From a new plays festival to a Wynton Marsalis concerto to an apple festival in Sonoma, there’s plenty to see and do in the San Francisco Bay Area this weekend and beyond. Here’s a partial rundown.
New Works Fest is back
Who doesn’t love to sneak a peek at works along the way (this is where we don’t confess to the time we spend watching animated trailers on YouTube)? In the theater world, one of the best forums for that returns this week, with TheaterWorks’s celebrated annual Festival of New Works in Silicon Valley.
Having hosted more than 70 world premieres over its 53 seasons, Palo Alto-based Theatreworks is considered one of the nation’s premiere companies for new works. And its annual festival, now in its 21st year, is a big part of that. Over the next 10 days, the event will feature readings of four emerging works, as well as a variety of special events and gatherings.
Readings include “Five & Dime,” a musical based on the classic play “Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean,” starring nationally acclaimed transgender performer Shakina; “Hysterical,” Molly Bell’s one-woman thrill ride; “Lieberling,” a comedy-drama centering on two novelists, one Cambodian and one German; and “A Driving Beat,” featuring a mother-son road trip fueled by hip-hop.
Details: Friday through Aug. 18; Lucie Stern Theatre, Palo Alto; single tickets $25, festival passes $60-$65; theatreworks.org.
— Randy McMullen, Staff Member
Classical Selections: West Edge Opera, Mendelssohn’s “Elija”
New works and old favorites continue to mark the classical music calendar: here are the events not to be missed.
Opera at West Edge: Now that the world premiere of “Bulrusher,” by composer Nathaniel Stookey and librettist Eisa Davis, has taken place, the company, under general direction of Mark Streshinsky, has two additional productions in the pipeline. “Legend of the Ring,” with music from four Wagner operas, is arranged by David Seaman and conducted by Jonathan Khuner, with a cast led by soprano Tracy Cox as Brünnhilde. Closing the festival is “Jacqueline,” which explores the life and work of the great cellist Jacqueline du Pré, with music by Luna Pearl Woolf and libretto by Royce Vavrek.
Details: Through Aug. 18, Oakland Scottish Rite Center; $20-$160, early bird tickets $10; westedgeopera.org.
One of the greatest: There’s no better oratorio than Mendelssohn’s Elija, and the San Francisco Choral Society celebrates its 35th season this week with a single performance of this monumental work. Artistic Director Robert Geary conducts it with soloists including soprano Michelle Rice, mezzo-soprano Courtney Miller, tenor Brian Thorsett, baritone Eugene Brancoveanu and members of the San Francisco Girls Chorus.
Details: 8 p.m. Aug. 10; Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco; $50-81; sfchoral.org.
With the new: The Cabrillo Festival kicks off its final weekend with the West Coast premiere of Wynton Marsalis’ “Trumpet Concerto,” featuring Michael Sachs as soloist. Saturday’s program, titled “Creative Coast,” also includes Gabriella Smith’s “Lost Coast” for amplified cello and the world premiere of sound artist Bora Yoon’s “PARHELION.” Sunday features “Passage,” featuring works by Clarice Assad, Juan Pablo Contreras, Pierre Jalbert and Errollyn Wallen, with a special appearance by violinist Philippe Quint.
Details: 7 p.m. Aug. 10-11; Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium; Tickets start at $30; cabrillomusic.org.
— Georgia Rowe, correspondent
A Sordid Festival Comes to Sonoma
For fans of this other For the kind of apples the Bay Area is famous for, there’s no better place to be this August than the 2024 Gravenstein Apple Fair. Now in its 51st year, the event takes place in the orchard-studded hamlet of Sebastopol and features every kind of apple-related delight you could want: an apple alley with pies, doughnuts, slushies and fresh-squeezed juices, tons of live music and farm activities, and for the adults, microbrews on tap and a craft cider tent promising the largest selection of ciders of any festival in the North Bay.
The musical lineup is particularly impressive this year, with nearly 20 bands ranging from bluegrass to cosmic funk to flamenco-gypsy jazz. Forty apple farms from Sonoma County will be in attendance—and if you just want to buy apples, you can enter for free for 30 minutes to pick up entire bags.
There will be an apple pie baking contest, cute livestock and strolling performers, cheese-making and sheep-shearing demonstrations and a panel discussion Saturday on protecting agricultural diversity, featuring Alice Waters and Albert Straus of the famed Straus Family Creamery.
