San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Theater troupes offer something for everyone
On one end of the spectrum, some local theater fans are excited to plop their rear ends in auditorium seats again; on the opposite end, others balk at breathing the same indoor air as their fellow humans for the length of time it takes to tell a story.
This summer, Bay Area theater is working to accommodate the full range of audiences’ health needs and safety preferences. Even inperson shows on actual stages in beloved venues are making sure not to leave out their loyal patrons who, for whatever reason, aren’t yet ready to revive their prepandemic spectating habits. Here’s a selection of upcoming productions.
Queer Cultural Center’s “The 45th”: Dazié GregoSykes is among Bay Area theater’s most trenchant, probing and honest social commentators, as eloquent on the macrocosm as he is on his own biography. In the docudrama “The 45th,” which he calls a hybrid of theater and film, he turns his attention to how the last U.S. president affected Black Americans. The docudrama, presented online by Queer Cultural Center, blends text, interviews and original performance.
Brava Theater’s “The Palacios Sisters”: The title characters in Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” are at once products of their class, time and place — the provincial Russian aristocracy in the waning years of czarism — and useful standins for anyone who’s felt futile longings, thwarted ambitions or paralyzing nostalgia. Now playwright Cristina García is transposing their story to Miami in 1985.
In the radionovela “The Palacios Sisters,” produced by Brava Theater, Olga, María and Irinita dream of returning home to Havana. And yet: “No one goes back to Cuba,” says Olga (Tessa KoningMartinez). “No one.”
San Francisco Mime Troupe’s “Tales of the Resistance, Volume 2: Persistence”: Last summer, the redoubtable San Francisco Mime Troupe took its revolutionary
spirit from public parks to the radio waves with “Tales of the Resistance,” a serial covering multiple narrative threads told in a range of genres, all centered on ofthemoment issues.
This year, the troupe extends the idea with “Tales of the Resistance, Volume 2: Persistence,” which features special guest performances by Francis Jue and music and lyrics by Daniel Savio, son of Free Speech Movement leader Mario Savio.
The Marsh’s “Countercoup”: Mark McGoldrick’s writing is shorn of curlicues and frills. When the Alameda County assistant public defender recounts his journey from hoodlum to car crash victim to wheelchair user in “Countercoup,” his multipart online solo show at the Marsh, he frequently whittles his language to the bone. In Acts 3 and 4, premiering in July and August, respectively, he dives into the chapters of his life dedicated to rehabilitating his body and learning to get around in a wheelchair in the outside world.
Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s “RII” and “The Agitators” in repertory: The Grove at DeLaveaga Park, the 5yearold home of Santa Cruz Shakespeare, is the perfect getaway for Bay Area theatergoers looking to take in their art with a picnic in a eucalyptus grove amid the setting sun. Most years, the company hires a sizable ensemble of actors to perform multiple plays in repertory, which means you could see two different shows on the same stage in one day. This year’s offerings, while still in rep, have much smaller casts, the better to comply with public health best practices.
Jessica Kubzansky’s “RII” adapts “Richard II” for just three actors; Mat Smart’s “The
Agitators” chronicles 45 years of friendship and enmity between Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony.
The theater plans to stream both shows as well as perform in person.
San Francisco Playhouse’s “Song of Summer”: To read a Lauren Yee script is to let your eyes cascade down the page. Even when this San Francisco native writes monologues, her words never hunker down to declaim. They’re in motion, in service to the evershifting now.
Her latest project, “Song of Summer,” follows Robbie, who, thanks to a surprise hit song with problematic lyrics, has become pop music’s flavor of the week. In the romantic comedy, produced by San Francisco Playhouse both online and in person, he returns to his Podunk home to rediscover who he is outside of the vagaries of fame.
Lily Janiak is The San Francisco Chronicle’s theater critic. Email: ljaniak@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LilyJaniak
Since comedy clubs across the Bay Area went dark last spring, there hasn’t been much to chuckle over. Fortunately, as local residents continue to get vaccinated at an impressive clip, the opportunity to laugh out loud at a local comedy show is once more on the horizon.
As landmark comedy venues like Cobb’s Comedy Club in San Francisco begin to refill their calendars, other, less traditional venues are also entering the scene. That means whether you’re looking to giggle in a garden or chortle during a rockin’ night of McDonald’sthemed heavy metal, your ticket to mirth awaits.
