The Rising Moon Performing Arts Report-Vol III
“Too Big to Tweet”
September 1, 2010
In this issue:
More Previews of the 19th Annual S.F. Fringe Festival (Hotcha!)
EXIT Theatre Launches Publishing Venture, EXIT Press
Sean Owens & Cameron Eng Tackle the Tenderloin
Commentary: Let’s Give a Hand to the People NOT Onstage
PLUS - Upcoming Productions from a Selection of Bay Area Performance Groups
THEATRE
EXIT Theatre, 156 Eddy St., San Francisco http://www.theexit.org/
September 8-19. The 19th Annual San Francisco Fringe Festival. 250 performances of 43 shows in 12 days. A madcap marathon of fresh, exciting theatre for open-minded audiences. This year’s festival brings performers from all over the U.S., Canada, and the Bay Area.
Here’s a sampling of some of the 43 shows in this year’s Fringe Festival:
Angina Monologues by Annie Larson and Karen Ripley. Pressure builds in the atrium as comic duo Ripley and Larson prod and poke the Hell-thcare system. They don't miss a beat with their palpitation compilations. Here's your chance to see the winners for Best Musical Comedy in the 2005 SF Fringe, in this heart stopping, chest clutching scan of the uninsured, the underinsured, and the never-to-be assured.
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Karen Ripley and Annie Larson in Angina Monologues at the SF Fringe Festival, Sept 8-19. Photo: Linda Kesler |
The Burroughs and Kookie Show: Late Night in the Interzone. Welcome to Interzone’s favorite late night talk show, hosted by the Godfather of Punk and close friend of Kerouac and Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs. Join Christopher Kuckenbaker as he assumes the role of Burroughs and takes the audience on a journey through the twisted, irreverent, and darkly comedic world of William S. Burroughs, he of Naked Lunch and endless hashish nights in Tangiers. Ripe Theater and Secret Theater conspire to bring this ripe secret to the stage. Directed by Sarah McKereghan, movement by Michelle Talgarow. San Francisco’s Ripe Theater received "Best of Fringe" and "Best Ensemble" in earlier SF Fringe Festivals.
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Christopher Kuckenbaker as Beat icon William S. Burroughs in The Burroughs and Kookie Show, SF Fringe Festival, Sept 8-19. |
EXIT Studio Sept 10, 13, 16, 19. ($12.99 online.) Check http://www.sffringe.org/ for show times.
And more…
Dangerous Lorraines Dance Theatre (Sacramento) presents Café Lorraine, opening doors to new perceptions in a collage of movement, text, and video. With The Stories of Caesar Chavez, Fred Blanco (L.A.) brings the late labor leader to life. Sharon Mathis (Atlanta) explores a world turned inside out with She andHe/ Me, an examination of a lover’s relationship with her soul mate who has undergone a change in gender. SF playwright Joe Besecker is back with a new drama, the very dark comedy Zinnia Rosenblatt. Besecker previously won three “Best of Fringe” awards for drama.
Sammy Wegent and Allison Page (S.F.) are back together again (in more ways than one) with Wegent and Page Give It Another Try, a show about second chances, second thoughts, and having to play second fiddle to each other. Picture Lucy & Desi or Sonny & Cher trying the make it work again.
From Toronto comes Tony Molesworth with Levitate, a comedic inner, outer, under, inside out overview of the spiritual seekers journey in the end times. As Swami Kula, the reincarnation of Mirth, Molesworth sits full lotus on a synthetic tiger skin in saffron robes bringing timeless wisdom of Yogi Masters to the stressed West…and maybe meet a few pretty girl disciples before the end of the world.
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| Tony Molesworth in Levitate, SF Fringe Festival, Sept 8-19. Photo: Dusan Stakic |
Willows Theatre, 636 Ward St., Martinez http://www.willowstheatre.org/
Through Sept. 19. Six Women with Brain Death, or Expiring Minds Want to Know. A musical comedy that brings the supermarket tabloids to life. It’s a fast-paced, take-no-prisoners satire of life and pop culture exposed in a series of bizarre, hysterical songs and sketches. Book is by six nutsy women, including Cheryl Benge and Christy Brandt. Music and lyrics are by Mark Houston.
