Berkeley Art Center show asks what it means to be suspended in space and time
“Suspended Matter,” a Berkeley Art Center group show on view through Jan. 15, explores notions of being adrift and afloat.
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‘Leda and the Swan’ adaptation is a captivating fever dream at SF film festival
‘Leda’ is a must-see film, but much other fantastic cinema is on offer at this year’s Another Hole in the Head festival.
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From sweet proposal to spicy Rocky Horror, joy is back at The UC Theatre
The first three months of reopening have also brought challenges dealing with safety requirements and COVID-related scheduling changes.
Arts resource guide
Upcoming shows
Wintertime
Berkeley Rep welcomes back Charles L. Mee and Les Waters…
Berkeley Rep
Nov 12, 2021–Dec 19, 2021
Father/Daughter
In its world premiere, Father/Daughter, by playwright Kait Kerrigan, is a beautifully written contemporary romance…
Aurora Theatre
Nov 12, 2021–Dec 12, 2021
Swept Away
Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer returns with a captivating world premiere musical…
Berkeley Rep
Jan 9, 2022–Feb 13, 2022
This Much I Know
The writer of Eureka Day returns to Aurora with an explosively theatrical interrogation of agency and culpability…
Aurora Theatre
Feb 4, 2022–Mar 6, 2022
Goddess
Berkeley Rep presents the world premiere of an exuberant new musical…
Berkeley Rep
Mar 19, 2022–May 8, 2022
Theater
Shotgun Players show that Malvina Reynolds’ music doesn’t fit in a little box
Created by actress Beth Wilmurt, ‘The Cassandra Sessions: Recording This World’ premieres on the Ashby Stage Dec. 2-26.
‘Father/Daughter’ bond ripples through time at Aurora Theatre
The world premiere of ‘Father/Daughter’ at Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre twists the parent/child bond in several directions.
Door-slamming lovers are adrift in ‘Wintertime’ as live theater returns to Berkeley Rep
Charles L. Mee’s ‘Wintertime’ is the Berkeley Rep’s first live production since the beginning of lockdown.
Music
Berkeley-born trumpeter Erik Jekabson is suddenly ubiquitous
Jekabson is playing a series of gigs in San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco this weekend, celebrating a new album his quartet recorded nearly a decade ago at the Hillside Club.
Berkeley High’s jazz bands return to the stage this week
The bands are playing their first concerts since the start of the pandemic at the Berkeley High School Little Theatre.
Pianist Sarah Cahill to celebrate 50 years of female composers at Mills College show
Sarah Cahill’s “Future is Female” concert this Saturday is a prelude of sorts to a “communal feminist immersive listening experience” planned Dec. 18 at BAMPFA.
Books
Remembering Floyd Salas, novelist, boxing coach, social activist
Floyd Salas served as PEN Oakland’s president and famously confronted Saul Bellow at a reading at SF State.
Berkeley Law dean’s book reveals how the Supreme Court enabled racist policing
Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, casts a cold eye on the post-Warren court in “Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights.”
Movies
‘Chess of the Wind,’ lost film found in Tehran junk shop, to air at Pacific Film Archive Sunday
Unavailable for over 40 years before its rediscovery in 2015, the gothic drama details bourgeois decay and features a brief lesbian scene.
Nobuhiko Ôbayashi’s final film, suffused with trick photography, has a humanist soul
Labyrinth of Cinema, opening at San Francisco’s Roxie Theater on Friday, is a fitting finale to an underappreciated auteur’s career.
Related stories
City-funded art installations aim to buck up spirits after pandemic
Berkeley has given artists and performers $200,000 in grants to create public displays that will enliven the city’s spirits.
Oakland Theater Project pulls Joan of Arc into the tumultuous present
The world premiere of playwright Lisa Ramirez’s one-act reimagining of the Joan of Arc story spans seven centuries.
‘Civic trauma’ of pandemic brings East Bay arts community together
A new coalition of East Bay arts organizations is making joint funding requests of Alameda County and cooperating on a regional “return to the arts” campaign.
Remembering Claudia Hoffberg, who yarn-bombed Berkeley
Claudia Hoffberg, 62, a textile and ceramics artist, performed many clandestine acts of yarn-bombing street art.
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Berkeley Rep welcomes students back to classes and audiences back to the theater
The School of Theatre continued to serve 20,000 students per year during the pandemic — online.
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The UC Theatre transforms the music industry — one youth at a time
The music venue’s internship program brings a crew of underrepresented young people into the theatre to prepare them for concert industry jobs.
Kenny G’s curly locks, acid-tongued critics get double billing in new documentary
“Listening to Kenny G” is the opening feature Wednesday night at SF Indiefest’s new music-themed festival Decibels.
Berkeley folk and traditional artists buoyed by Hewlett Foundation grants
Faye Carol, Mahsa Vahdat, Susana Arenas Pedroso and C.K. Ladzekpo are among the 10 artists “steeped in diverse cultural traditions” who’ll get at least $50,000 each from the foundation.
Telegraph Avenue will finally get a 24-hour toilet, but it may block the ‘people’s history’ mural
A creator of the 45-year-old People’s History of Telegraph Avenue mural says one of two proposed sites for a toilet near People’s Park would obscure an important landmark.