The prospect for classical music this summer is an odd combination of a return to normalcy and lingering disruptions to the status quo. But the usual suspects are all present and accounted for, along with some new presences on the summer schedule.
Yet at the same time, everything feels a little out of the ordinary as we make a blessed return to musical life. The wellworn routines of the summer have been shaken up — in their timing, in their artistic approach — in a way that may even herald more changes to come.
When I think of the power of dance, I think of seeing Kate Weare’s duet “Drop Down,” live at the ODC Theater, featuring entwined bodies just feet from my face, every breath audible and every moment so tense you felt the dancers’ sweat as your own.
After more than a year in isolation, we’ll be getting that inperson power back this summer with live performances, some of them requiring vaccination cards for admission, some of them distanced outdoors.
There will still be dance through the screen, too, with the camera zooming us out for dizzying aerial dance shots in Zaccho Dance Theatre’s acclaimed film, and pulling us close via topnotch cinematography in the premiere of ODC/Dance’s firstever fulllength work for camera.
But as we live through these inbetween times, switching from screen time to facetoface interactions, one can always count on dance to keep us present in the moment. No matter how we choose to watch.
Ballet22 Presents: “Totum”: One of the happier products of the pandemic is Ballet22, born after Roberto Vega Ortiz posted footage of himself dancing en pointe with the hashtag #maleballerina. The company launched in the fall with an online program of men who dance in satin toe shoes — but not as drag. Their technique level is dazzlingly high, and the company regularly mixes innovative world premieres with highlights from 19th century classics. Their first inperson performance this month is “Totum” and includes bonbons from “Le Corsaire” and “Paquita” and a world premiere by San Francisco Ballet’s Myles Thatcher.
3 p.m. Sunday, June 20. $20$150. Great Star Theater, 636 Jackson St., S.F. 4157354159. ballet22.com
Fresh Meat Festival 20th Anniversary: Fresh Meat — one of the first celebrations of transgender, gendernonconforming, nonbinary and queer artists — is marking its 20th anniversary by commissioning works from six artists, including Seattle duo Dandy (creators of the Queen Street Festival), the Bay Area’s Antoine Hunter and Latin dance partners Medina and Jahaira Fajardo, directors of Oakland’s Lak’ech Dance Academy. Founder Sean Dorsey, the first transgender choreographer to be featured on the cover of Dance magazine, curates this sprawling online party, which streams the “superfresh” new works live on Weekend One (titled #superFresh), and streams highlights from past festivals on demand for Weekend Two (titled #reFresh).
5 p.m. SundayMonday, June 2021. Through June 27. Free. freshmeatproductions.org
Diablo Ballet: The Walnut Creek company is capping its allonline, 27th season with “Love Stories,” which includes the company premiere of “Carousel: A Dance” by Christopher Wheeldon, who created it originally for New York City Ballet. The personalityladen Diablo dancers will also perform the vivacious and technically challenging wedding celebration from the 19th century ballet “Coppelia,” and a lighthearted company premiere by Portuguese choreographer Bruno Roque.
Zaccho Dance Theatre: Housing Joanna Haigood’s longrespected company, and offering aerial dance classes to teenagers in its Bayview headquarters, Zaccho Dance Theatre plans to host a fundraiser featuring a drivein screening of “Record Twenty
Twenty,” an awardwinning film by Haigood and Mary Ellen Strom. Pull up your vehicle in the Fort Mason parking lot to see stunning footage of aerial artists Veronica Blair, Lindsey Butcher, Beth Clarke, Terry Crane, Jo Kreiter, Jodi Lomask, Amelia Rudolph and many others, filmed around the world. The film’s rich score features music by Bay Area composers Walter Kitundu and Marcus Shelby, among others.
9 p.m. June 25. $100. Fort Mason Center for Arts and Culture, 2 Marina Blvd., S.F. 4158226744. zaccho.org
Catherine Galasso:
Brooklyn, N.Y., choreographer Catherine Galasso has made dances to be performed in underground bank vaults, marble staircases and decaying homes. Her newest, “Dances for Doing,” is designed for San Francisco’s Catharine Clark Gallery, in dialogue with visual and video artist Jen Bervin’s exhibition “Doing and Undoing.” It also juxtaposes generations: Longtime dancers and collaborators Karla Quintero and Phoenicia Pettyjohn are set to perform a first duet, and dancers in training Galicia and Santiago Stack Lozano are slated to perform the second.