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Willows Theatre presents Six Women with Brain Death, or Expiring Minds Want to Know, through Sept 19 at the Campbell Theatre in Martinez. Clockwise from the lower left, Muraya Ranieri, Julianna Kohley, Jujuana Williams, Kristine Lowry, Erica Richardson. Photo: Judy Potter. |
The Willows production is directed by Willows Artistic Director Richard Elliott with musical direction by Tim Hanson and choreography by Nicole Helfer. At the Campbell Theatre, 626 Ward Street in Martinez. Call for show times. Tickets $22-30, 925-798-1300 or www.willowstheatre.com.
Next at The Willows: Sleuth, the Tony award-winning mystery thriller by Anthony Shaffer. The Willows production will be directed by Richard Elliott. Oct. 4 – Nov 7.
The Marsh Berkeley. 2120 Alston Way, Berkeley. http://www.themarsh.org/.
Through Sept.12. East 14th: True Tales of a Reluctant Player by Don Reed. Back in 1970s Oakland, his stepfather forced him to be a straight-A, God-fearing church boy – but he wanted to be just like his dear old Dad. Too bad he didn’t know dear old Dad was a pimp. “Hilarious…Reed plays all the characters with both ease and inexhaustible energy.” – The New Yorker.
EXIT Theatre Launches Publishing Venture, EXIT Press
San Francisco’s EXIT Theatre has inaugurated a publishing arm, EXIT Press, with the publication of Ten Plays by Mark Jackson. EXIT Artistic Director Christina Augello explains that “since our beginning in 1983 we have been dedicated to collaborating with playwrights in support of new work. For decades, talented theatre artists have been contributing to the new American theatre on the EXIT stages. It is our hope that EXIT Press will help this important work find a home on many other stages in the future."
Ten Plays is the first published collection of plays by playwright, director, performer and San Francisco State grad Mark Jackson. Jackson's highly theatrical plays defy easy categorization, ranging in form and subject matter from grotesque comedies about contemporary pop culture to epic melodramas about ancient themes of love and war. Jackson's work has been seen on both US coasts, in the UK and Germany. This collection includes American $uicide, BANG!, Brave, The Death of Meyerhold, Faust Pt1, The Forest War, I Am Hamlet, little extremes, Messenger #1 and R&J, with notes by the author and a Foreword by critic Rob Avila.
Individuals can purchase Ten Plays by Mark Jackson from Amazon.com, or at local book stores. If they don’t have it in stock, you can ask them to order it. Retailers can visit www.createspace.com/info/createspacedirect to establish a wholesale account or contact EXIT Press at mail@theexit.org for advance consignment copies.
Sean Owens & Cameron Eng Tackle the Tenderloin
Sean Owens and Cameron Eng, the duo behind Foul Play theatre company, are looking to bring a new live theatre venue to San Francisco’s Tenderloin, according to a recent story by John Upton in the San Francisco Examiner.
Owens and Eng plan to convert the 88-year-old building at 80 Turk St. into a 99-seat venue featuring circus acts, burlesque, ventriloquism, juggling, puppetry and other performances popular in bygone eras.
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Cameron Eng, left, and Sean Owens are trying to bring bygone forms of entertainment to the building at 80 Turk St. in the Tenderloin. Photo: Cindy Chew/The Examiner |
Programming would emphasize entertainment, training and mentorship for Tenderloin youths.
“The goal is to bring back art forms and styles of storytelling that people haven’t seen in the past 50 or 100 years,” said Owens, a San Francisco playwright and performer who’s working on the plan with business partner Eng.
Owens is the playwright-in-residence at the nearby Exit Theatre, a few blocks from the Turk Street property.
The duo is working with The City on the plans and said the owner of the property has expressed interest in changing its use.
The proposed new venue would be named Gaiety, which also is the building’s name.
“We hope the Gaiety can find a space here and we have some resources to assist,” said Amy Cohen of the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development. “The stretch of Turk between Market and Taylor is a challenge and also a major opportunity given the access to transit at Powell Street and the proximity of the Warfield Theatre, the Golden Gate Theatre and the Exit Theatre.”
The current tenants of the Gaiety building — which has been used during the past century as a store, gambling hall, cafe and tavern — use it to screen pornographic films.
