connections stimulate our cultural ideas.”

He added, “As a department we have a unique commitment to developing small-scale artists, and exploring radical ideas on the nature of theater and performance through facilitating interesting artists in interesting creative contexts.”

That sounds good on paper, but what would it really mean in practice? The Chichester folks were the first to admit they didn’t really know but were seriously interested in finding out, as long as their counterparts here were game to work on it together.

It turned out many were. The call for a joint programs of exchange geared to artist-centered new work found receptive ears among the experimental dance and performance makers gathered around CounterPULSE — whose working methods are already more or less akin to the devised approach facilitated at Chichester — but it also attracted people in the theater scene, where devised work (ensemble-driven theater built from the ground up) has its champions in companies like Mugwumpin and the work of artists like playwright-director Mark Jackson and actor Beth Wilmurt, co-creators of The Companion Piece at Z Space in 2011. Indeed, Z Space was soon onboard for more contact across the pond. Meanwhile, Jackson, Wilmurt, and CounterPULSE’s Julie Phelps all went over to Chichester in February of this year to see the university’s theater-performance MA program in action.

This year, Chichester’s open-ended and open-minded dialogue with San Francisco’s theater and performance scene ramped up considerably with a just completed summer intensive at Z Space. And there’s more just ahead, including a festival of devised performance in October (at CounterPULSE) and, if all goes well, the inauguration sometime in 2014 of an international MFA program in theater-performance making exclusively linked to San Francisco.

“We decided to come here a couple of years ago,” says Louie Jenkins, a solo artist and Chichester faculty member who led the summer intensive in partnership with Mark Jackson. (Jackson has detailed the evolution of his involvement with, and his firsthand experience at, Chichester in an editorial promoting the intensive in Theatre Bay Area magazine.) “[We were] trying to understand what was happening here and whether what we did fit in with the ethos here. So we met with these different people. And the sense we had was that this was a fertile place.”

The summer intensive involved 16 artists, including several Chichester masters students mixed in with the disparate group of local theater, dance, and performance practitioners. It also came with a public component, designed to further introduce this type of work to local audiences. This included a showing of MA student work and a shrewd little piece by Box Tracy Theatre Dance Company (Nixx Strapp-Freeman and Valerie Watkinson) at CounterPULSE.

It also included last Saturday’s completely sold-out showing at ZBelow of work generated during the intensive — four pieces by four groupings of British and local artists. No director, no playwright, no set designers — the artists did everything, being responsible for the whole experience. The title of the evening was “Unfinished Business,” and yet it felt startlingly complete as an evening of performance. Still, the title is both apt and promising. At the same time, it was arguably one of the more exciting things to happen in a local theater for a long time.

“We often talk about accidents,” says Jenkins, whose own history as an artist and resident of San Francisco in the 1990s inspired Chichester’s initial foray into the Bay Area. “Out of this process of trying to make work, an accident will happen, and that becomes what the piece is about. I know it’s a luxury to have time and space to be able to look at the processes, but in [the usual mode of theatrical production] there is very little flexibility for mistakes to happen, for accidents to happen. I think that is when the excitement comes into theater.” 

For information on the MFA program as it emerges and for details on the formal launch in October 2013: www.chi.ac.uk/theatremaking

 

Rep Clock

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Schedules are for Wed/10-Tue/16 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $5-6. “OpenScreening,” Thu, 8. For participation info, contact programming@atasite.org. “Re-Inventing the Reel,” artist-made works from Elements of Image Making, Fri, 8. “Your Skin is the Fourth Wall,” video and performance work, Sat, 8.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. •The Night of the Hunter (Laughton, 1955), Thu, 7, and Cape Fear (Scorsese, 1991), Thu, 8:45. •The Exorcist (Friedkin, 1973), Fri, 7, and Suspiria (Argento, 1977), Fri, 9:30. The Craft (Fleming, 1996), Sat, 3, 8. With a “witch-tacular” performance starring Peaches Christ, Sharon Needles, Alaska Thunderfuck, and Honey Mahogany. This event, $30-80; more details at www.peacheschrist.com. “Ray Harryhausen Tribute:” The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (Juran, 1958), Sun, 3:05, 7, and Jason and the Argonauts (Chaffey, 1963), Sun, 1, 4:55, 8:45. Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel (Immordino Vreeland, 2011), Tue, 7, and Renoir (Bourdos, 2012), Tue, 8:45.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Augustine (Winocour, 2012), call for dates and times. Frances Ha (Baumbach, 2012), call for dates and times. Rebels With a Cause (Kelly, 2012), call for dates and times. 20 Feet From Stardom (Neville, 2013), call for dates and times. One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das (Frindel, 2012), July 12-18, call for times. Storm Surfers 3D (McMillan and Nelius, 2012), July 12-18, call for times.

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

“FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK” This week: Creek Park, 400 Sir Francis Drake, San Anselmo; www.filmnight.org. Free (donations appreciated). Footloose, Fri, 8. Union Square, Geary at Powell, SF. Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Allen, 2008), Sat, 8.

518 VALENCIA SF; www.laborfest.net. Donations accepted . International Working Class Film and Video Festival: •Shift Change (Dwarkin and Young, 2012), and One Shot, One Kill (Fujimoto, 2009), Wed, 7. Also ILWU Local 34 Hall, 801 Second St, SF. •The Contis: The Struggle Continues (Clatot, 2010), and On the Art of Water (Luzi and Bellino, 2012), Fri, 7.

JACK LONDON SQUARE Market lawn, Harrison at Water, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. Free. Hitchcock (Gervasi, 2012), Thu, sundown.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “A Call to Action: The Films of Raoul Walsh:” Regeneration (1915), Fri, 7; The Yellow Ticket (1931), Fri, 8:30; The Big Trail (1930), Sun, 6:30. “From the Archive: Treasures of Eastern European and Soviet Cinema:” Pastorale (Iosseliani, 1975), Wed, 7; Five Evenings (Mikhalkov, 1979), Sat, 6:30. “Dark Nights: Simenon and Cinema:” La tête d’un homme (Duvivier, 1933), Thu, 7; Stray Dog (Kurosawa, 1949), Sat, 8:30. “Castles in the Sky: Masterful Anime from Studio Ghibli:” Porco Rosso (Miyazaki, 1992), Sun, 4:30.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. A Band Called Death (Covino and Howlett, 2013), Wed-Thu, 7, 9. Maniac (Khalfoun, 2012), Wed-Thu, 7:15, 9:15. San Francisco Frozen Film Festival, indie films, Fri-Sat. More details at www.frozenfilmfestival.com. How to Make Money Selling Drugs (Cooke, 2013), July 12-18, 7, 9 (also Sat-Sun, 3, 5).

VOGUE 3290 Sacramento, SF; www.wordsondance.org. $20. “Words on Dance:” Maria Tallchief in Conversation with Evelyn Cisneros (1998), Mon, 7.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. André Gregory: Before and After Dinner (Kleine, 2012), Thu and Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 2.

Once upon a time in Oakland

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Once upon a time in Oakland

cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM By now you’ve heard of Fruitvale Station, the debut feature from Oakland-born filmmaker Ryan Coogler. With a cast that includes Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer and rising star Michael B. Jordan (The Wire, Friday Night Lights), the film premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, winning both the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize en route to being scooped up for distribition by the Weinstein Company. A few months later, Coogler, a USC film school grad who just turned 27, won Best First Film at Cannes.

Accolades are nice, especially when paired with a massive PR push from a studio known for bringing home little gold men. But particularly in the Bay Area, the true story behind Fruitvale Station eclipses even the most glowing pre-release hype. The film opens with real footage captured by cell phones the night 22-year-old Oscar Grant was shot in the back by BART police, a tragedy that inspired multiple protests and grabbed national headlines. With its grim ending already revealed, Fruitvale Station backtracks to chart Oscar’s final hours, with a deeper flashback or two fleshing out the troubled past he was trying to overcome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yy1znso-fc

Mostly, though, Fruitvale Station is very much a day in the life, with Oscar (Jordan, in a nuanced performance) dropping off his girlfriend at work, picking up supplies for a birthday party, texting friends about New Year’s Eve plans, and deciding not to follow through on a drug sale. Inevitably, much of what transpires is weighted with extra meaning — Oscar’s mother (Spencer) advising him to “just take the train” to San Francisco that night; Oscar’s tender interactions with his young daughter; the death of a friendly stray dog, hit by a car as BART thunders overhead. It’s a powerful, stripped-down portrait that belies Coogler’s rookie-filmmaker status.

I spoke with Coogler the day after Fruitvale Station‘s emotional local premiere at Oakland’s Grand Lake Theater.

San Francisco Bay Guardian How was the screening at the Grand Lake?

Ryan Coogler It was intense! Pretty much everybody at the screening had a stake in the film and the story: being from the Bay Area, being there when [Grant’s death] happened, being a member of Oscar’s family, being an employee of BART or a law enforcement officer, being a member of my family, or being someone who opened up their home or business to our film. Everybody was there under one roof, you know? In many ways, we wanted our film to be something that brought people together — and that screening was a personification of that.

SFBG The film doesn’t make Oscar out to be a saint; rather, it shows that he was a real human who’d made some serious mistakes. Were you careful to portray him that way?

RC Absolutely. We set out to examine him through the lens of his relationships with the people who knew him best. I think that’s often what’s not looked at, in terms of tragedies that get politicized like this: people forget that this guy was a person who mattered to specific people — and he couldn’t make it home to those people. When you know somebody intimately, you know their good qualities and their faults. You know their flaws firsthand, and [their behavior] affects you firsthand. I think it would have been a mistake not to look at the things he was struggling with in his life.

SFBG You were born in 1986, the same year as Oscar, and you’re both from the East Bay. Were there other things that drew you to his story?

RC Those commonalities were a major factor. But young people like Oscar Grant’s lives are lost constantly over violence, and I was really interested in exploring why it happens, and why people shouldn’t be OK with it.

Oscar was the kind of person who is often marginalized, both in the media and in fiction films. I thought that giving his story this type of personal perspective could be eye-opening for people that wouldn’t get to know a character like him in their own lives. So that’s what really drew me to it — to add a perspective that might promote some healing and some growth.

SFBG What was the reaction when members of Oscar’s community found out you were making the film?

RC The Bay Area is culturally diverse, but it’s also diverse as far as opinions go. Obviously, there were people on both sides of the fence, since this was a complicated situation. Some people were glad the story was being told; others were like, “That story doesn’t deserve to be told.” There were also a lot of opinions between those two ends of the spectrum. But overwhelmingly, the community supported the film in many ways, especially when they found out the approach we were taking.

SFBG Did you ever consider making the BART cops full-fledged characters, or did you always plan to just focus on Oscar?

RC I decided from the beginning that Oscar would be the focal point of the story. That was the type of film that I wanted to make, and that was the one perspective that I felt wasn’t really heard — because he’s not around to speak anymore. In terms of filmmaking, it was really a creative choice. You have these types of films that follow one character around, and we really wanted to follow Oscar and see how other characters bump off of him. In the scope of his day, the cops were only involved for a very small amount of time.

SFBG BART itself is almost a character in the film. It’s something that non-locals might not pick up on, but Bay Area residents will be able to tell how carefully you chose your locations to include it in the background.

RC When I was researching the film, I noticed a lot of things that were always there, but that I hadn’t thought about before. In San Francisco, BART is underground. You don’t see or hear it when you’re walking around. In the East Bay, however, it’s always above you. Oscar’s from the East Bay, and I’m from the East Bay, so that’s how I know BART. It’s something that you can always hear in the distance — and it’s something that rushes over you. 

 

FRUITVALE STATION opens Fri/12 in Bay Area theaters.

Alerts

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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WEDNESDAY 10

Laborfest: CCSF’s accreditation crisis City College of San Francisco, Mission Campus, 1125 Valencia, SF. www.saveccsf.org. 6-8pm, free. City College serves about 85,000 students and faces threat of closure in July 2014 if its appeals to the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, which has threatened to revoke the school’s accreditation in a year, aren’t successful. At this forum, Marty Hittelman, former president of the California Federal of Teachers, will speak on accreditation and the ACCJC. Sponsored by Save CCSF Coalition and AFT 2121.

