The Rising Moon Performing Arts Report-Vol 5
“Too Big to Tweet”
(Looking for the November issue? There wasn’t one. We were on vacation.)
In this issue:
L SFMOMA Show Traces The Death of Secrecy
L Another Chance to Have Fun Doing Good – Holiday Benefit Shows
L Commentary: The Pursuit of Spectacle, and What It Costs (Himself visits Cowboys Stadium in Texas
THEATRE
The Julia Morgan Project at the Berkeley City
Janis Stevens* as architect Julia Morgan in Becoming Julia Morgan, the award-winning play by Belinda Taylor. With her is Paul Baird, as The Reporter. At the Berkeley City
Photo: Benjamin Privitt
Dec. 3 – Jan. 9. Becoming Julia Morgan, a play about the life and times of the Bay Area’s first woman architect. Written by Belinda Taylor, directed by Barbara Oliver, and starring Janis Stevens as Julia Morgan. December 3, 2010 thru January 9, 2011 , Berkeley City 2315 Durant Ave , Berkeley . Tickets: $30, $24 students. Show times Thursday, Friday, Saturday at , Sunday at . Tickets at Brown Paper Tickets www.brownpapertickets.com or 510-984-3864. E-mail becomingjuliamorgan@gmail.com.
Through Dec. 18. Obscura: A Magic Show. Award-winning illusionist Christian Cagigal returns to the EXIT. He has been named Best Bay Area Magician by the SF Bay Guardian. 7 X 7 magazine calls Cagigal “a dark little conjurer with a thoughtful view on evil and an experiential one-man show threaded with gothic whimsy.” The SF Weekly applauds both Cagigal and EXIT Theatre for collaborating to produce “strange little magic shows – and it’s turning into a sly San Francisco Tradition.”
Dec. 3-18. Cora Values’ A Christmas Corral. Exit's holiday hostess Cora Values is back, direct from the Gas 'N' Gulp out on I-19! And she's unearthed a 'forgotten literary classic,' Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Four shows only, Fri/Sat Dec 3-4 and 10-11. at the EXIT Café.
Coming up in March. A Most Notorious Woman by Maggie Cronin. Solo show features Christina Augello as Grace O’Malley, the Irish pirate queen who defied the
Selected Thursdays, All Year Long. Mark Romyn’s Thursday Night Combo. Theatre artists, musicians, and other performers try out new material at the EXIT Café.
Nov 29-Jan 16. Holiday Special at The Willows: Sister Robert Anne’s Cabaret Class. Nunsense’s favorite nun is back to explain it all for you. So pay attention! Starring Deborah Del Mastro. West Coast premiere will be directed by Dan Goggin, creator of the Nunsense series (will he never stop?).
Willows Theatre 2011 Season
Jan 31 – Feb 27. Rags
Mar 21 – Apr 17. Once on this Island
June 20 – July 17. King O’ the Moon
Aug 4 – Aug 7. Show Boat. (At the John Muir Amphitheatre in Martinez
Oct 3 – Oct 31. Chess: The Musical
Nov 28 – Dec 31. Winter Wonderettes
Theatre Department at San Francisco State University
Dec 2-12. Engaged, by W.S. Gilbert, directed by William Peters
A topsy-turvy farce in three acts, Engaged illustrates W.S. Gilbert’s gift for absurdly complicated plots, wildly comic dialogue and sharp, exuberant social criticism. In this almost-forgotten masterpiece, one-half of the immortal team Gilbert and Sullivan takes great delight in skewering every pretension affecting money-minded people who take on the burden of falling in love.
Dec. 2–4, , Dec. 5, , Dec. 9–11, , Dec. 12, Little Theatre, Creative Arts Building 19th Ave. , SF. Admission: Advance: $8 students, faculty, staff and seniors/$12 general; Door: $10 students, faculty, staff and seniors/$15 general.
UPCOMING…WATCH FOR IT
February 24-27, March 4-6, 2011 . Kenn Adams' Adventure Theater! presents Adventure in Space, an innovative, interactive theatrical experience for kids, tweens, and teens. Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson Street , San Francisco . Tickets $10 Kids, $15 Adults at www.KennAdamsAdventureTheater.com or (925) 408-8540.
Adventure Theatre is created and performed by veteran improviser Kenn Adams. The audience helps create the show and everyone gets involved – not only making all of the sound effects and becoming the scenery, but also determining the characters and inventing the plot twists.
GALLERIES & MUSEUMS
L SFMOMA Show Traces The Death of Secrecy
Now through April 17, 2011 . SFMOMA, 151 Third St. (bet. Mission & Howard), San Francisco.
EXPOSED: Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera since 1870.