Owens has both an artist’s and an historian’s interest in the Tenderloin. His musical drama Lady of the ‘Loin, co-written with Don Seaver, has been developed at EXIT Theatre over the past year. A “story in song,” Lady of the ‘Loin is “a sizzling tribute to San Francisco's raciest, raunchiest, most unrepentant neighborhood.”
The Tenderloin is home to dozens of historic buildings - architectural gems that housed some of San Francisco’s major commercial and entertainment venues. Jazz greats like Miles Davis played here. The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Santana recorded here. And generations of theatre-goers flocked up Taylor Street to Original Joe’s, now sadly gone.
Owens understands that the Tenderloin has always had a million stories – and a heart of gold. He and Eng hope to add one more venue to boost the “’Loin” and use the Gaiety to make a difference for the newest generation of performers and audiences.
GALLERIES & MUSEUMS
If You Don’t Get There Now, It’ll Be a 6-Year Wait!
Through September 19. SFMOMA, 151 Third St. (bet. Mission & Howard), San Francisco.
Last three weeks to see the current Calder to Warhol exhibition from the collection of Gap founders Doris and Donald Fisher. More than 160 paintings, sculptures, photographs, and video works by Alexander Calder, Chuck Close, Anselm Kiefer, Roy Lichtenstein, Agnes Martin, Gerhard Richter, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, and more. The Fishers have partnered with SFMOMA to display their 1,100 artworks, but the collection will not be on view again until the planned new museum wing opens, scheduled for 2016.
Through September. San Francisco artist Joshua Hagler is part of a group show at the Frey Norris Gallery, 456 Geary St., SF. Hagler is also in an international juried group show at Surface Gallery, Nottingham, UK, through September.
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| Joshua Hagler, The Sparkle Girls, Oil on Canvas, 36 x 36 in. |
Sept 25-26. Noon – 6:00 pm. Third Annual Poetry Festival and North Beach Art Walk. The Beat Museum, 540 Broadway at Columbus, SF. Permanent collection displays artifacts of Beat icons including Kerouac, Ginsberg, Cassady. Currently on display is a 1941 Pontiac Torpedo as a place-holder until Neal Cassady’s fabled 1949 Hudson of On the Road fame can be found. The ’49 Hudson is the Holy Grail of Beat Generation vehicles. Information at www.thebeatmuseum.org or 1-800-KER-OUAC
MUSIC
Sept 30, Oct 2-3. Symphony Silicon Valley season-opener. Schumann's tender, exuberant first Symphony, Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, and Mahler's "Songs of a Wayfarer" sung by baritone Nathan Gunn. All under the baton of maestro George Cleve. California Theatre, San Jose. Tickets: $39-$75; www.symphonysiliconvalley.org or 408-286-2600, ext. 23.
Daily through September. (And every other month.) The Blues. The Saloon, 1231 Grant at Vallejo, SF. Johnny Nitro & the Door Slammers, Fridays at 9:30 pm, Blues Power, Sundays at 4:00 pm. Also Lisa Kindred, Ron Hacker, Dave Workman. Call for performance times. (415) 989-7666.
COMEDY
Sept 29-Oct 1. 11th Annual Funny Girlz: A Smorgasbord of Women Comedians. Created by Lisa Geduldig, producer of Kung Pao Kosher Comedy. Featuring Shazia Mirza, Carla Clay, Dhaya Lakshminarayanan, Lisa Geduldig. Sept. 29 – Brava Theatre, SF; Sept 30 – Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, Berkeley; Oct. 1 – Lucie Stern Theatre, Palo Alto. Tickets and other info at http://www.koshercomedy.com/.
FOOD EVENTS
September 4, 11, 19. Pizza Lovers Tour of North Beach, SF. Conducted by food critic Grace Ann Walden. $80 per person includes historical tour and full lunch plus tastes at North Beach delis and bakeries. Sign up at gaw@sbcglobal.net or call (415) 302-5898.
SCENE APPLAUSE
Congratulations to Cutting Ball Theatre on turning 10 in October. We’re early with the kudos, we know, which is a good excuse for doing it again next month. Congrats, also, to Clayton Valley H. S. grads Danielle Velasquez and Elena Nielsen for setting up two gallery spaces at Cup O’Jo coffee house in Clayton. One space will be for adult artists to display, and the other for children. And hats off to Cup O’Jo for letting it all happen. Great to see art and commerce going hand-in-hand.