THURSDAY 11

Laborfest panel: The press and the powerful First Unitarian Universalist Church, 1187 Franklin, SF. www.laborfest.net. 7-9pm, free. Gray Brechin, author of Imperial San Francisco, will join Westside Observer publisher George Wooding, former Berkeley Daily Planet reporter Richard Brenneman, and former Bay Guardian reporter Savannah Blackwell for a panel talk on the erosion of investigative journalism in the face of commercialization and monopolization of the media.

SUNDAY 14

Panel: The continuing battle for free expression Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission, SF. www.ginsbergfestival.com. 3-5pm, $12. Allen Ginsberg’s seminal poem, Howl, represented a landmark in the history of freedom of speech, obscenity issues, and the censorship of literary works. This panel talk, led by Peter Maravelis of City Lights Booksellers with panelists Rebecca Farmer of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Mark Rumold of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and James Wheaton of the First Amendment Project, will focus on the continuing fight against censorship today. Presented in conjunction with The Allen Ginsberg Festival and the exhibition Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg, at the Contemporary Jewish Museum.

TUESDAY 16

Green renters expo Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave, Berk. Ecologycenter.org. 7-9pm, free. Who says you have to own a home to live a green and energy efficient lifestyle? The Bay Area offers a myriad of resources for renters who wish to green their living spaces with efficiency upgrades, which can also help save money. Representatives from Rising Sun Energy Center, Community Energy Services Corps, the City of Berkeley Recycling Program, Stopwaste.org, the Ecology Center and others will be on hand to offer presentations, tips and advice, and to answer questions.

 

Stage Listings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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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

Endgame Royce Gallery, 2901 Mariposa, SF; www.itetheater.org. $18-24. Previews Thu/11, 8pm. Opens Fri/12, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through July 20. International Theater Ensemble performs Samuel Beckett’s Theatre of the Absurd classic.

Keith Moon: The Real Me Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $40. Opens Wed/10, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through July 28. Mick Berry performs the world premiere of his solo play about the Who drummer.

Wunderworld Creativity Theater, 221 Fourth St, SF; www.wunderworld.net. $10-15. Opens Sat/13, 11am and 2pm. Runs Sat-Sun, 2pm (also Sat, 11am; Sun, 5pm). Through Aug 11. Sara Moore and Michael Phillis wrote and star in this “world-premiere human cartoon,” a pantomime about an elderly Alice going back down the rabbit hole.

BAY AREA

The Loudest Man on Earth Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $19-73. Previews Wed/10-Fri/12, 8pm. Opens Sat/13, 8pm. Runs Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Aug 4. TheatreWorks presents the world premiere of Catherine Rush’s unconventional romantic comedy starring acclaimed actor Adrian Blue, who is deaf.

The Spanish Tragedy Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Bella, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-37.50. Opens Fri/12, 8pm. Presented in repertory Fri-Sun through Aug 11; visit website for performance schedule. Marin Shakespeare Company performs Thomas Kyd’s Elizabethan revenge tragedy.

The Wiz Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-60. Previews Thu/11, 7pm; Sat/13, 2pm. Opens Sat/13, 7pm. Runs Wed-Thu and Sat, 7pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, noon and 5pm. Through Aug 25. Berkeley Playhouse travels to Oz with the Tony-winning musical.

ONGOING

Betrayal Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, Sixth Flr, SF; www.offbroadwaywest.org. $40. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through July 20. Off Broadway West Theatre Company performs Harold Pinter’s out-of-sequence drama about an unfaithful married couple.

Can You Dig It? Back Down East 14th — the 60s and Beyond Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Aug 25. Solo performer Don Reed returns with a prequel to his autobiographical coming-of-age hits, East 14th and The Kipling Hotel.

Chance: A Musical Play About Love, Risk, and Getting it Right Alcove Theater, 415 Mason, Fifth Flr, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $40-60. Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm); Sun, 5pm. Through July 28. New Musical Theater of San Francisco presents Richard Isen’s world premiere work inspired by the writings of Oscar Wilde.

Dark Play, or Stories for Boys Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.theexit.org. $5-20. Fri/12-Sat/13, 9pm. Do It Live! Productions offers a steadily engrossing production of this slippery play from Chicago playwright Carlos Murillo, wherein a less-then-trusty teenage narrator, Nick (a clever, tightly wound, darkly charming Will Hand), addicted to “making shit up,” recounts his fateful internet-baiting of a fellow teen upon whom he had become fixated. As the unwitting object of Nick’s desire, sweet guy Adam (Adam Magil) gets pulled into an online love affair with Rachel (Amy Nowak), his first love, and — as fate and Nick would have it — Nick’s sister. But Rachel exists only online. And her equally fantastical evil stepdad (Nathan Tucker) soon intercedes, throwing Nick and Adam closer together. All of this disembodied desire floating around the ether leads to a physical climax even Freud might find a bit much, but the way there proves increasingly tense and interesting — if also a little frustrating itself at times in some strained plot points and, especially, its overwrought psychopathologizing of homoerotic desire. (Erik LaDue’s awkward set design also takes a little getting over.) But despite various flaws, the story intrigues, thanks to the solid performances from director Logan Ellis’s sure cast. Tucker and Kelly Rauch are dependable throughout in a varied range of sharp and often hilarious supporting roles. Nowak’s take on the vital (albeit imaginary) teen heroine is refreshingly straightforward. And Hand, while slightly slower to catch fire, ends up a persuasively complex figure at the center of it all. (Avila)

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

God of Carnage Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.com. $26-38. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 7. Shelton Theater peforms Yasmina Reza’s award-winning play about class and parenting.

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.

In A Daughter’s Eyes Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. $15. Thu/11-Sat/13, 8pm; Sun/14, 3pm. Brava! for Women in the Arts and Black Artists Contemporary Cultural Experience present the award-winning 2011 play by A. Zell Williams. It’s a tense, sophisticated exploration of the politics of class and race in the story of two daughters drawn together in uneasy alliance over a legal case that forever scarred each of their families. Based on the story of journalist-activist Mumia Abu-Jamal, placed on death row in 1982 for allegedly killing a Philadelphia police officer (he was removed form death row in 2012 but remains in prison), Williams’s well written and unpredictable two-hander takes place in the legal office of Rahema Abu-Salaam (a tough, tightly wound Britney Frazier), the young Stanford law graduate trying to get a new trial for her father, a well known Black Panther, author, and death row political prisoner. To this end, she’s convinced Katherine Tinney (a quietly forlorn, conflicted Lisa Anne Porter), daughter of the murdered white police officer with a checkered past, to craft a statement to the court requesting admittance of heretofore unexamined evidence. Director Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe and her excellent cast astutely draw out the subtleties and mounting tension in a timely and involving political play, convincingly re-set in West Oakland, that forgoes easy answers for a complicated portrait of competing filial claims to justice. (Avila)

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50″ plasma flat panel. Update: new episodes began May 15. (Avila)

So You Can Hear Me Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through July 20. A 23-year-old with no experience, just high spirits and big ideals, gets a job in the South Bronx teaching special ed classes and quickly finds herself in over her head. Safiya Martinez, herself a bright young woman from the projects, delivers this inspired accounting of her time not long ago in perhaps the most neglected sector of the public school system — a 60-minute solo play that makes up for its relatively slim plot with a set of deft, powerful, lovingly crafted characterizations. These complex portraits, alternately hysterical and startling, offer their own moving ruminations on a violent but also vibrant stratum of American society, deeply fractured by pervasive poverty and injustice and yet full of restive young personalities too easily dismissed, ignored, or crudely caricatured elsewhere. An effervescent, big-hearted, and very talented performer, Martinez’s own bounding personality and contagious passion for her former students (as complicated as that relationship was), makes this deeply felt tribute all the more memorable. (Avila)

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through August 24. Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a “self” unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his “Better Than You” weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed “seminar” and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma: The Next Cockettes Musical Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Extended through July 27. Thrillpeddlers and director Russell Blackwood continue their Theatre of the Ridiculous series with this 1971 musical from San Francisco’s famed glitter-bearded acid queens, the Cockettes, revamped with a slew of new musical material by original member Scrumbly Koldewyn, and a freshly re-minted book co-written by Koldewyn and “Sweet Pam” Tent — both of whom join the large rotating cast of Thrillpeddler favorites alongside a third original Cockette, Rumi Missabu (playing diner waitress Brenda Breakfast like a deliciously unhinged scramble of Lucille Ball and Bette Davis). This is Thrillpeddlers’ third Cockettes revival, a winning streak that started with Pearls Over Shanghai. While not quite as frisky or imaginative as the production of Pearls, it easily charms with its fine songs, nifty routines, exquisite costumes, steady flashes of wit, less consistent flashes of flesh, and de rigueur irreverence. The plot may not be very easy to follow, but then, except perhaps for the bubbly accounting of the notorious New York flop of the same show 42 years ago by Tent (as poisoned-pen gossip columnist Vedda Viper), it hardly matters. (Avila)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am. Through July 21. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns after a month-long hiatus with his popular, kid-friendly bubble show.

BAY AREA

Oil and Water This week: Rhythmix Cultural Works, 2513 Blanding, Alameda; www.sfmt.org. $15-25. Also Cedar Rose Park, 1300 Rose, Berk; www.sfmt.org. Free. Sat/13-Sun/14, 2pm. At various NorCal venues through Sept. 2. It’s a rough year for mimes, or at any rate for the San Francisco Mime Troupe who, after presenting 53 seasons of free theater in the parks of San Francisco (and elsewhere), faced a financial crisis in April that threatened to shut down this season before it even started. The resultant show, funded by an influx of last-minute donations, is one cut considerably closer to the bone than in previous years. With a cast of just four actors and two musicians, plus a stage considerably less ornate then usual, even the play has shrunk in scale, from one two-hour musical to two loosely-connected one-acts riffing on general environmentalist themes. In Deal With the Devil, a surprisingly sympathetic (not to mention downright hawt) Devil (Velina Brown) shows up to help an uncertain president (Rotimi Agbabiaka) regain his conscience and win back his soul, while in Crude Intentions adorable, progressive, same-sex couple Gracie (Velina Brown) and Tomasa (Lisa Hori-Garcia) wind up catering a “benefit” shindig for the Keystone XL Pipeline giving them the opportunity to perpetrate a little guerilla direct action on a bombastic David Koch (Hugo E Carbajal) with a “mole de petróleo” and a smartphone. Throughout, the performers remain upbeat if somewhat over-extended as they sing, dance, and slapstick their way to the sobering conclusion that the time to turn things around in the battles over global environmental protection is now — or never. (Gluckstern)

Sea of Reeds Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Aug 18. Josh Kornbluth’s brand new comedy — it involves atheism, oboes, and the Book of Exodus — opens at Shotgun Players “before it goes on Torah.”

Superior Donuts Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-30. Thu/11-Sat/13, 8pm; Sun/14, 2pm. Pear Avenue Theatre performs Tracy Letts’ comedy about the redemptive power of friendship.

This Is How It Goes Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Extended through July 28. An awkward love triangle between former high school classmates gets the caustic Neil LaBute treatment in Aurora Theatre Company’s production of This is How it Goes. Not content to merely skewer the familiar battles between the sexes, LaBute further prods his captive audience with the big stick of race relations, and the often unacknowledged prejudices that lurk in the hearts of men. And women. There are no innocents in this play, though each character certainly has moments where they play upon audience sympathies, only to betray them a few inflammatory lines later. As the marriage between the successful yet self-conscious African American alpha male Cody (Aldo Billingslea) and his neurotically placating Caucasian wife Belinda (Carrie Paff) erodes, the mostly affable (and former fat kid) “Man” (Gabriel Marin) insinuates himself in the middle of their troubled relationship, obviously still carrying the torch for Belinda he did 15 years ago — as well as the same wary animosity an unpopular kid carries for the star of the track team, in this case, Cody. All three actors do a very good job of shape-shifting between their middle-class Jekyll and Hyde selves, assisted in part by Marin’s amiable asides, which don’t so much lull the audience as tease them with the idea that things are about to get better, when they can only get worse. (Gluckstern)

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason, SF; www.improv.org. Fri, 8pm. Through July 26. $20. BATS Improv performs spontaneous shows based on current events.