Details: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Aug. 10-11; Ragle Ranch Regional Park, Sebastopol; Tickets start at $23-$30; gravensteinapplefair.com.
— John Metcalfe, staff member
Free Jazz in San Jose
Anyone who’s lived in the San Francisco Bay Area long enough knows that the second weekend in August is home to the twin towers of the summer music season: the Outside Lands music festival in Golden Gate Park and the equally impressive Summer Fest at San Jose Jazz. That’s because two of the year’s biggest musical bonanzas have been conveniently scheduled for the same weekend. From Friday through Sunday, Outside Lands (sfoutsidelands.com) will bring its dizzying array of pop, rock and hip-hop stars to multiple stages with headliners ranging from The Killers to Sabrina Carpenter to Sturgill Simpson to San Jose EDM star Dan Griffith, aka Gryffin; while Summer Fest (summerfest.sanjosejazz.org) takes over several stages and venues in downtown San Jose with acts ranging from The Family Stone to Lisa Fischer (who also plays Berkeley’s Freight & Salvage Friday and Saturday) to Herbie Hancock and more.
Summer Fest also has a free music component that few people may know about. It’s called Summer Fest Club Crawl and features a variety of artists, DJs and bands at five downtown nightclubs: Poor House Bistro, Sushi Confidential, Signia at the Hilton San Jose, the Club at the San Jose Marriott and Rollati. The lineup includes acts like Lauren Halliwell’s Blues Chasers, singer Dana Salzman, Love Supreme DJs, singer Jessica Johnson and Afro-Cuban band Sofrito. The event will also livestream select events from its YouTube channel.
Details: Visit summerfest.sanjosejazz.org for more details.
— Bay City News Foundation
“Shipping and Handling” is delivered
San Francisco writer Star Finch’s new play has been a long journey. Finch, who was named playwright-in-residence at Crowded Fire Theater in May 2020, had hoped that “Shipping & Handling,” despite COVID-related lockdowns, would finally see its premiere in September 2022.
Crowded Fire has since adopted a collective model and left its usual venue, the Potrero Stage, and Finch wrote the acclaimed play “Josephine’s Feast” for a Magic Theatre. Yet “Shipping & Handling” remained postponed, until now, and Crowded Fire finally presented the play at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco.
But Finch doesn’t see the false starts as obstacles to her tech- and AI-centric story. “Oddly enough, these delays feel like we’re being redirected to a moment where we’re being bombarded with AI from every direction,” she says.
The show combines traditional and immersive theatrical experiences in what it describes as “an evening at the theatre told in reverse.” It examines the complex history of Black theatre, comparing creative advances and setbacks with the rise of generative AI, which has stoked fears that artists will be replaced by automation.
Details: Through September 7; Magic Theatre, Landmark Building D, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco; $20-$95 (with pay-what-you-want options); crowdedfire.org.
— Charles Lewis III, Bay City News Foundation
He’s just joking
It’s always fun and certainly interesting when Kid Koala comes to town. The Canadian DJ, turntablist, producer, composer, musician, filmmaker, multimedia artist and comic book enthusiast is known for creating live musical productions that are unlike anything you’ve ever seen. He’s back in San Francisco this week with his offbeat multimedia concert production “The Storyville Mosquito,” running at the SFJAZZ Center through Sunday. Kid Koala, born Eric San, emerged in the mid-1990s as a scratcher with a knack for turning on the turntables and a talent for incorporating bizarre musical samples—from Charlie Brown specials to stand-up routines to people’s sneezes—to great effect. He’s added his talents as a stage and film producer, storyteller and director to his arsenal to create multimedia shows like “Nufonia Must Fall,” about a lonely robot who finds love, and now “Storyville Mosquito,” about an ambitious insect who leaves home with dreams of becoming a jazz star. The show features a cast of 14 artists, producers and musicians, accompanied by big-screen projections. Basically, you’re seeing a concert that incorporates hip-hop, pop, rock, ambient and jazz music, accompanied by the live creation of a new film projected on stage. Or a live graphic novel with cool tracks. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 3 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and 7 p.m. in the Miner Auditorium at the SFJAZZ Center. Tickets range from $30 to $110; go to www.sfjazz.org.
— Bay City News Foundation