8 p.m. June 2728. $30. Catharine Clark Gallery, 248 Utah St., S.F. 4153991439. cclarkgallery.com
“Spaces: Oakland”: “Spaces: Oakland” is not just a return to inperson dance, but an exploration of Oakland’s complexity and culture, past and present. The project grew out of “Spaces: Harlem” at the Harlem Arts Festival in 2017. The performance is the culmination of workshops inviting residents to share and refine their stories of home, change and resilience. Twentyfive of these local storytellers will be interspersed with performances by aerial dance company Bandaloop and Destiny Arts founder Sarah Crowell and held in a soundscape spanning the eras of Oakland music, curated by YR Media youths. All of this will happen inside the Beaux Arts architecture of Oakland City Hall and Frank Ogawa Plaza.
6 p.m. July 911 and 1618. Oakland City Hall & Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, 14th Street entrance, Oakland. $10$50, no one turned away for lack of funds. bit.ly/spacesoakland or kaimeraproductions.com/ spacesoakland
Most artgoing shrunk to screensized in 2020, as virtual exhibitions became pandemic stopgap measures during lockdown. This summer, Bay Area museums and galleries are open, with plans to unveil big exhibitions featuring works by famed artists including Diego Rivera, Judy Chicago, Diane Arbus, teamLab and Hung Liu.
Some exhibitions were planned for 2020 and are finally getting their turn, interest aided no doubt by anticipation. Other offerings approach timely themes including identity, activism and the environment. Many also aim for the kind of inperson wow factor — either in scale, abundance of work or ambition — that reminds us why seeing art in person is essential.
It’s enough to make you put away your smartphone.
Summer will also finally see the debut of two awaited museum expansion and remodel projects. This month, the Oakland Museum of California’s refreshed garden spaces open to the public as the museum reopens for the first time since March 2020, with newly installed art and performance areas overlooking Lake Merritt. On July 23, the Asian Art Museum will finally open the new Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang Pavilion with the immersive teamLab exhibition “Continuity.”
If you haven’t been going back out to museums and galleries yet, remember to pace yourself and check on any updates in their individual protocols. You’ve got the entire summer ahead of you
to take it all in.
‘On the Horizon’
Eco artist Ana Teresa Fernández kicks off the season with a timely sculptural installation that seeks to show the true impact climate change will have on cities. “On The Horizon” will use 16 clear plastic tubes, anchored on Ocean Beach and filled with seawater, to show how high the tide is expected to rise according to current climate change projections. By 2100, oceans are expected to rise 6 feet, and when you see that illustrated by the height of the tubes it’s shocking.
Early in the event, volunteers and students from a nearby coop will help set up and fill the vessels. As the sun moves, the quality of light against the suspended water will change and take on the colors of the sunset, which is expected to take place around 8:45 p.m. Fernández hopes that the work sparks a conversation among viewers about the areas that will be most at risk with sea rise.
The first installation will be up through Sunday, June 20; future dates are expected to be announced for July and August.
58:45 p.m. Sunday, June 20. Free. Ocean Beach, S.F. onthe horizon.org
De Young Museum
“Golden Gate”: Hung Liu’s installation in the Wilsey Court, titled “Golden Gate,” will feature four new and five existing works, seeking to highlight international and domestic narratives of migration.
Liu, who is based in Oakland, grew up in Maoist China; her work both demonstrates and subverts the Social Realist school of painting she was trained in. The exhibition is part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s Contemporary Art Program, which presents the work of living artists in dialogue with the museums’ unique buildings and permanent collections.