“Botany’s Breath” Conservatory of Flowers, 100 JFK Dr, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.conservatoryofflowers.org. Wed/10-Sat/13, 7:30-8:30pm and 9-10pm (short, free outdoor video/dance performances take place each night from 8:30-9pm). $30. Epiphany Productions Sonic Dance Theater performs a site-specific contemporary dance work.

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sat/13, July 21, and 27, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“Courage” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri/12-Sat/13, 8pm. $10-15. Rasika Kumar presents a solo Bharatanatyam performance.

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

“Randy Roberts: Live!” Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. Tue, 9pm. Through July 23. $30. The famed female impersonator takes on Cher, Better Midler, and other stars.

“The Rape of Lucretia” Everett Auditorium, 450 Church, SF; www.merola.org. Thu/11, 7:30pm; Sat/13, 2pm. $25-60. Merola Opera Program presents Britten’s chamber opera.

Red Hots Burlesque El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.redhotsburlesque.com. Wed, 7:30-9pm. Ongoing. $5-10. Come for the burlesque show, stay for OMG! Karaoke starting at 8pm (no cover for karaoke).

“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.

“Union Square Live” Union Square, between Post, Geary, Powell, and Stockton, SF; www.unionsquarelive.org. Through Oct 9. Free. Music, dance, circus arts, film, and more; dates and times vary, so check website for the latest.

“Yerba Buena Gardens Festival” Yerba Buena Gardens, Mission between 3rd and 4th Sts, SF; www.ybgfestival.org. Through Oct 15. Free. This week: AXIS Dance Company, inMotion Dance Workshop (Sun/14, 1-2pm).

Dick Meister: Celebrating July Fourth with the enemy

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By Dick Meister
Dick Meister is a veteran Guardian columnist and freelance writer.

The Fourth of July, as we all know, is Independence Day. Hurray for George
Washington and the revolutionaries, down with King George and the British.
That sort of thing.

But have you ever wondered what it’s like on the other side? Have you ever
celebrated the Fourth across the border in Canada, in that territory settled
by pro-British “Loyalists” who fled the United States after the
Revolutionary War? It is a most peculiar experience for one accustomed to
the American way of viewing the events of 1776.

My wife Gerry and I observed the Fourth on the other side a few years back
— in Fredericton, the beautiful little capital of New Brunswick, named in
honor of King George’s second son, Frederic. Going into Fredericton meant
going into the camp of a former enemy — a friend now, but a former enemy
who openly hails the “Loyalists” who fought for them against us. I mean
people who opposed our revolution and never even said they were sorry.

Our first stop was the hallowed Loyalist Cemetery near the banks of the
Saint John River at the far end of Waterloo Row, burial ground of
Fredericton’s revered founders — anti-American tories, the lot of them. We
trudged down a muddy path to a ring of trees around a swampy grass clearing
in which the tory heroes lay, prepared to utter a revolutionary sentiment or
two over them in honor of the holiday.

We managed to get a quick look at a couple of thin, well-worn, tottering
slate headstones — but that was all. Before we could even open our mouths,
they struck — angry swarms of dread North woods mosquitoes. Backwards we
dashed. Quickly. Very quickly. We slapped at each other as we squished
awkwardly over the wet ground, batting mosquitoes off hair, face, neck,
arms, clothes. Much buzzing. Much stinging. They were everywhere. The
tories’ revenge. For days afterward, we bore the swollen red marks of the
Loyalists.

More insults were to come, in the Legislative Assembly chambers downtown.
The chambers are elegant: ornately carved desks, elaborately patterned silk
wall covering, thick crimson carpeting. But look up on the walls, in the
places of honor on either side of the Speaker’s chair. To the left there’s a
portrait of George III, the very monarch we made a revolution against, to
the right a portrait of his queen, Charlotte — and both painted by no less
a master than Joshua Reynolds.

George is in fact treated much better in New Brunswick than he generally is
in Great Britain. Historians there ridicule him for being a bit of a loon
and for such loony acts as overtaxing the American colonists and
overreacting to their protests by then waging war against them. In
Fredericton, they think George did the right thing.

In the United States, of course, we celebrate the end of colonialism. But in
Fredericton they seem to yearn for its return. Union Jacks fly from staffs
all over town and portraits of Queen Elizabeth and her consort hang in
government and private buildings everywhere. Ceremonial guards outside City
Hall wear the white pith helmets, long crimson jackets and black uniform
trousers of the British colonial soldier.

Just behind City Hall stand the restored quarters of the British garrison
that was stationed in the city for more than a century, one of the buildings
now housing a museum full of anti-revolutionary twaddle. Captions below
portraits of leading Loyalists praise them for “faith, courage, sacrifices”
against Yankees, who are for the most part described as violent, crude, rude
and vulgar. Here, too, a portrait of George III hangs in a place of honor.
Among the Loyalists singled out is that other fine fellow, Benedict Arnold,
who lived in New Brunswick before slinking off to Mother England in 1791. At
least the museum keepers have the decency to own up to Arnold’s “reputation
for crookedness.”

Loyalists also are favorites in New Brunswick’s neighboring province of Nova
Scotia, particularly in the capital of Halifax. There, the American
revolutionaries are portrayed as bad guys who would have made Nova Scotia a
U.S. colony if the British hadn’t beefed up their garrison on Citadel Hill,
a massive fortress that towers high above the city, guarding every access,
be it by land or by sea.

The champion Loyalist stronghold is the New Brunswick city of Saint John.
“Loyalist City,” it’s called. It has a Loyalist Burial Ground, naturally,
but also a Loyalist Trail, Loyalist Apartments, Loyalist Coin & Collectibles
shop, Loyalist Pub and, among many other things loyalistic, Loyalist Days,
an annual week-long festival honoring Saint John’s founders. At a high point
in the festival 100 or so appropriately costumed Loyalists — “His Majesty’s
Loyal Troops” — fend off a brigade of actors portraying American rebels
attempting to “capture” Saint John.

The latter-day Loyalists claimed to like us nevertheless. In Fredericton,
for instance, a half-dozen U.S. flags fluttered smartly outside the Lord
Beaverbrook Hotel, the city’s finest, and the marquee proclaimed, “We Salute
our American Friends. Happy 4th of July.”

Sure thing. But watch out for the mosquitoes.

Dick Meister is a veteran Guardian columnist and freelance writer.

(Bruce B. Brugmann, or B3 as he signs his emails and blogs, is the editor at large of the Bay Guardian and former editor and co-founder and co-publisher with his wife Jean Dibble, 1966-2012. He can be reached at the Bruce blog at sfbg.com.)

    

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Diversity in motion

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Diversity in motion

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE Last weekend, World Arts West’s San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival closed out four almost completely sold-out weekends of performances. It is tempting to take this 35-year-old celebration for granted. Yet despite universal accolades, excellent audiences, a steadily improving roster of artists, an increase in live music, and ever-better production values, EDF still does not receive the support it deserves.

Consider this: according to its own numbers, EDF’s budget this year was two-thirds of what it was five years ago. Foundation and corporate support is down, between 30 and 50 percent. This time around, even Grants for the Arts — a stalwart champion of the festival since the beginning — had to cut its contribution by close to 20 percent.

Add to these challenges the fact that in 2011, due to the complications of the Doyle Drive construction, EDF lost its home at the Palace of Fine Arts. The much smaller Lam Research Theater at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts cannot make up the lost ticket sales.

Of course, in these mean and lean times, all the arts suffer. But other institutions of similar size, track record, and scope have endowments that help tie them over. Not EDF. It’s paycheck to paycheck. One reason for EDF’s survival, however, is that the biggest supporters of the arts have always been the artists themselves. Most of this year’s 500 dancers and musicians performed for free. (Their companies get a small stipend.)

So perhaps it’s appropriate to give a small bouquet to these eminent artists who may have come from places most of us will never visit — 19 countries on five continents — but are bringing to both fellow dancers and audiences their perspectives on what dance can tell us about being human.

While the Palace’s loss deprived EDF of its preferred stage, spreading the dance to different venues was a successful experiment. On June 7, a free, mid-day gala opening rocked the rotunda at San Francisco City Hall; the following day, Charya Burt’s reimagining of sculptor Auguste Rodin’s 1906 encounter with classical Cambodian dance brought East and West together at the Legion of Honor Museum’s jewel box theater. Later in the festival, one could walk across the lawn at Yerba Buena Gardens, where Patrick Makuakane was teaching light-hearted contemporary hula — and then, at YBCA, watch Halau o Keikiali’i present dignified re-interpretations of sacred Hawaiian rituals, offering an inkling of the complexities of culturally-specific dance.

EDF presents cultural traditions that range from high classicism (Chinese Performing Arts of America) to folkloric community celebrations (Lowiczanie Polish Folk Ensemble). But the fest also embraces change within continuity. It gives newcomers a chance, and welcomes re-interpretations of the past.

Nine of this year’s 33 participants made their EDF debuts. Among them were Colectivo Anqari, which charmed with an urban reinterpretation of popular dance from the Andes in which the men both danced and played the pan pipes. The women’s contribution almost looked like an afterthought. Ceremonially stepping dancers, drummers, and a flute player from Ensohza Minyoushu performed Sansador from Northern Japan, its high degree of formality leavened by a leaping masked “spirit.” Antoine Hunter’s short Risk showed a fascinating mix of jazz and sign language by this deaf dancer. High fives, however, must go to the two dozen youngsters of Mona Khan Company Emerging Performers. Their rousing, Bollywood-inspired Jalsa showed them to be disciplined, tough, and exuberant.

A relatively recent phenomenon is dancers and companies who rethink their heritage and reframe it into the kind of individual expression that Western art encourages. Charya Burt is one of them. Another is La Tania Baile Flamenco, whose Tierra translated the quintessential male farruca into a women’s dance. The trio became a striking expression of female power — rigorous and utterly convincing. Solo artist Oreet incorporated modern and ballet vocabulary into her spunky belly dancing, making it a decidedly contemporary expression of womanhood.

I do find it problematic, however, that dance from Mexico — there are over two dozen folklórico groups in the Bay Area — inevitably is represented by suites that are happy, fast, and loud. Surely there are more varied ways to showcase that culture’s rich variety of traditions.

The Palace of Fine Arts is scheduled to re-open in 2015. The people at World Arts West would like the complex to become a center for art and culture from around the globe. Sounds like a good idea to me.

On the Cheap

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On the Cheap listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 3

“Fuck the Fourth Sale” AK Press Warehouse, 674-A 23rd St, Oakl; www.akpress.org. 4-8pm, free. Need a little inspiration to face tomorrow’s flag-waving masses? The publisher of anarchist and radical books opens up its warehouse for it annual summer sale: 25 percent off everything, plus a sale table of tomes going for $1-5.

“Salsa in the Square” Union Square between Post, Geary, Powell, and Stockton, SF; www.ybgf.org. 2-4pm, free. Cuban-born, Bay Area-based Fito Reinoso brings the party to Union Square in conjunction with the Yerba Buena Gardens festival and Union Square Live.

THURSDAY 4

Fourth of July at the Berkeley Marina 201 University, Berk; www.anotherbullwinkelshow.com. Noon-10pm, free. Doesn’t get more American than pony rides for kids, but Berkeley throws down the gauntlet with even more fun stuff: performances by the Blue Yonders, the John Brothers Piano Company, juggling and magic acts, and more, plus arts and crafts, dragon boats, and (obviously) fireworks.

Fourth of July at Pier 39 SF; www.pier39.com. Noon, free. If you dare to surf the crowds of tourists, turn up early in the day for kid rockers WJM (noon-2pm) and 1980s cover band Tainted Love (4-7pm). The reason for the season starts booming in the sky around 9:30pm, so get yourself situated at your favorite viewing spot and pray to the weather gods that fog doesn’t hide the whole show.

FRIDAY 5

“Oakland Art Murmur First Friday Gallery Walk” Various venues, Oakl; www.oaklandartmurmur.org. 6-9pm, free. Galleries and mixed-use art spaces in Oakland’s downtown, uptown, and Jack London Square areas open for evening hours; visit the event website for a map of venues.

SATURDAY 6

“Beast Crawl” Various uptown venues, Oakl; beastcrawl.weebly.com. 5-9pm, free. This second annual literary festival boasts the participation of over 140 writers at 26 venues (bars, galleries, cafés, etc.) Plan your crawl (and don’t miss any must-see readings) by picking up a map on “leg one” of the event (5-6pm).