OUT OF BAY AREA EXPERIENCES
Los Angeles. Prince Gomolvilas’ play Mysterious Skin, adapted from the novel by Scott Heim, will receive its Los Angeles premiere Sept 9-Oct 10 by the East West Players http://www.eastwestplayers.org/. Gomolvilas was formerly assistant editor of Callboard magazine (now Theatre Bay Area) before his defection to L.A. Mysterious Skin played the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the original and largest Fringe Festival, in August.
RANDOM DOODLING
Tax-Supported Theatre, à bas!
The Pleasant Hill Recreation District had been contemplating including a 125-seat theatre in plans for a new community center. But some residents opposed the idea, arguing that voters weren’t asked to sanction a theatre when they approved a $28 million bond last year for a new gathering place for teens, seniors, and the larger community. One opponent called the theatre idea “frivolous,” decrying “the whims of a couple of people who think it would be nice to have a theatre.” Some concerned Pleasant Hill residents cast the evil eye on spending up to $26,000 for a feasibility study of local demand for such a theatre. The PH Rec & Park Board later voted 3-2 not to fund the study. Curtain closed.
A word to the wise: you gotta pre-sell the benefits of the arts (again and again) to the tax-paying community.
Sightings
Boots on the Ground
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RMPAR recently came across three discarded boots on a hiking trail leading to Mt. Diablo State Park. Coundrum: why three? Why not two? Or four? RMPAR speculates that a hiking pirate and his peg-legged companion decided to cast off their boots and go barefoot. Or a three-appendaged alien creature took the same notion. Got an idea? We’re all ears.
COMMENTARY:
Let’s Give a Big Hand to the People NOT Onstage
There’s an old joke about the circus roustabout whose job it is to clean up after the elephants. One day, he complains loud and long to a friend about how disgusting the job is.
“Well, if you hate shoveling up the stuff so much, why don’t you quit?” his friend asks.
“What?” the roustabout retorts. “And give up show business?”
That show business is not all glamour and exalted adulation is well known to anyone who’s spent any time behind the scenes in a theater or a symphony rehearsal hall, or on a movie set waiting for the sun to emerge from the clouds or the director to make up his mind.
For every actor and musician, set designer and director, there are a dozen people willing to take on the tasks that never get into the spotlight and, at best, only win a mention in the depths of the printed program. Willing – up to a point.
Recently, I read a tweet from a theatre volunteer, complaining about spending a Saturday afternoon stuffing envelopes.
Whoa! Danger signal. This person needs some strokes. Volunteers are an arts organization’s most precious resource – more valuable in many ways than the talent onstage. A key role of the executive director, the board, the audience, and, yes, the performers, is to make sure the organization’s volunteers feel valued. Too often, these busy bees are overlooked, resulting in premature burnout from performing too many “thankless” tasks.
And thank-yous should emanate from everywhere. In a recent interview by Joshua Kosman in the SF Chronicle Datebook, Lofti Mansuri, former general director of the San Francisco Opera, hinted that board members are often the biggest offenders in shoddy relationships with staff and volunteers.
“The reality is that when you work with volunteer boards, there’s a subtle undertone of ‘Upstairs, Downstairs.’ These people are used to having their staff and their secretaries, and they never bothered to learn about…the [Opera] staff.”
Thankfully, the performing arts exude a powerful attraction that draws people to want to be a part of the whole collaborative effort, most of which takes place offstage and never, ever, in view of the audience – running errands, stuffing envelopes, painting, hauling sets from storage to the stage, sweeping up, ushering, restocking necessities in the rest rooms.
Large, municipally supported, unionized organizations – full Equity theatres, big city symphonies, ballet companies, and operas – are able to hire people to perform all of these tasks, and more. But the vast majority of performance groups rely on the willing participation of volunteers to keep the machine in running order. Even when a few key roles are salaried, a small army of folks who love the whole notion of live performance are there to make sure it stays alive.
If you love live performance as a performer or audience member, make sure some of that love and applause you’re getting and giving is shared with those offstage, at the front of the house, and back in a corner stuffing envelopes. Better still, consider becoming a volunteer yourself as a guarantee that the show will go on. -GC
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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