Liu was last at the de Young in 1994 with her installation of 200,000 fortune cookies, “Jiu Jin Shan (Old Gold Mountain).” “Judy Chicago: A Retrospective”: The pioneering feminist artist, best known for her celebrated and controversial installation “The Dinner Party,” is the subject of a major retrospective. Projects including her “Birth,” “Holocaust” and “PowerPlay” series will be shown in depth, as will materials related to the creation of “The Dinner Party.” Chicago continues to make waves in her 80s with her colored smoke installations, as well as her outspoken advocacy for women’s perspectives in the art world. Additional programming to be announced.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
“Pan American Unity”: Diego Rivera’s monumental mural, created in 1940 as the centerpiece art at the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island, is leaving its longtime home at City College of San Francisco for two years and coming to the firstfloor gallery at SFMOMA, where it will be on view for free. The fresco, formally known as “The Marriage of the Artistic Expression of the North and of the South on This Continent,” measures 22 by 74 feet and weighs more than 60,000 pounds. It was
able to be moved because it was created on 10 cement steelframed panels instead of a standard wall.
Open from this summer until 2023. 18 p.m. Thursdays; 10 a.m.5 p.m. FridaysMondays. $19$25. 151 Third St., S.F. 4153574000. sfmoma.org
Asian Art Museum
“Continuity”: Tokyo art collective teamLab opens the museum’s new Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang Pavilion with “Continuity,” an immersive digital experience that surrounds viewers with East Asian imagery of lush landscapes and nature. Architect Kulapat Yantrasast’s additions to the museum are also sure to attract curious viewers in their own right.
Opening July 16 for members, July 23 for general public.
18 p.m. Thursdays; 10 a.m.5 p.m. FridaysMondays. Closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. $20. 200 Larkin St., S.F. asianart.org
Altman Siegel
“Blanketing the Bay”: The exterior mural installation by artist Liam Everett seeks to bring the inside of his studio outside. The gallery’s facade is wrapped in images of Everett’s paintings while in progress, while blownup blackandwhite photographs further reveal the studio setting. Color images in the mural show details of paintings like brushstrokes and impressions on the canvas. The project is a collaboration between ICA San Jose, Altman Siegel and Minnesota Street Project.
Fraenkel Gallery
“Diane Arbus Curated by Carrie Mae Weems”: In an ingenious bit of crosspollination, Fraenkel Gallery presents a show of 45 Diane Arbus photographs curated by acclaimed photographer Carrie Mae Weems, to announce Weems’ representation by the gallery. Arbus’ work has been central to Fraenkel since its founding and Weems’ selections highlight a few rarely seen gems. Some also reveal glimpses of themes that emerged in Weems’ own work years later.
11 a.m.4 p.m., TuesdayFriday. Through Aug. 13. Free. 49 Geary St., S.F. 4159812661. fraenkelgallery.com
Catharine Clark Gallery
“Open Field: Nine Artists Respond to the Ideals of Black Mountain College”: This new group show — featuring works from Jen Bervin, Lenka Clayton, Ligorano Reese, Mary Muszynski, Reniel Del Rosario, Stephanie Syjuco, Leilah Talukder and Amy Trachtenberg — asked the artists to respond to the legacy and philosophy of the famed North Carolina school. Among Black Mountain College’s alumni were 20th century masters like artist Ruth Asawa, composer John Cage, choreographer Merce Cunningham and architect Buckminster Fuller. Famed Bauhaus artists Josef and Anni Albers were at the core of the school’s faculty.
10:30 a.m.5:30 p.m. TuesdaysFridays; 11 a.m.6 p.m. Saturdays. Through Sept. 11. Free. 248 Utah St., S.F. 4153991439. cclarkgallery.com
Oakland Museum of California
The museum reopened on Friday, June 18, offering free admission through the weekend, with newly refreshed garden spaces and outdoor sculpture exhibitions, featuring works by Beniamino Bufano, Peter Voulkos, George Rickey and Betty Gold.
Indoors, “Mothership: Voyage Into Afrofuturism” is slated to open this summer; dates to be announced.
11 a.m.5 p.m. FridaysSundays. $7$16, with children age 8 and younger free. 1000 Oak St., Oakland. 5103188400. museumca.org
Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive
“Kay Sekimachi: Geometries”: A major survey of the wellknown Berkeley fiber artist. At age 94, Sekimachi continues to be a leader in the Bay Area textile and Japanese American communities. “The Enduring Mark: Six Centuries of Drawing from the Gray Collection”: Highlights from the collection of Richard and Mary L. Gray, one of the foremost collections of European and American works on paper. Works span centuries, with many selected for their emphasis on representations of the human figure.