SUNDAY 7

Poetry Unbound Art House Gallery and Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 472-3170. 5pm (sign-up; reading begins at 5:15pm), $5-10 donation (no one turned away for lack of funds). Wordsmiths John Curl, Clara Hsu, and Eanlai Cronin read, followed by a brief open mic.

TUESDAY 9

“Carol Tarlen Tribute” City Lights Books, 261 Columbus, SF; www.citylights.com. 7pm, free. Laborfest 2013 hosts this celebration of the release of Every Day Is an Act of Resistance: Selected Poems by Carol Tarlen, with Aggie Falk, Jack Hirschman, David Joseph, and others reading work by the late activist, a longtime North Beach resident.

Nina Schuyler Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF; www.booksmith.com. 7:30pm, free. The NorCal author reads from her latest, The Translator, about a woman who forgets her native language after a head injury and can understand only Japanese.

Stage Listings

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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

Chance: A Musical Play About Love, Risk, and Getting it Right Alcove Theater, 415 Mason, Fifth Flr, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $40-60. Previews Fri/5-Sat/6, 8pm. Opens Sun/7, 5pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm); Sun, 5pm. Through July 28. New Musical Theater of San Francisco presents Richard Isen’s world premiere work inspired by the writings of Oscar Wilde.

Oil and Water This week: Dolores Park, 18th St and Dolores, SF; www.sfmt.org. Free. Thu/4, 2pm. Also Peacock Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.sfmt.org. Free. Sat/6, 2pm. Also Washington Square Park, Columbus at Union, SF; www.sfmt.org. Free. Sun/7, 2pm. Also Mitchell Park, South Field, 600 E. Meadow, Palo Alto; www.sfmt.org. Tue/9, 7pm. Free. At various NorCal venues through Sept. 2. The San Francisco Mime Troupe presents its 54th annual summer season; this year’s performance is comprised of two one-act musicals about corporations and the environment: Crude Intentions and Deal With the Devil.

ONGOING

Abigail’s Party San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-100. Wed/3-Thu/4, 7pm; Fri/5-Sat/6, 8pm (also Sat/6, 3pm). Although it’s tempting to compare Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party to Edward Albee’s rancorous Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Abigail‘s escalating nastiness skews emphatically British, giving it as much in common with televised exports such as Fawlty Towers and the Ricky Gervais version of The Office. As with these, the humor in Abigail’s Party is of the bleakest and cruelest kind, and there are moments when the five Americans onstage don’t quite convey the wit that lurks beneath the ire, but when they do the results are hysterical and uncomfortable in equal measure. Though the party we witness is not Abigail’s (she’s having a teenage house party next door, the music of which keeps throbbing through the walls of Bill English’s attractively-appointed set) the adults-only cocktail party is just as awkward as any high school mixer. Hosted by the fiercely self-absorbed Beverly (Susi Damilano) and her obnoxiously classist husband Laurence (Remi Sandri), the guest list includes the mousy Angela (Allison Jean White), her monosyllabic husband Tony (Patrick Kelley Jones), and Abigail’s ill-at-ease mum, Susan (Julia Brothers), who’s agreed to keep out of the house during her daughter’s wild soiree. The acting — as well as Brendan Aanes’ sound design, Jacqueline Scott’s props, and Tatjana Genser’s costuming — is pitch perfect, but unless you haven’t already been to enough bad parties, you might find it difficult to sit through this one. If you do, don’t be surprised if you find yourself secretly envying Laurence by the end of the play — at least he finds a way out. (Gluckstern)

Betrayal Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, Sixth Flr, SF; www.offbroadwaywest.org. $40. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through July 20. Off Broadway West Theatre Company performs Harold Pinter’s out-of-sequence drama about an unfaithful married couple.

Can You Dig It? Back Down East 14th — the 60s and Beyond Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Aug 25. Solo performer Don Reed returns with a prequel to his autobiographical coming-of-age hits, East 14th and The Kipling Hotel.

Dark Play, or Stories for Boys Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.theexit.org. $5-20. Fri-Sat, 9pm. Through July 13. Do It Live! Productions offers a steadily engrossing production of this slippery play from Chicago playwright Carlos Murillo, wherein a less-then-trusty teenage narrator, Nick (a clever, tightly wound, darkly charming Will Hand), addicted to “making shit up,” recounts his fateful internet-baiting of a fellow teen upon whom he had become fixated. As the unwitting object of Nick’s desire, sweet guy Adam (Adam Magil) gets pulled into an online love affair with Rachel (Amy Nowak), his first love, and — as fate and Nick would have it — Nick’s sister. But Rachel exists only online. And her equally fantastical evil stepdad (Nathan Tucker) soon intercedes, throwing Nick and Adam closer together. All of this disembodied desire floating around the ether leads to a physical climax even Freud might find a bit much, but the way there proves increasingly tense and interesting — if also a little frustrating itself at times in some strained plot points and, especially, its overwrought psychopathologizing of homoerotic desire. (Erik LaDue’s awkward set design also takes a little getting over.) But despite various flaws, the story intrigues, thanks to the solid performances from director Logan Ellis’s sure cast. Tucker and Kelly Rauch are dependable throughout in a varied range of sharp and often hilarious supporting roles. Nowak’s take on the vital (albeit imaginary) teen heroine is refreshingly straightforward. And Hand, while slightly slower to catch fire, ends up a persuasively complex figure at the center of it all. (Avila)

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

God of Carnage Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.com. $26-38. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 7. Shelton Theater peforms Yasmina Reza’s award-winning play about class and parenting.

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.

In A Daughter’s Eyes Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. $15. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through July 14. Brava! For Women in the Arts and Black Artists Contemporary Cultural Experience presents the West Coast premiere of A. Zell Williams’ tale of two women: the daughter of a man on death row, and the daughter of the man he’s been convicted of killing.

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50″ plasma flat panel. Update: new episodes began May 15. (Avila)

So You Can Hear Me Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through July 20. A 23-year-old with no experience, just high spirits and big ideals, gets a job in the South Bronx teaching special ed classes and quickly finds herself in over her head. Safiya Martinez, herself a bright young woman from the projects, delivers this inspired accounting of her time not long ago in perhaps the most neglected sector of the public school system — a 60-minute solo play that makes up for its relatively slim plot with a set of deft, powerful, lovingly crafted characterizations. These complex portraits, alternately hysterical and startling, offer their own moving ruminations on a violent but also vibrant stratum of American society, deeply fractured by pervasive poverty and injustice and yet full of restive young personalities too easily dismissed, ignored, or crudely caricatured elsewhere. An effervescent, big-hearted, and very talented performer, Martinez’s own bounding personality and contagious passion for her former students (as complicated as that relationship was), makes this deeply felt tribute all the more memorable. (Avila)

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through August 24. Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a “self” unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his “Better Than You” weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed “seminar” and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma: The Next Cockettes Musical Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Extended through July 27. Thrillpeddlers and director Russell Blackwood continue their Theatre of the Ridiculous series with this 1971 musical from San Francisco’s famed glitter-bearded acid queens, the Cockettes, revamped with a slew of new musical material by original member Scrumbly Koldewyn, and a freshly re-minted book co-written by Koldewyn and “Sweet Pam” Tent — both of whom join the large rotating cast of Thrillpeddler favorites alongside a third original Cockette, Rumi Missabu (playing diner waitress Brenda Breakfast like a deliciously unhinged scramble of Lucille Ball and Bette Davis). This is Thrillpeddlers’ third Cockettes revival, a winning streak that started with Pearls Over Shanghai. While not quite as frisky or imaginative as the production of Pearls, it easily charms with its fine songs, nifty routines, exquisite costumes, steady flashes of wit, less consistent flashes of flesh, and de rigueur irreverence. The plot may not be very easy to follow, but then, except perhaps for the bubbly accounting of the notorious New York flop of the same show 42 years ago by Tent (as poisoned-pen gossip columnist Vedda Viper), it hardly matters. (Avila)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am. Through July 21. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns after a month-long hiatus with his popular, kid-friendly bubble show.

BAY AREA

Dear Elizabeth Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $24-77. Wed/3 and Sun/7, 2 and 7pm; Fri/5-Sat/6, 8pm (also Sat/6, 2pm). Berkeley Rep performs Sarah Ruhl’s play written in the form of letters between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell.

George Gershwin Alone Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-77. Wed/3 and Sun/7, 2 and 7pm; Fri/5-Sat/6, 8pm (also Sat/6, 2pm). Hershey Felder stars in his celebration of the music and life of composer George Gershwin.

Sea of Reeds Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Previews Wed/3-Thu/4, 8pm. Opens Fri/5, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Aug 18. Josh Kornbluth’s brand new comedy — it involves atheism, oboes, and the Book of Exodus — opens at Shotgun Players “before it goes on Torah.”

Superior Donuts Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-30. Wed/3 and Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show Thu/4); Sun, 2pm. Through July 14. Pear Avenue Theatre performs Tracy Letts’ comedy about the redemptive power of friendship.

This Is How It Goes Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Extended through July 28. An awkward love triangle between former high school classmates gets the caustic Neil LaBute treatment in Aurora Theatre Company’s production of This is How it Goes. Not content to merely skewer the familiar battles between the sexes, LaBute further prods his captive audience with the big stick of race relations, and the often unacknowledged prejudices that lurk in the hearts of men. And women. There are no innocents in this play, though each character certainly has moments where they play upon audience sympathies, only to betray them a few inflammatory lines later. As the marriage between the successful yet self-conscious African American alpha male Cody (Aldo Billingslea) and his neurotically placating Caucasian wife Belinda (Carrie Paff) erodes, the mostly affable (and former fat kid) “Man” (Gabriel Marin) insinuates himself in the middle of their troubled relationship, obviously still carrying the torch for Belinda he did 15 years ago — as well as the same wary animosity an unpopular kid carries for the star of the track team, in this case, Cody. All three actors do a very good job of shape-shifting between their middle-class Jekyll and Hyde selves, assisted in part by Marin’s amiable asides, which don’t so much lull the audience as tease them with the idea that things are about to get better, when they can only get worse. (Gluckstern)

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. July 13, 21, and 27, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“Comedy Returns to El Rio” El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Mon/8, 8pm. $7-20. With Eve Meyer, Johan Miranda, Kate Willett, Sammy Obeid, and Lisa Geduldig.

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

“Performance Making Showcase” Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. Sat/6, 7:30pm. Free. Work created by participants in the University of Chichester (UK)’s Performance Making Institute.

“Queer Rebels of the Harlem Renaissance” Performances: African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton, SF; www.queerrebels.com. Fri/5-Sat/6, 8pm. $15-20. Films: New Parkway, 474 24th St, Oakl; www.queerrebels.com. Sun/7, noon. $7-10. The National Queer Arts Festival presents this showcase of queer black performers, plus films by and about the same.

“Randy Roberts: Live!” Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. July 9, 16, and 23, 9pm. $30. The famed female impersonator takes on Cher, Better Midler, and other stars.

Red Hots Burlesque El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.redhotsburlesque.com. Wed, 7:30-9pm. Ongoing. $5-10. Come for the burlesque show, stay for OMG! Karaoke starting at 8pm (no cover for karaoke).

“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.

“Union Square Live” Union Square, between Post, Geary, Powell, and Stockton, SF; www.unionsquarelive.org. Through Oct 9. Free. Music, dance, circus arts, film, and more; dates and times vary, so check website for the latest.

“Yerba Buena Gardens Festival” Yerba Buena Gardens, Mission between 3rd and 4th Sts, SF; www.ybgfestival.org. Through Oct 15. Free. This week: “Accordion Daze,” Sat, noon-3. *

 

Rep Clock

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Schedules are for Wed/2-Tue/9 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-10. Directing Dissent (Hamacher, 2013), Sat, 8.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-13. •Jaws (Spielberg, 1975), Wed, 2:15, 7, and Rocky (Avildsen, 1976), Wed, 4:35, 9:25. •Josie and the Pussycats (Elfont and Kaplan, 2001), Fri, 7:30; Velvet Goldmine (Haynes, 1998), Fri, 9:30; Wild in the Streets (Shear, 1968), Fri, 11:59. “Scary Cow Independent Film Festival,” Sat, 3. This event, $10-25; visit www.scarycow.com for more details. “50th Anniversary Restoration:” Cleopatra (Mankiewicz, 1963), Sun, 2, 7.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Fill the Void (Burshtein, 2012), call for dates and times. Frances Ha (Baumbach, 2012), call for dates and times. Rebels With a Cause (Kelly, 2012), call for dates and times. 20 Feet From Stardom (Neville, 2013), call for dates and times. Augustine (Winocour, 2012), July 5-11, call for times.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $10. “Midnight Movies:” Mr. Hush (Madison, 2011), Fri, midnight. Hosted by Miss Misery.

“FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK” This week: Creek Park, 400 Sir Francis Drake, San Anselmo; www.filmnight.org. Free (donations appreciated). Super 8 (Abrams, 2011), Fri, 8; Return of the Jedi (Marquand, 1983), Sat, 8.

NEW PARKWAY 474 24th St, Oakl; www.thenewparkway.com. Free. “First Friday Shorts,” featuring short films made by local youth, Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “A Call to Action: The Films of Raoul Walsh:” Sailor’s Luck (1933), Fri, 7; Me and My Gal (1932), Fri, 8:40. “A Theater Near You:” Port of Shadows (Carné, 1938), Sat, 6:30; Kuroneko (Shindo, 1968), Sat, 8:30. “Castles in the Sky: Masterful Anime from Studio Ghibli:” Pom Poko (Takahata, 1994), Sun, 4:30.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. Hey Bartender! (Tirola, 2013), Wed-Thu, 7, 9:15. Ain’t In It For My Health: A Film About Levon Helm (Hatley, 2013), Wed, 7:15, 9:15. A Band Called Death (Covino and Howlett, 2013), July 5-11, 7, 9. Maniac (Khalfoun, 2012), July 5-11, 7:15, 9:15.

VICTORIA 2961 16th St, SF; teatrofrida.eventbrite.com/#. $12-35. “Fiestas Fridas:” •Frida: Naturaleza Viva (1984), and The Life and Death of Frida Kahlo as told to David and Karen Crommie (1966), Sat, 5. Followed by “Somos Frida,” a performance showcase. *

 

Our Weekly Picks

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WEDNESDAY 3

PANTyRAiD

Seven years after meeting in Costa Rica, Martin Folb and Josh Mayer are still doing their thing as seductive bass collaboration PANTyRAiD, even while each has achieved solo success as the Glitch Mob’s Ooah and MartyParty respectively. New album PillowTalk has the right touch of move and groove while keeping an arm’s length from booming, bro-centric dubstep or ear-shattering electro. PANTyRAids like to jump from genre to genre, dropping some trap here and some glitch there, keeping listeners on their toes. Standout track “Just For You” showcases the duo’s slick handling of hip-hop drums, brooding basslines, and melodic synths. Call it mood music for the bass-minded. (Kevin Lee)

10pm, $20-25

1015 Folsom

(415) 431-1200

www.1015.com

Fruition

Upright bass, acoustic guitars, and mandolin (quickly strummed and finger-picked) fill out Fruition’s sound, but don’t clutter its performance. And this show will feature Bridget Law of Elephant Revival, an addition that only upgrades the night. Bluegrass itself requires a lot of emotion and passion to sound right, but Fruition harbors a certain old-back-road, last drop of sunlight through the trees kind of passion. “Make me an angel that flies from Montgomery,” sings the group in gorgeous country harmonies, in its cover of John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery.” (Hillary Smith)

7pm, free

Brick and Mortar Music Hall

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 371-1631

www.brickandmortarmusic.com

 

THURSDAY 4

Oil and Water

It just wouldn’t be summer in the Bay Area without the San Francisco Mime Troupe — so thank goodness the veteran company was able to raise enough funds (in part through crowdsourcing, a testament to its loyal supporters) for its 54th season. Though the 2013 musical will still be performed mostly for free, and comes complete with a political theme (corporations vs. environmental activists), the format is different this year. The show is broken into two musical one-acts: Crude Intentions and Deal With the Devil, both written by Pat Moran And Adolfo Mejia. Per tradition, the show opens July 4 in Dolores Park before spreading its jolly satire ’round NorCal parks through Labor Day; check website for additional shows this week in Golden Gate Park and beyond. (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Sept. 2

Thu/4, 2pm, free

Dolores Park

18th St. and Dolores, SF

www.sfmt.org

 

Giraffage

San Francisco-based futuristic dream R&B producer Charlie Yin has made some big leaps in 2013, with a performance at SXSW along with upcoming gigs at Southern California’s Lightning in a Bottle festival and SF’s Treasure Island Music Festival. His new album Needs on Los Angeles label Alpha Pup Records is a thesis in music manipulation, a comprehensive counterargument to straightforward 4/4. Vocal samples are up-shifted in tempo to lend a playful mood. Tracks are sometimes dipped in sonic mud halfway through, decelerating to a crawl before jumping back to normal time. But Needs never feels jerky, which owes to Yin’s tight transitions and harmonious melodies throughout. The sensual, infectious, shifty third track “Money” sounds like it will be played in lounges in 2050. (Lee)

With Mister Lies, Bobby Browser

9:30pm, $13–$15

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

 

FRIDAY 5

“Fiestas Fridas”

There’s a reason this three-day event is subtitled “celebrating the 103rd and 106th birthday of Frida Kahlo:” the iconic Mexican painter was actually born in 1907, but she liked to say she was born in 1910 — the year the Mexican revolution began. The fest kicks off with a gala dinner featuring Kahlo’s own recipes (cooked by Puerto Alegre, Gracias Madre, Mijita, and other restaurants), with proceeds going to Cine + Mas; Saturday brings film screenings and Kahlo-inspired performances. The fest wraps up Sunday with an afternoon and evening of live art, dance, DJs, and more family-friendly fun, like a costume contest with a variety of categories: Best Frida and Diego, Best “Little Frida,” and Best “FriDRAG.” (Eddy)

Opening dinner tonight, 6-11pm, $50

Mission Cultural Center

2868 Mission, SF

Film screening and performance, Sat/6, 5-11pm, $35

Victoria Theater

2961 16th St, SF

Community event, Sun/7, 2-9pm, $10 suggested donation

Women’s Building

3543 18th St, SF

www.fiestasfridassf.com

 

 

Johnny Mathis with San Francisco Symphony

Legendary crooner Johnny Mathis’ family moved to San Francisco when he was very young, and it was here in the city that he developed his love for music; while studying at San Francisco State University, he began performing at the Black Hawk nightclub and eventually garnered the attention of some high-profile promoters. In early 1956, Mathis recorded his first album, and he continues to this day. Singing hit songs such as “Chances Are,” “Wonderful! Wonderful!,” “A Certain Smile,” and many more, Mathis has been going strong for nearly 70 years now — don’t miss you chance to see a true icon this weekend, performing with the San Francisco Symphony (Sean McCourt)

Also Sat/6, 8pm, $20–$125

Davies Symphony Hall

201 Van Ness, SF

(415) 864-6000

www.sfsymphony.org

 

Accidental Bear Queer Summer Tour

What, you thought just because DOMA got overturned and same-sex couples might be getting married again this summer that our work was over? And also that we’re too hungover from Pride to start partying again? Queer mental health issues and suicide risk are still a huge concern in the community, and hyperenergetic SF gay blogger Mike Enders, a.k.a Accidental Bear, is trying to break the stigma and bring awareness — by throwing a big, fun, charitable concert and party, of course. Colorful gay novelty rappers Rica Shay and Big Dipper (let the double entendre zingers fly!), dazzlingly alien outfit Conquistador, local electro heartthrobs Darling Gunsel, and soulful tunesmith Logan Lynn fill the bill, with proceeds going to the Stonewall Project, the Ali Forney Center, and more. (Marke B.)

8pm, $15

Beatbox

314 11th St., SF.

www.accidentalbear.com

 

 

SATURDAY 6

Beast Crawl

Now in its second year, Beast Crawl is a free literary festival featuring more than 140 writers in one night. It’s probably pretty hard to go wrong with that many options. Spread out over 26 local galleries, restaurants, bars, and cafes, the annual event offers a place and performance for everyone. Beast Crawl has four legs — the first one beginning at 5pm, and the last one (the after-party) starts at 9pm. Visit the Uptown, have a drink at Telegraph Beer Garden, open your eyes at Awaken Café, all while taking in some of the best Bay Area authors, poets, and even stand-ups. You know how you always hear people say “I went to this rad little poetry reading the other night,” and then wonder where the hell they always are? Well, here’s your chance to finally check out one, or 20. (Smith)

5pm, free

Uptown, Oakland

(415) 706-9128

beastcrawl.weebly.com

 

Audiobus Mission Creek

Properly executed, music should take you on a mental voyage, a mini musical vacation, if you will. It’s not to remove all thought, but to direct your attention elsewhere momentarily, in the direction the sound dictates. The AudioBus, a mobile venue, will delete the figurative from that jaunt, and take you on a literal trip down a specific San Francisco route. For AudioBus Mission Creek — a Soundwave SonicLAB event — sound artists Jeffy Ray and Jorge Bachmann will sonically guide passengers through the old and new Mission District, narrated by Adobe Books’ Andrew Mckinley. Together, they’ll explore “profound themes of the past, from nostalgia to displacement, and the future ideas of technology and possibility.” The sound-tour will leave the temporary station twice tonight, once for a sunset tour and then again on a starry night ride. A reminder: the bus waits for no one, so don’t miss your stop. (Emily Savage)

8 and 9pm, $16

Bus station: Adobe Books

3130 24th St., SF

www.projectsoundwave.com

 

Fillmore Jazz Festival

Live jazz music, crafts, and gourmet food, all in one place (and most of it is free to check out). The Fillmore Jazz Festival is the largest of its kind on the West Coast, reportedly luring in a mind-blowing 100,000 visitors over the two-day event. Considering the history and popularity of the neighborhood — and the sheer amount of bands and musicians playing the fest — that number starts to make sense. Sultry local vocalist Kim Nalley will bring her jazzy blues blend to the stage, as will instrumentalist-composer Peter Apfelbaum, Mara Hruby, John Santos Sextet, Beth Custer Ensemble, Crystal Money Hall, Bayonics, and Afrolicious, among many others. Stroll through the 12 blocks, and you’re bound to find some acts that give you a reason to pause. (Smith)

Also Sun/7, 10am-6pm, free

Fillmore Street between Jackson and Eddy, SF (800) 310-6563

www.fillmorejazzfestival.com

 

Woolfy

I miss Kevin Meenan’s show listings at epicsauce.com. At one time it was a go-to for highlights of small shows going on in the city, filler free, and super reliable for finding a new act to see live. Meenan has since dropped the showlist (perhaps made redundant with the availability of social apps), but is still active with his regular event Push The Feeling. This edition features a DJ set by English born, LA musician, Simon “Woolfy” James, whose eclectic and spacey post-punk dance sensibility first got my attention with the caressingly Balearic “Looking Glass” and the recent James Murphy-esque snappy cut on Permanent Release, “Junior’s Throwin’ Craze.” (Ryan Prendiville)

With Bruse (Live), YR SKULL, and epicsauce DJs

9pm-2am, $6, free before 10 w/ RSVP

Underground SF

424 Haight, SF

www.undergroundsf.com

 

SUNDAY 7

Cleopatra

The backstory that looms over 1963’s Cleopatra is very nearly as glorious as the film itself, which ain’t no small feat; Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s epic take on the legendary Queen of Egypt ran famously over-budget, but damn if all those dollars aren’t one hundred percent visible, with lavish sets, costumes, and blingy whatnots filling every frame. But really, who cares about overapplied eye make-up and historical inaccuracies when you have the Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton romance playing out before your very eyes? There’s no better way to relive the drama — oh, the drama — than in this 50th anniversary restored DCP screening, a one-day-only affair at the Castro. (Eddy)

2 and 7pm, $8.50–$11

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.castrotheatre.com

 

TUESDAY 9

Chef Hubert Keller

Hubert Keller is a culinary celebrity as a multiple James Beard Award winner and the owner and executive chef of trendy restaurants across the country, including the highly-praised San Francisco-based Fleur de Lys. But the classically trained French chef is not all expensive, showy cuisine — during the first season of Top Chef Masters, he earned the respect of broke college kids and amateur foodies everywhere when he resourcefully used a dorm room shower to cool a pot of pasta. Last year, he collaborated with co-author Penolope Wisner to publish Hubert Keller’s Souvenirs: Stories and Recipes from My Life, a memoir-cookbook featuring instructions on 120 dishes. (Lee)

In conversation with Narsai David

6pm, $25 (students, $7)

Commonwealth Club

595 Market, SF

(415) 597-6700 www.commonwealthclub.org

Heads Up: 6 must-see concerts this week

Tony Robles
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Not to give this family any more attention, but here I go. Are you aware of the fact that the Balloon Boy is now a long-hair tween, in a darker Hanson trio with his brothers, singing operatic heavy metal bits? It’s all here, in a Gawker long-read post. The article notes that the group (Heene Boyz) considers itself the “World’s Youngest Metal Band.” — don’t we have that already here in the Bay with our own Haunted by Heroes? Take that, Balloon Boy. (Whatever, technically they’re billed as “The World’s Youngest Rock Band.”)

