The Mercury News

‘Girls’ going bare for a cause

- RANDY McMULLEN

1 “Calendar Girls”: When a woman in a rural British town loses her husband to leukemia, she and a group of friends band together to raise funds for a local hospital. Their plan: selling a calendar full of nude photos of everyday women doing everyday chores. Naturally, the idea raises a fuss. The story, based on real events, was adapted into a charming film comedy starring Helen Mirren that was a surprise runaway hit. Now a stage version is getting a run at San Jose’s City Lights Theater.

Details: Previews tonight and Friday, main run is Nov. 19-Dec. 18; $19-$21 previews, $21-$42 main run, cltc.org

2

Jeff Richards: The comedian and Walnut Creek native reportedly has the distinctio­n of being the only performer to have been a cast member of both “Saturday Night Live” (where his recurring “Drunk Girl” routine was a hit) and its rival comedy show “MadTV.” His comic specialty is celebrity impression­s, which cover subjects ranging from Al Franken to Rush Limbaugh to Dustin Hoffman. He’s back in his old stamping grounds tonight, headlining a night of comedy at the Orinda Theatre. Griffin Daley, Suzy Vincent and Ira Summer are also on the bill. Details: 8 p.m.; $20; lamorindat­heatres.com. 3 Elvin Bishop: As legend has it, the Bay Area blues icon was a lad living in rural Oklahoma when the sound of Jimmy Reed’s blues harmonica on the radio mesmerized and confounded him. Years later, as a college student in Chicago, he dove headlong into the emerging electric blues scene, playing countless gigs and joining the Paul Butterfiel­d Blues Band. Bishop’s guitar work has always embraced rural and urban blues motifs and packed plenty of emotion. He’s performing a string of Northern California shows behind his most recent album, “Can’t Even Do Wrong Right.”

Details: 8 p.m. Friday at Freight & Salvage, Berkeley; $36-$38; 510-644-2020, thefreight.org; 8 p.m. Dec. 2 at Club Fox, Redwood City; $28-$32; 831-334-1153, www.clubfoxrwc.com; 4 p.m. Dec. 11 at Moe’s Alley, Santa Cruz; $25-$30; 831479-1854, www.moesalley. com; 7 and 9:30 p.m. Dec. 17 at Biscuits and Blues, San Francisco; $45; 415-2922583, www.biscuitsan­dblues.com. 4 “/Peh-Lo-Tah/”: Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a man of many talents and ideas. The head of programmin­g and pedagogy at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is an award-winning writer, director and performer. He’s also a soccer fan, and he uses the sport as the foundation for his new evening-length theater/dance multimedia work that explores the ties between sports, art, race and the politics of identity. The new work debuts this weekend at YBCA.

Details: 8 p.m. FridaySatu­rday, 5 p.m. Sunday; $25-$35; ybca.org. 5 “The Night Alive”: Irish playwright Conor McPherson is known for infusing his plays about struggling everyday people with a sense that their endeavors are tugging at something bigger than their own lives. Such is the case with this 2013 play, a New York Drama Critics Circle Award winner, about a hard-luck middle-aged man who rescues a prostitute from a beating and forges a fragile friendship with her. “Night Alive” is getting its Bay Area

 ?? TAYLOR SANDERS/CITY LIGHTS THEATER COMPANY ?? From left, Deb Anderson, Caitlin Papp and Anne Younan star in “Calendar Girls,” a comedy based on the film of the same name about a group of rural British women who embark on a controvers­ial campaign to raise money for charity.
TAYLOR SANDERS/CITY LIGHTS THEATER COMPANY From left, Deb Anderson, Caitlin Papp and Anne Younan star in “Calendar Girls,” a comedy based on the film of the same name about a group of rural British women who embark on a controvers­ial campaign to raise money for charity.
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