Investigating the shifting boundaries between seeing and spying, the private act and the public image, Exposed challenges us to consider how the camera has transformed the very nature of looking. This provocative exhibition examines some of the camera’s most unsettling uses, including surveillance, stalking, celebrity, pornography, and witnessing violence.
Ed. Note: As we live with TSA X-rays and pat-downs, TMZ gossip, Wikileaks, red light cams, and identity theft, here’s a show that gets to the roots of the technology that destroys the idea of secrets.
MUSIC
December 5. AfroSolo presents Noah Griffin in concert with Nat Cole at Christmas: a Retrospective featuring songs from the Great American Song Book. Sunday, December 5, . The African American Art & Culture Complex, 762 Fulton St. , SF. Tickets $20. Free parking. 415-771-2376 or http://www.afrosolo.org/.
LITERARY SCENE
Bay Area author Allen Klein, aka "Mr. Jollytologist," has had two new books published recently. Klein is a past president of the Association of Applied & Therapeutic Humor.
CHANGE YOUR LIFE !: A Little Book of Big Ideas. Published by Viva Editions, Berkeley, CA. Available at www.allenklein.com/ChangeYourLife.html
or Amazon- type in ISBN: 1573444073
Change Your Life! is a book that you want for yourself and you want it to be the gift you give to others. Start your Christmas shopping now. Allen Klein has given us a perfect little book… - Rita Watson, SF Examiner.com
L.A.U.G.H.: Using Humor and Play to Help Clients Cope
with Stress, Anger, Frustration, and More. Published by Wellness Reproductions. Book with CD available at
http://www.allenklein.com/LAUGH.html or Amazon -type in ISBN: 189327750X
SCENE APPLAUSE
Cheers to EXIT Theatre for successfully producing the 19th Annual San Francisco Fringe Festival in September. The 20th version is scheduled for September 7-18, 2011 . Watch for EXIT’s 10th Annual DIVAfest, April 29 – May 28.
FUNDRAISERS & BENEFITS
L Another Chance to Have Fun Doing Good – Holiday Benefit Shows
December 2. Porchlight Theatre Company presents a free reading of original holiday tales to benefit the Marin Homeward Bound program. Company members read their original stories in Remember When..., a program devised and directed by Anne Brebner. At the Homeward Bound New Beginnings Center 1399 Hamilton Parkway in Novato
December 10. In Hell with Shel: A Holiday Benefit for Custom Made Theatre. Featuring Gabriel Grilli* reading Shel Silverstein's The Devil and Billy Markham with musical guest, Liz Ryder. Ticket includes an open bar, homemade desserts baked by Custom Made actors and staff, music by local folk singer/songwriter Liz Ryder, and the performance of the sexiest, dirtiest and funniest epic poem you will ever hear by Custom Made favorite, Gabriel Grilli* (Mr. Marmalade, The Old Neighborhood). It will be a night to remember, and you will be supporting Custom Made's mission to keep intimate, alternative theatre alive in San Francisco Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough Street (at Bush), SF. Tickets $50 ($40 if ordered by December 2.) Call Leah at (510) 207-5774 or info@custommade.org.
*appears courtesy of Actor's Equity Association
December 13. Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation presents A Shrektacular Holiday Celebration. Benefit concert with the cast of Shrek: The Musical. Monday, Dec. 13, Theatre 39 at Pier 39, SF. Tickets $35-65. 415-273-1620 or HelpIsOnTheWay.org Preferred seating ($65) includes the cast dessert party at Hard Rock Café. 2-hr validated parking at Pier 39 garage.
SIGHTINGS & HEARINGS
Marin’s Porchlight Theatre is planning their July production for the Redwood Amphitheatre at the Marin Art & Garden Center
L COMMENTARY:
The Pursuit of Spectacle, and What It Costs
by Gary Carr
Although he looked down his nose at it, Aristotle admitted that spectacle is a major part of the theatrical experience. Sure, sure, plot and character are important, but if you want to draw a crowd and send them out with something to buzz about, you gotta mix in some spectacle. Phantom of the Opera had its swinging chandelier grazing the heads of the folks in the top-ticket seats; Miss Saigon had its helicopter descending from the flies; even Angels in America – what would it be without those gigantic angel wings?
If you spend a lot of time in little black-box theatres, you experience plenty of spectacle, usually occurring between your ears. Black boxes are wonderful for engaging the imagination and presenting what Christopher Marlowe called “infinite riches in a little room.” But every once in a while, it’s good to get out and see something totally over-the-top, surpassing even the biggest-budget triumphal procession (with elephants) from Aida.
You could go to Vegas. You could spend a week at Mardi Gras, or a night at a music awards show watching Pink dangling from the ceiling. Or, you could take in a Dallas Cowboys game at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington , Texas
Attending a game at Cowboys Stadium is like being at a twelve-ring circus inside a giant X-Box game…and oh, by the way, down there somewhere two professional football teams are fighting it out.