But my real point is this: America, home of the free, free to whore oneself and one’s family out on reality TV, to sneak kids into homemade balloon UFOs, to shoot for fame from birth. Happy Fourth of July week, everyone. Celebrate it with the bedlam of Bob Log III, the annual Big Time Freedom Fest at El Rio or Fillmore Jazz Festival, dreamy R&B producer Giraffage, or, the snacktastic Burger Boogaloo fest with headliners Redd Kross, the Oblivians, the Trashwomen, and more! Paint your face red, white, and blue, stick a sparkler behind your ear, and rage out into the night, it’s what the founding fathers would have wanted.

Here are your must-see Bay Area concerts this week/end:

Bob Log III
What’s more US of A than a lone multi-instrumentalist on stage in a glittery bodysuit and microphone-affixed motorcycle helmet, looking like a futuristic Bowie-esque alien, and sounding like a punky blues madman, or a scrappier Bo Diddley meets the Coachwhips, on slide guitar. As the Kansas City Star puts it, “If he hired a drummer, ditched his helmet, and requested a standard swizzle stick to stir his scotch, Bob Log III would still draw an audience. His music is that entertaining.”
With The Okmoniks, Los Vincent Black Shadows (Mexico City).
Wed/3, 8:30pm, $15
Hemlock Tavern
1131 Polk, SF
www.hemlocktavern.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQmX4LzaDDU

Big Time Freedom Fest
It’s back, El Rio’s annual Fourth of July patio party Big Time Freedom Fest is here again, and this time brings out the worthy local Black Sabbath tribute act that is Bobb Saggeth, fronted by wailing female powerhouse Meryl Press. The band isn’t nearly as active as I’d prefer, but always plays parties on Halloween and Fourth of July, usually at places like Thee Parkside, Hemlock Tavern, and yes, El Rio. Plus, newish local heavy-psych band Golden Void headlines the show, and Wild Eyes, Couches, and Upside Drown open. And it’s all on the back patio, so you can officially say you spent the holiday outdoors, (with your favorite local rock‘n’rollers).
Thu/4, 3:30pm, $8
El Rio
3158 Mission, SF
www.elriosf.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebe9BtnD6wQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmXB7-plWrY

Giraffage
“San Francisco-based futuristic dream R&B producer Charlie Yin has made some big leaps in 2013, with a performance at SXSW along with upcoming gigs at Southern California’s Lightning in a Bottle festival and SF’s Treasure Island Music Festival. His new album Needs on Los Angeles label Alpha Pup Records is a thesis in music manipulation, a comprehensive counterargument to straightforward 4/4. Vocal samples are up-shifted in tempo to lend a playful mood. Tracks are sometimes dipped in sonic mud halfway through, decelerating to a crawl before jumping back to normal time. But Needs never feels jerky, which owes to Yin’s tight transitions and harmonious melodies throughout. The sensual, infectious, shifty third track “Money” sounds like it will be played in lounges in 2050.” — Kevin Lee
With Mister Lies, Bobby Browser
Thu/4, 9:30pm, $13–$15
Rickshaw Stop
155 Fell
(415) 861-2011
www.rickshawstop.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PVWP1Zrh4Q

Fillmore Jazz Festival
“Live jazz music, crafts, and gourmet food, all in one place (and most of it is free to check out). The Fillmore Jazz Festival is the largest of its kind on the West Coast, reportedly luring in a mind-blowing 100,000 visitors over the two-day event. Sultry local vocalist Kim Nalley will again bring her jazzy blues blend to the stage, as will instrumentalist-composer Peter Apfelbaum, Mara Hruby, John Santos Sextet, Beth Custer Ensemble, Crystal Money Hall, Bayonics, and Afrolicious, among many others.” — Hillary Smith
Sat/6-Sun/7, 10am-6pm, free
Fillmore Street between Jackson and Eddy, SF (800) 310-6563
www.fillmorejazzfestival.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XRE8FSkxQg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hall_F7pTbg

Woolfy
“I miss Kevin Meenan’s show listings at epicsauce.com. At one time it was a go-to for highlights of small shows going on in the city, filler free, and super reliable for finding a new act to see live. Meenan has since dropped the showlist (perhaps made redundant with the availability of social apps), but is still active with his regular event Push The Feeling. This edition features a DJ set by English born, LA musician, Simon ‘Woolfy’ James, whose eclectic and spacey post-punk dance sensibility first got my attention with the caressingly Balearic “Looking Glass” and the recent James Murphy-esque snappy cut on Permanent Release, ‘Junior’s Throwin’ Craze.’” — Ryan Prendiville
With Bruse (Live), YR SKULL, and epicsauce DJs
Sat/6, 9pm-2am, $6, free before 10 w/ RSVP
Underground SF
424 Haight, SF
www.undergroundsf.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9WMPPiBimc

Burger Boogaloo
We blurbed this early: everyone is talking about the disparate headliners early LA punk band Redd Kross and Modern Lover/singer-songwriter Jonathan Richman — and rightfully so, they are incredible — but can we also take a minute to thank satan for the Trashwomen addition to the lineup? For those somehow unaware, the Trashwomen are Bay Area noisy surf-punk royalty, born of the ‘90s, and featuring Tina Lucchesi (of every band, ever), Danielle Pimm, and Elka Zolot (Kreayshawn’s hot mama). Check the paper this week for an interview with the Trashwomen. And check Mosswood Park for a sloppy soul dance party.
With the Zeroes, Oblivians, Fuzz, Mikal Cronin, Audacity, Guantanamo Baywatch, Mean Jeans, Pangea
Sat/6-Sun/7, noon-9pm, $25
Mosswood Park
3612 Webster, Oakl.
www.burgerboogaloo.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP4hxwyWxHY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJx5c_cFq5o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI3XM-X72eQ

What’s hot in Siberia

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What’s hot in Siberia

arts@sfbg.com

THEATER Emerald green rooftops and gold domes enliven the skyline of Omsk, a provincial city and former Soviet industrial hub of roughly one million people, located at the intersection of two Siberian rivers: the wide, island-populated Irtysh and the smaller, swifter Om. The latter gave its name to the town, which grew from a fort established at the meeting point of the rivers in 1716, back when this was the disputed frontier of the expanding Russian empire.

But now it’s the last week of May 2013. The fort is long gone. In its place stands the Lighthouse, a large white hotel-cum–shopping mall festively crowned with neon Cyrillic lettering. Rounded at one end and peaked with towers, it drolly resembles a cruise ship in port. The sun is still out at 10 p.m., and a gusty wind rolling off the plains churns the warm air pleasantly.

Sleepy though this town seems by comparison with St. Petersburg, Moscow, or even Yekaterinburg — the three other stops on a four-city tour I joined last month, in conjunction with a US-Russia theater dialogue developed by the Center for International Theatre Development — Omsk turns out to be not so remote in many ways. For one thing, it’s a hotbed of theatrical activity at the moment, with the biennial Young Theaters of Russia Festival in full swing. Nor is the Russian empire entirely a thing of the past, as tonight’s provocation by a troupe from the former Yugoslav republic of Slovenia makes plain enough.

Damned be the Traitor of His Homeland! — a production of Ljubljana’s internationally renowned experimental company, Mladinsko Theatre — is a no-holds-barred attack on jingoism, xenophobia, and the false allegiances they promote, as well as on complacency in the face of recent history, government corruption, and social decay. Taking its title from the last verse of the former Yugoslav national anthem, it gleefully lobs profanity, insult, accusation, nudity, a flurry of gunshots, and lots of local dirt (dug up for the occasion) at its unsuspecting audience — who frequently find themselves unnaturally exposed and singled out under merciless house lights.

It begins quietly enough: its ten cast members onstage, reclining on the floor and clutching musical instruments, looking like a freshly slaughtered marching band — until the sound of breathing through a tuba begins a general stirring that quickly escalates into an instrumental movement titled, “Won’t Go Against My Brother.” Next, the cast introduces itself with ribald, pointed, self-effacing humor through their own imagined obituaries — each of which makes explicit reference to an imaginary production of “Hey, Slavs!” (in fact, the title of the Yugoslav anthem) directed by acclaimed Bosnian Croatian bad-boy director Oliver Frljic (in fact, the production’s own director).

Cycling through various loosely related scenes, all built from improvisations, Damned delivers its pleas and gibes with a potent combination of muscular staging, lively wit, intrepid honesty, and moments of wrenching beauty. It produced some walkouts the night we saw it — many more the night before, reportedly — but its themes were undeniably urgent and its manner both raw and sure. This was all before Edward Snowden went public with details of the NSA’s PRISM program or had arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong en route to some hoped-for political asylum abroad. But there was no denying the implications for any Americans in the audience as well.

Omsk has nine large municipally funded or federally funded theaters, leaving far behind most American cities of a comparable or even much larger size. And in short it, and the Festival, had much more to offer beyond this one highlight, even if not as explicitly provocative or political in nature. (Those curious to learn more should know that Chris White, artistic director of Mugwumpin and the other San Franciscan on the tour, has written a series of reports on HowlRound with many further details).

Highlights in Moscow included an exquisite production from leading director Dimitry Kymov (whose collaboration with Mikhail Baryshnikov, In Paris, came to Berkeley Rep last year). Based (like In Paris) on the work of famed Russian short story writer Ivan Bunin, Katya, Sonya, Polya, Galya, Vera, Olya, Tanya … is an original production crafting a series of oddball, sometimes grim love stories into a kind of high art twist on Grand Guignol.

Also utterly memorable was the best production of Hamlet I’d ever seen —staged in a ramshackle venue whose lobby was stuffed with a vaguely foul-smelling array of garage sale toys, Soviet kitsch, and other odds and ends, and whose stage was a small, low-ceilinged black box packed into the aisles with what appeared to be mainly teens. The theater and the production belong to famed Russian director and playwright Nikolay Kolyada. Somewhat infamous after his endorsement of Putin in the last elections (which points to one way in which Russian theater, offstage, can be nothing if not political), Kolyada delivers a decisive reading of Shakespeare’s play as a bald, barbaric parable of power — in an incredibly meticulous, distinct, and forceful style whose macabre wit brought to mind some weird admixture of Richard Foreman, Tim Burton, and Terry Gilliam. Whatever else it demonstrated, it showed the Bard’s play as utterly, repulsively, and compellingly contemporary — something too rarely accomplished in any language. *

Sadik-Khan and her groupies urge bold action on the streets of San Francisco

Sasha Cuttler
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San Francisco and our timid Mayor Ed Lee could learn a few things from New York City, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan — who became a national hero to urban cycling advocates while being villified by some in NYC — have quickly created hundreds of miles of new bike lanes and the nation’s biggest bike sharing program.

That was the enthusiastic (if more diplomatically worded) message delivered on June 20 during the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s annual Golden Wheel Awards, where Sadik-Khan gave the keynote speech to a large, rapt crowd. She was introduced by SFBC Director Leah Shahum and Municipal Transportation Agency Director Ed Reiskin, who almost upstaged Sadik-Khan and one another in their calls for San Francisco to take more aggressive action.    

“Cities need to try new things on their streets and public spaces,” Shahum said, echoing the message Sadik-Khan regularly delivers. “We need to try new things and we need to do it now.”

It was a message that became a mantra, as she repeated it again and again, urging the city to do more experimentation on the streets and less long analysis. Part of that is slowing down cars to “actually prioritize the safety and health of our citizens on every street in the city.”

Shahum and Reiskin both admitted being star-struck by Sadik-Khan, with Reiskin saying his intro was “like my teenaged daughter introducing Brittany Spears.” Shahum said she’s often guided by the acronym WWJSKD: What Would Janette Sadik-Khan Do?

Reiskin, a regular cyclist, told the story of moving to New York City in 1991, selling the last car he owned (cue the applause by the large crowd of cyclists), but that he didn’t bring a bike because at that time, the common thinking was, “Who’d be crazy enough to ride a bike in Manhattan?”

But in just the last few years, Sadik-Khan has led the transformation of New York City into one of the most bike-friendly cities in the country. “If she can do that there, why can’t we do that here?” Reiskin asked, later adding, “It’s phenomenal what’s happened there.”

He called Sadik-Khan a cross between famed urbanist Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses, who was responsible for more public development projects than any New Yorker. “She’s got the Jane Jacobs sensibility, but getting shit done like Robert Moses,” Reiskin said.

When Sadik-Khan took the stage, humbled by an introduction that she said could only be followed by turning water into wine, she gave credit for her accomplishments to the leadership of Mayor Bloomberg and the “unbelievable political courage” it took to build 350 miles of bike lanes in six years despite sometimes strong opposition.

In the process, Bloomberg and Sadik-Khan started an alternative transportation arms races of sorts, prodding Chicago, Washington DC, San Francisco, and other cities to also beef up their bike infrastructure. “I think it’s great that there’s this national competition on who can be the greenest,” she said, later adding, “The future of cities is the key to our planet.”

She showed slides of various streetscape improvements that she led, often replacing lanes of parked cars with protected cycle tracks, including along tony Prospect Park, which she called, “the most controversial piece of land outside the Gaza Strip” for the backlash and lawsuits it sparked.

“When you push the status quo, the status quo often pushes back on you,” she said.

What has given Sadik-Khan such rock star status in the urban cycling world is her willingness to tough out the criticisms and let the results speak for themselves, noting that if some idea doesn’t work, it’s usually fairly easy to undo. Yet she arrived armed with stats showing her approach works, for both bicyclists and the business community.

She fought through arguments that cycle tracks along 8th and 9th avenues would hurt business, and she said those same businesses report a 50 percent increase in revenue since they went in three years ago. Same thing on 1st Avenue, where commercial vacancies dropped 47 percent. Citywide, 70 new bike shops opened during the recession to serve a burgeoning population of cyclists in the city.

She also talked about her latest and greatest innovation, the CitiBike sharing program that offers more than 6,000 bikes at locations densely spread along the bike network throughout the city, all with no public funds involved. “We think density is destiny in this instance,” she said. By contrast, San Francisco has taken years to launch its anemic bike-sharing program with just 350 bikes.  

Sadik-Khan called bike sharing “a gateway drug” that encourages more urban cycling in cities around the country, with all the environmental benefits that creates. Her studies have shown the new bike network and sharing program have added an average of 15,000 new cyclists to the city each day, and that it’s become a major tourist draw.   

Some of her slides also showed how elegant some of the improvements have been, from the cycle tracks to the bike racks that have sprouted up all over the city. “We brought good design into the public realm,” she said, encouraging San Francisco, with his reputation for innovation and good design, to do the same thing. “You have such design talent in San Francisco and I look forward to seeing what you come up with.”

But as Sadik-Khan and Shahum both repeatedly emphasized, it takes bold political leadership that is also pushed by civic groups like SFBC and the public in general, prodding on timid elected officials. As Sadik-Khan said, “People are way far ahead of public officials in understanding what works.”

Indeed, two days later on the streets of San Francisco, bike activists demonstrated that reality, staging an amazing Bicycle Music Festival that drew thousands of people to Golden Gate Park for a day of music from its pedal-powered stages.

Then, from 5-6pm, a colorful crowd of more than 1,000 people mounted their bikes and followed lounge singer Jason Brock on a bike-pulled stage that wound through the city to the next stop for the festival in the Mission District, a sort of musical, organized Critical Mass that produced big grins on everyone involved.

Led by key festival organizer Fossil Fool and his Rock the Bike comrades, and taking a cue from Sadik-Khan and fervent supporters that she’s developed here and across the country, perhaps it’s still possible to create a parade that our leaders can be persuaded to step in front of.

WWJSKD?

Our Weekly Picks

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WEDNESDAY 26

Dita Von Teese

With a seductive and sexy nod to the past, modern pin-up and burlesque queen Dita Von Teese has been at the forefront of reviving a nearly lost art form for two decades now. Bringing back the sense of classic style and glamour of the golden days of Hollywood and meshing it with the tantalizing teasing of the old-time burlesque circuit, Von Teese returns to the city this week with her “Burlesque: Strip, Strip, Hooray!” show, a live revue featuring not only her own titillating talents, but a host of other performers as well, including Dirty Martini, Catherine D’Lish, and Lada Nikolska from the legendary “Crazy Horse Paris.”

(Sean McCourt)

Through Fri/28, 7:30pm, $40

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com


“Harvey Milk 2013”

The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, the world’s first chorus comprised of openly gay men, had its first unofficial public performance at a candlelight vigil for Harvey Milk. The group has since become known for its dazzling holiday concerts, but its historical origins mean it’s fitting that — as part of its 35th anniversary celebration — SFGMC is presenting the world premiere of I Am Harvey Milk. Starring its composer Andrew Lippa as Milk, with guest soprano Laura Benanti, this blend of theater and choral works traces the courageous life of the slain politician, with accompaniment by the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony. (Cheryl Eddy)

Wed/26-Fri/28, 8pm, $25-60

Nourse Theatre

201-299 Hayes, SF

www.sfgmc.org

 

THURSDAY 27

Clay Shirky

“I’m trying to figure out what difference communications technologies makes to society,” Clay Shirky remarked in a 2011 interview. “What is it about the Internet, what is it about mobile phones, applications built on top of them, that changes how we behave.” The New York University professor has become one of the world’s foremost authorities on gauging how technology has shifted social action. His 2010 book Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age outlined how web tools have provided new opportunities for creation in place of consumption, pointing out dynamics such as self-publication and charitable crowdfunding. Shirky has championed government transparency in recent editorials exploring the high-profile leaks of US surveillance programs. (Kevin Lee)

6:30 p.m., $20 (member, $12; students $7)

Commonwealth Club

595 Market, SF

(415) 597-6700

www.commonwealthclub.org

 

 

Tommy Davidson

Comedian Tommy Davidson might be offensive, but his keen observations about the absurdity of our daily lives and his animated delivery guarantee laughs. His ability to comment on situations that arise in all walks of life ensures everyone has something to chuckle about through his bits. Known for his roles in the ’90s hit sketch show In Living Color, films like Strictly Business (and OK, Juwanna Mann) and most recently in the spotlight for his character Cream Corn on Adult Swim’s cartoon Black Dynamite, Davidson tours pretty infrequently, so catch him while you can — likely offering fresh takes on old habits. (Hillary Smith)

8pm and 10pm, $24-26

Yoshi’s

1330 Fillmore, SF

(415) 655-5600

yoshis.com/sanfrancisco

 

FRIDAY 28

Y La Bamba

Indie-folk rocker group Y La Bamba has been steadily building a fan base over the past couple of years, earning high praise from NPR and loaning songs to television programs such as Bones. The Portland-based band’s hauntingly rich and ethereal sound is propelled by singer-songwriter Luzelena Mendoza, whose vocals float and weave tales above Latin-inspired rhythms and unique backing vocals. Its latest full-length album, last year’s Court The Stormwas produced by Los Lobos member Steve Berlin, and an excellent EP, Oh February was released this January. (McCourt)

9pm, $12–$15

Chapel

777 Valencia, SF

(415) 551-5157

www.thechapelsf.com

 

Japanther

Japanther lets everything go in its performances. Punk is its staple, and the group is known for fuzzy overtones and generally sloppy delivery. All this culminates into weird, disorienting live shows. But whether the band drops five Ramones covers on you or blasts into its own songs (likely off newest album, Eat Like Lisa Act Like Bart) with a raw, unpredictable energy, it will be fun. Keep an eye out for the duo’s signature telephone microphones and the more-often-than-not shirtless bat-shit drummer. (Smith)

With Defiance, Ohio, Psilovision

9pm, $12

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

SATURDAY 29

San Francisco FrontRunners Pride Run

For folks who love to sweat, there’s no better way to celebrate Pride than with veteran LGBT running club the San Francisco FrontRunners, who’ve hosted this event for over three decades. Choose the 5K or the 10K by asking yourself “How many times do I want to haul ass up that hilly stretch of Golden Gate Park’s JFK Drive?” — but remember, the emphasis here is mos def on fun. Sure, some speed demons do turn out (last year’s 5K winner clocked in at just over 18 minutes), but casual joggers are also in effect, as are Pink Saturday-themed athletic ensembles. Upbeat DJs and tasty food at the finish line add to the festive atmosphere. (Eddy)

9am, $40

Golden Gate Park (near Metson and Middle Dr. West), SF

www.sffr.org

 

In A Daughter’s Eyes

Two women, two very different circumstances: the first, the daughter of a Black Panther sentenced to death for killing an Oakland cop; the second, the daughter of the slain man. Locked in a room together, how will the women negotiate their differences — and is there any chance of forgiveness and healing? Brava! For Women in the Arts and Black Artists Contemporary Cultural Experience present award-winning playwright A. Zell Williams’s In A Daughter’s Eyes in its West Coast debut; though it features just one location and only two characters, expect a powerful, intense story, guided by the sure hand of veteran director Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe. (Eddy)

Through July 14

Previews Thu/27-Fri/28, 8pm; opens Sat/29, 8pm; runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm, $15

Brava Theater Center

2781 24th St, SF

www.brava.org

 

The Juan MacLean (DJ Set)

After years of producing quality electro-disco-club music for DFA Records (home to legendary sometimes-retired LCD Soundsystem), DJ and producer the Juan MacLean (stage name for John Maclean) has leapt head first into a stripped-down, nu-house sound. With vocalist and longtime collaborator Nancy Whang, MacLean released the cool, classy “You Are My Destiny” this March, completing a shift that may have taken root as far back as 2011 with his Peach Melba side project. Transitions are standard practice for the former hardcore guitarist turned electronic music artist, who has collaborated with LCD Soundsystem, !!!, and Holy Ghost! and remixed Yoko Ono and Stevie Nicks. In the midst of a relentless international tour schedule, MacLean signaled his return to dance music prominence earlier this month with a set on BBC Radio 1’s prestigious Essential Mix program. (Lee)

With Kim Ann Foxman, Blacksheep

9pm, $10–$20

Monarch

101 Sixth St., SF

(415) 284-9774

monarchsf.com

 

SUNDAY 30

Deltron 3030

If you’ve lived in SF for at least a year, then you probably know about Stern Grove’s awesomely free and diverse ongoing music festival. But if not, this summer-long (June 16-Aug.18) series offers the community a chance to get outside and enjoy nature while picnicking with live musical accompaniment. The beautiful, towering eucalyptus trees, redwoods, and grassy meadows provide the best possible settings for a summer music festival. This Sunday’s lineup features dance hip-hip super group Deltron 3030. Rapping about evil corporate Goliaths and space battles, often alongside an orchestral band, Deltron 3030’s performance is anything but typical. The festival itself is always worth checking out, but the group makes this Sunday’s show one of the highlights of summer. (Smith)

2pm, free

Stern Grove

19th Avenue and Sloat, SF

www.sterngrove.org

 

“Science On Screen: The Science of Baseball”

Hey, batter! There are very few Bay Area residents who don’t have an opinion on which baseball team to root for (default consensus: “L.A. sucks”), but there’s more to the game than trash talk and World Series trophies. Indeed, there’s some pretty serious science behind all those curve balls and home runs, and who better to break it down than the Exploratorium’s David Barker and Linda Shore? (Check out the museum’s clever and educational “Science of Baseball” site at exploratorium.edu/baseball.) Using clips from documentaries and Hollywood films, the duo gets into the nitty-gritty of baseball’s complex biomechanics — so the next time you watch Hunter Pence step up to the plate, you’ll be able to spot the physics behind his hitting prowess. (Eddy)

7pm, $12

Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center

1118 Fourth St, San Rafael

www.cafilm.org

 

TUESDAY 2

Pure Bathing Culture

Listen to Portland, Oreg.-via-Brooklyn duo Pure Bathing Culture’s ethereal, synth-laced cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams,” and you’ll likely tumble into a web search hole, digging out other soundscape-y Fleetwood Mac covers to quench your newfound obsession (likely finding that PBC’s is still tops). Crawl out of the hole and face your new favorite, Pure Bathing Culture, head on by grabbing a hold of 2012’s self-titled EP, an ode to dreamy 1980s pop produced by Richard Swift. Then note influences like Talk Talk and Cocteau Twins expanding on recently released tracks off upcoming debut full-length, Moon Tides. Band members guitarist Daniel Hindman and keyboardist Sarah Versprille have contributed in the past to records by Foxygen and Damien Jurado, but together as Pure Bathing Culture, they form a loosely wound union of shimmering guitars, twinkling synths, and delicate vocals, twisting along a well-worn path. (Emily Savage)

With Cocktails, Cannons and Clouds, CoolGreg

9pm, free

Brick and Mortar Music Hall

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 800-8782

www.brickandmortarmusic.com

 

The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian, 225 Bush, 17th Flr., SF, CA 94105; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Stage Listings

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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

God of Carnage Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.com. $26-38. Opens Thu/27, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 7. Shelton Theater peforms Yasmina Reza’s award-winning play about class and parenting.