The stadium is huge, boisterously loud (whether or not the roof is open), and filled with ever-changing digital messages, either advertising or data about the NFL or the team itself. The Cowboys Cheerleaders, 60-strong, are omnipresent and in constant motion, possibly the hardest-working act since James Brown. Supplementing the Cheerleaders is Rhythm and Blue, a hip-hop group of 20-or-so who appear several times on a stage high above one end zone. (And we’re not even talking about the half-time shows.)
Then there’s the screen. The largest HDTV system known to man (and one assumes, to God, as well.) Four screens, actually – a giant rectangle of a kazillion pixels, one screen facing each side of the field and two facing the end zones. The screen dwarfs everything else. Imagine sitting with a 50-inch flat screen TV suspended two feet from your face. Try as you might, you’re not going to watch the miniscule flesh-and-blood players on the field for very long if you can see them in close-up two feet away from your nose.
Currently, there’s a TV commercial for a video system that stars Beyonce. A nerdy guy is sitting on a couch, watching Beyonce perform on a large flat screen TV. Then the real Beyonce appears in the room with him and dances seductively. It’s a throwback to the old “Is it Live or is it Memorex?” ads. The nerd glances at the real Beyonce, then turns his full attention to the Beyonce onscreen. The real Beyonce, fed up with being ignored, storms off in a huff.
It’s a stretch, but the nerd points up how hard it can be to focus on the real thing in the digital age. Likewise at the football game. When I could tear myself away from the screen to watch the live action below, I was struck by the many nuances of the game you miss when you watch it on TV. Even at a distance, the way a wide receiver’s fingers curl around the ball as he catches it is lost amongst the onscreen pixels. And in the theatre, the nuance of live performance vs. film…OK, that’s the subject of another essay.
Spectacle is expensive, and that’s part of its appeal. Here are some numbers about Cowboys Stadium that should resonate with fans of black box – and even the largest - theatres. The new stadium cost upwards of $1.5 billion. That’s a big economic nut, even for the second most valuable sports franchise (after the Yankees) in the US Santa Clara
At Cowboys Stadium, what are termed “marketing opportunities” abound. Even the coin toss has a sponsor. Inside, you find very few “hard” billboards – most advertising is digital and wraps around the facings of the stadium levels, or appears on the big screen in the form of thinly-disguised commercials. And that barely scratches the surface – the Cowboys lead the league in merchandise sales. (Cheerleader hooded fleece jacket, $109.99.)
Then there are the gate receipts. Just for a pricing example, look at Club seats, good ones generally between the 20-yard lines, fairly close to the field, and non-nose-bleed. The Cowboys web site shows 2011 season tickets on the Club level will run $3,400 ($340 per game for 10 games), plus a one-time personal seat license (PSL) fee of between $16,000 and $50,000. Financing for PSLs is available over 29 years at 8.5% interest.
Comparable seats at Candlestick, according to the 49ers web site, are $912 for eight games, or $114 per ticket. The Raiders web site shows comparable seats at $1,208 for eight games, or $151 per ticket. Neither the Raiders nor 49ers mention PSLs on their web sites, nor do they divulge the cost of suites. If you want a suite for the Dallas
Any way you slice it, you’ll pay twice as much for a good, non-suite seat to watch the Cowboys than you would to cheer for the two Bay Area teams. If you just want to be there, the prices are more reachable. A single ticket for the Raiders is listed at $36. For the 49ers, $59.
Because the Cowboys are in the business of selling “fan experience,” they are willing to give you a taste for little more than the top ticket at a San Francisco
Even in these tough economic times, $29 is not a lot to pay for an evening of spectacle, as long as you’re willing to stand. You can come away thinking, “Wow, that was something!” and have an experience to carry with you through the rest of the week.
For $29, I can experience the wonderdome that is Cowboys Stadium, and for about the same outlay, I can bask in the mind-stretching wonders of Shakespeare’s The Tempest played by three actors in a 65-seat venue (Cutting Ball Theatre, 277 Taylor St. , SF, $20-35, through December 19). What’s my choice? As a fan of spectacle, inside and out, I choose BOTH.
Contact: Gary Carr, (925) 672-8717, carrpool@pacbell.net. Learn more about Rising Moon Marketing & Public Relations at www.risingmoonarts.com.
The Rising Moon Performing Arts Report (RMPAR) © 2010 Rising Moon Marketing & Public Relations. For permission to quote from RMPAR, please contact Gary Carr , as above. Doubtful that we’ll ever say no.
If you no longer wish to receive The Rising Moon Performing Arts Report, please contact carrpool@pacbell.net and tell us to drop dead. We won’t take it personally.
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