In A Daughter’s Eyes Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. $15. Previews Thu/27-Fri/28, 8pm. Opens Sat/29, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through July 14. Brava! For Women in the Arts and Black Artists Contemporary Cultural Experience presents the West Coast premiere of A. Zell Williams’ tale of two women: the daughter of a man on death row, and the daughter of the man he’s been convicted of killing.

BAY AREA

Sea of Reeds Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Previews July 2-4, 8pm. Opens July 5, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Aug 18. Josh Kornbluth’s brand new comedy — it involves atheism, oboes, and the Book of Exodus — opens at Shotgun Players “before it goes on Torah.”

Superior Donuts Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-30. Previews Thu/27, 8pm. Opens Fri/28, 8pm. Runs July 3 and Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show July 4); Sun, 2pm. Through July 14. Pear Avenue Theatre performs Tracy Letts’ comedy about the redemptive power of friendship.

ONGOING

Abigail’s Party San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-100. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through July 6. Although it’s tempting to compare Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party to Edward Albee’s rancorous Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Abigail‘s escalating nastiness skews emphatically British, giving it as much in common with televised exports such as Fawlty Towers and the Ricky Gervais version of The Office. As with these, the humor in Abigail’s Party is of the bleakest and cruelest kind, and there are moments when the five Americans onstage don’t quite convey the wit that lurks beneath the ire, but when they do the results are hysterical and uncomfortable in equal measure. Though the party we witness is not Abigail’s (she’s having a teenage house party next door, the music of which keeps throbbing through the walls of Bill English’s attractively-appointed set) the adults-only cocktail party is just as awkward as any high school mixer. Hosted by the fiercely self-absorbed Beverly (Susi Damilano) and her obnoxiously classist husband Laurence (Remi Sandri), the guest list includes the mousy Angela (Allison Jean White), her monosyllabic husband Tony (Patrick Kelley Jones), and Abigail’s ill-at-ease mum, Susan (Julia Brothers), who’s agreed to keep out of the house during her daughter’s wild soiree. The acting — as well as Brendan Aanes’ sound design, Jacqueline Scott’s props, and Tatjana Genser’s costuming — is pitch perfect, but unless you haven’t already been to enough bad parties, you might find it difficult to sit through this one. If you do, don’t be surprised if you find yourself secretly envying Laurence by the end of the play — at least he finds a way out. (Gluckstern)

The Ape Woman: A Rock Opera Exit Studio, 156 Eddy, SF; www.theapewoman.com. $15-30. Wed/26-Sat/29, 8pm. Dark Pork Theatre presents May van Oskan’s rock opera, inspired by a Victorian-era circus performer.

Betrayal Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, Sixth Flr, SF; www.offbroadwaywest.org. $40. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through July 20. Off Broadway West Theatre Company performs Harold Pinter’s out-of-sequence drama about an unfaithful married couple.

Birds of a Feather New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm (also Sat/29, 2pm). New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the San Francisco premiere of Marc Acito’s tale inspired by two gay penguins at the Central Park Zoo.

Can You Dig It? Back Down East 14th — the 60s and Beyond Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Aug 25. Solo performer Don Reed returns with a prequel to his autobiographical coming-of-age hits, East 14th and The Kipling Hotel.

Darling, A New Musical Children’s Creativity Museum, 221 Fourth St, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20. Wed/26-Sat/29, 7:30pm (also Sat/29, 2pm). American Conservatory Theater’s Young Conservatory performs Ryan Scott Oliver and Brett Ryback’s jazz-age musical.

The Divine Sister New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. Charles Busch’s latest comedy pays tribute to Hollywood films involving nuns.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

410[GONE] Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.crowdedfire.org. $10-35. Wed/26-Sat/29, 8pm. Crowded Fire Theater presents the world premiere of Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s fanciful, Chinese folklore-inspired look at the underworld.

Frisco Fred’s Magic and More Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $35-50. Thu/27-Sat/29, 7pm. Performer Fred Anderson presents his latest family-friendly show, complete with magic, juggling, and “crazy stunts.”

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.

Into the Woods Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.rayoflighttheatre.com. $25-36. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm (also Sat/29, 2pm). Ray of Light Theatre performs Stephen Sondheim’s fairy-tale mash-up.

Pansy New Conservatory Theater Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. Feeling isolated and angry in a queer culture seemingly shy of commitment and thin on the meaning of community, a lonely young man stumbles over a box of old VHS tapes in the basement and makes a powerful connection to his doppelganger, a San Francisco club maven named Peter Pansy, who died of AIDS in 1993. From this synchronicity (based on a true story), actor-playwright Evan Johnson and director-collaborator Ben Randle take the measure of a generational divide and an attendant cultural amnesia, as the narrative spins two parallel arcs 20 years apart but now in open conversation with each other. That conversation is most powerful in moments that prove largely dialogue-free, as in the excellent interplay between Peter and his shadow, which reinforces a sense that the dialogue in general could benefit by being more succinct or elliptical. At the same, Johnson (actor-playwright behind 2010’s outstanding solo play about Jeffrey Dahmer, Don’t Feel) has a commanding presence as he cuts nimbly back and forth between 2013’s Michael and 1993’s Peter, tracing ever subtler lines of pride and alienation, utopian dissent and quotidian oppressions, until the import of the recent but heretofore hazy past offers itself as a quiet but profound afflatus. (Avila)

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50″ plasma flat panel. Update: new episodes began May 15. (Avila)

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through August 24. Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a “self” unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his “Better Than You” weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed “seminar” and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

Sylvia Fort Mason Theater, Fort Mason Center, Bldg C, Rm 300, Marina at Laguna, SF; sylvia.brownpapertickets.com. $20-45. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 7pm. Independent Cabaret Productions and Shakespeare at Stinton present AR Gurney’s midlife-crisis comedy.

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma: The Next Cockettes Musical Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Extended through July 27. Thrillpeddlers and director Russell Blackwood continue their Theatre of the Ridiculous series with this 1971 musical from San Francisco’s famed glitter-bearded acid queens, the Cockettes, revamped with a slew of new musical material by original member Scrumbly Koldewyn, and a freshly re-minted book co-written by Koldewyn and “Sweet Pam” Tent — both of whom join the large rotating cast of Thrillpeddler favorites alongside a third original Cockette, Rumi Missabu (playing diner waitress Brenda Breakfast like a deliciously unhinged scramble of Lucille Ball and Bette Davis). This is Thrillpeddlers’ third Cockettes revival, a winning streak that started with Pearls Over Shanghai. While not quite as frisky or imaginative as the production of Pearls, it easily charms with its fine songs, nifty routines, exquisite costumes, steady flashes of wit, less consistent flashes of flesh, and de rigueur irreverence. The plot may not be very easy to follow, but then, except perhaps for the bubbly accounting of the notorious New York flop of the same show 42 years ago by Tent (as poisoned-pen gossip columnist Vedda Viper), it hardly matters. (Avila)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am. Through July 21. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns after a month-long hiatus with his popular, kid-friendly bubble show.

BAY AREA

Dear Elizabeth Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $24-77. Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun and July 3, 2pm); Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat and Thu/6, 2pm; no show July 4). Through July 7. Berkeley Rep performs Sarah Ruhl’s play written in the form of letters between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell.

George Gershwin Alone Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-77. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; no show July 4); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun and July 3, 2pm). Extended through July 7. Hershey Felder stars in his celebration of the music and life of composer George Gershwin.

This Is How It Goes Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through July 21. Aurora Theatre Company performs the Bay Area premiere of Neil LaBute’s edgy comedy about an interracial couple.

Wild With Happy TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Wed/26, 7:30pm; Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm (also Sat/29, 2pm); Sun/30, 2 and 7pm. TheatreWorks presents the West Coast premiere of Colman Domingo’s new comedy, starring the playwright himself.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. “Director’s Cut!” Fri/28, 8pm, $20. “Improvised Noir Musical,” Sat/29, 8pm, $20.

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sun/30, July 13, 21, and 27, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“Dream Queens Revue” Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF; www.dreamqueensrevue.com. Wed/26, 9:30-11:30pm. Free. Drag with Collette LeGrand, Diva LaFever, Sophilya Leggz, and more.

“Harvey Milk 2013” Nourse Theatre, 201-299 Hayes, SF; www.sfgmc.org. Wed/26-Fri/28, 8pm. $25-60. The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus presents its 35th anniversary celebration concert, featuring the world premiere of Andrew Lippa’s new choral work I Am Harvey Milk.

Kathy Mata Ballet City College of San Francisco, 50 Phelan, SF; www.kathymataballet.com. Sat/29, 3 and 7:30pm. Free. The company presents its “Summer Showcase” performance, featuring new works as well as classics in a variety of dance styles.

“Minced Meat” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. $20. The Thick Rich Ones use movement, music, and theater to explore the question “What are we really hungry for?”

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

“Randy Roberts: Live!” Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. Fri/28-Sat/29 and July 9, 16, and 23, 9pm. $30. The famed female impersonator takes on Cher, Better Midler, and other stars.

Red Hots Burlesque El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.redhotsburlesque.com. Wed, 7:30-9pm. Ongoing. $5-10. Come for the burlesque show, stay for OMG! Karaoke starting at 8pm (no cover for karaoke).

“San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival: Weekend Four” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Lam Research Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.sfethnicdancefestival.org. Sat/29, 2 and 8pm; Sun/30, 3pm. $18-58. With Bolivia Corazón de América, Charlotte Moraga, Lowiczanie Polish Folk Ensemble of San Francisco, 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.

“Union Square Live” Union Square, between Post, Geary, Powell, and Stockton, SF; www.unionsquarelive.org. Through Oct 9. Free. Music, dance, circus arts, film, and more; dates and times vary, so check website for the latest.

“Yerba Buena Gardens Festival” Yerba Buena Gardens, Mission between 3rd and 4th Sts, SF; www.ybgfestival.org. Through Oct 15. Free. This week: Circus Bella’s Shine (Fri/28, noon-1pm; Sat/29, 2:15-3:15pm); Estonian Dance Festival (Sun/30, 12:30-3pm).

“You Can’t Hire Me: Live!” Stage Werx Theater, 446 Valencia, SF; youcanthireme.bpt.me. Sun/30, 7pm. $15. Comedy about “awful cover letters and unemployment,” with readings by Paolo Sambrano (creator of the Tumblr You Can’t Hire Me) and stories by Marc Abirgo and Nikki Thayer.

BAY AREA

“Praise Dance Conference and Festival” Conference: Sat/29, 8:30am-4:30pm, email info@rossdance.com for registration information, Malonga Casquelourd Center, 1428 Alice, Oakl; www.rossdance.com. Dance Festival: Sun/30, 7pm, $15-30, Holy Names University, 3500 Mountain Blvd, Oakl; www.rossdance.com. Christian praise dance company Ross Dance Company presents its fifth annual conference and performance festival. *

 

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