In the Dark Times will there also be Singing? The San Francisco International Arts Festival takes Bertolt Brecht's rhetorical question as its theme for 2017 (and beyond) and forms the bedrock of a commitment to develop an artistic platform that addresses the dangerous domestic and foreign policy political abyss currently confronting the United States of America.
The 2017 San Francisco International Arts Festival will feature a brilliant 11 day program co-presented with, and held exclusively at, the Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture.
At a time of anxiety and uncertainty in many parts of the United States, the San Francisco International Arts Festival is proud to announce its 2017 lineup; an exciting 11 day program featuring over 50 ensembles and individual performing artists from the Bay Area and 14 different countries. It is a program that celebrates diversity, multiculturalism, curiosity and the value of otherness-a commitment that advocates for experiencing the cultural expressions of other societies and civilizations as a way to help understand and embrace them.
VS. is an ambitious new play-with-music created by local artists Cleavon Smith, Stephanie Prentice and Reggie D. White that continues TheatreFIRST's retooled mission of producing and presenting in-house new works.
Education. It's like the weather: everyone has an opinion but nobody does anything about it. That's how Lavinia Jones feels about her son Thomas' new school, Eleanor Roosevelt High. Decades of funding cuts have resulted in old textbooks, crumbling classrooms, and underpaid teachers, making Roosevelt exactly the sort of public school that has failed students time and time again. Isn't it time for something... efficient? And efficient is exactly what Fredersen Babbit, from Learning Academy for Virtual Achievement (LAVA Corp.), promises to bring to the district. New Technology, remote learning, computer-generated teachers -LAVA promises to put the 'virtual' in achievement! But with kids learning from home, do we need all these empty schools? And with privatization on the line, a Wall Street heavy hitter on one side and a feisty octogenarian teacher Ethel Orocuru on the other, suddenly the next School Board election is more about a hidden agenda than the open curriculum. Are schools the last chance for democracy, or is education the next frontier for profit? Can we trust a politician's public/private plan to replace an out-of-date system, or is there something even more sinister than privatization going on behind the doors of LAVA? And wait - when did the hall monitors start wearing brown shirts and arm bands? When it comes to the real plan for the future of education - and of our democracy - are we all about to get... Schooled?
Education. It's like the weather: everyone has an opinion but nobody does anything about it. That's how Lavinia Jones feels about her son Thomas' new school, Eleanor Roosevelt High. Decades of funding cuts have resulted in old textbooks, crumbling classrooms, and underpaid teachers, making Roosevelt exactly the sort of public school that has failed students time and time again. Isn't it time for something... efficient? And efficient is exactly what Fredersen Babbit, from Learning Academy for Virtual Achievement (LAVA Corp.), promises to bring to the district. New Technology, remote learning, computer-generated teachers -LAVA promises to put the 'virtual' in achievement! But with kids learning from home, do we need all these empty schools? And with privatization on the line, a Wall Street heavy hitter on one side and a feisty octogenarian teacher Ethel Orocuru on the other, suddenly the next School Board election is more about a hidden agenda than the open curriculum. Are schools the last chance for democracy, or is education the next frontier for profit? Can we trust a politician's public/private plan to replace an out-of-date system, or is there something even more sinister than privatization going on behind the doors of LAVA? And wait - when did the hall monitors start wearing brown shirts and arm bands? When it comes to the real plan for the future of education - and of our democracy - are we all about to get... Schooled?
Bay Area Musicals!, the newest non-profit theatrical organization to join the vibrant San Francisco Bay Area arts community, continues its inaugural season with the acclaimed tribal love-rock musical, Hair. This generation-defining musical tells the story of Vietnam-era youths awkwardly but exuberantly creating their own rite of passage through the confusion around them. Among them are Claude and Berger - a pair of friends battling against Claude's draft notice, and Sheila, who is in love with both of them, but her politically-active lifestyle leaves her little time to act on her feelings. Ultimately, Claude has to decide if the hippie life is for him or go to Vietnam. With themes of alienation and civil disobedience, Hair illustrates the 60s generation's search for meaning through various 'be-ins,' 'love-ins' and protests. The winner of the 2009 Tony Award for 'Best Revival of a Musical,' Hair features classic hits including, 'Aquarius', 'Hair', 'Going Down', 'Easy to be Hard', 'Good Morning Star Shine' and 'Flesh Failures/Let the Sun Shine.'
Word for Word closes the 2015 Season with Word for Word's HOLIDAY HIGH JINX -- Bums, Broads and Broadway: Stories by Damon Runyon, Joseph Mitchell, and E.B. White, opening tonight Saturday Nov. 28, 8pm (Press opening) and run through December 24, 2015 at Z Below in San Francisco's Mission/SOMA district.
Word for Word closes the 2015 Season with Word for Word's HOLIDAY HIGH JINX -- Bums, Broads and Broadway: Stories by Damon Runyon, Joseph Mitchell, and E.B. White, to open on Saturday Nov. 28, 8pm (Press opening) and run through December 24, 2015 at Z Below in San Francisco's Mission/SOMA district.
This week, we go around our Broadway World to feature stories in Boston, Nashville, New Zealand and more. Check out our top 10 stories around our Broadway World below, which include MY FAIR LADY at Lyric Stage, RAPTURE, BLISTER, BURN in Nashville, and ERNEST RUTHERFORD in New Zealand, just to name a few.
AIDA at Woodminster. The love triangle between Nubian Princess Aida, Egyptian Captain Radames and his Princess Amneris will tug at your heartstrings. But only thru September 13. Get your tickets now!
The Playwrights Foundation's 38th Annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival (BAPF) runs July 17-26, 2015 at the Tides Theatre in San Francisco. BAPF 2015 builds on the festival's historic legacy of innovation in theater that then moves to theaters across the country.
Playwrights Foundation (PF) and the New York-based company The One-Minute Play Festival are thrilled to announce the final casting for the 5th Annual SF One-Minute Play Festival (#1MPF), December 15th and 16th, 2014 - an evening of 86 brand- new one-minute plays by a highly vaunted group of 50 Bay Area playwrights, all written within the past month specially for the event.
Playwrights Foundation (PF) and The New York based company, The One-Minute Play Festival are thrilled to announce the 5th Annual SF One-Minute Play Festival (#1MPF), December 15th and 16th, 2014 - an evening of more than 80 brand new one minute plays by 53 Bay Area playwrights -- a highly vaunted group, all written within the past month specifically for the event.
California Shakespeare Theater begins its 2014 season with one of the true trailblazing works in the American theater, A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, directed by Patricia McGregor. A Raisin in the Sun plays at the Bruns Amphitheater from tonight, May 21 through June 15.
California Shakespeare Theater begins its 2014 season with one of the true trailblazing works in the American theater, A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, directed by Patricia McGregor. A Raisin in the Sun plays at the Bruns Amphitheater from May 21 through June 15.
TheatreWorks, the nationally acclaimed theatre of Silicon Valley, presents ONCE ON THIS ISLAND from the Tony Award-winning creators of Ragtime. A timeless legend filled with joy, heartache, and adventure, ONCE ON THIS ISLAND, winner of the Oliver Award for Best New Musical, boasts a score pulsing with irresistible Caribbean beats by Tony Award-winner Stephen Flaherty, with book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens. TheatreWorks Artistic Director Robert Kelley will direct this uplifting musical, which takes its story from a book by Rosa Guy, in turn inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Little Mermaid.' Choreographed by award-winning director, choreographer, and actor Gerry McIntyre, ONCE ON THIS ISLAND plays today, March 5-30, 2014 (press opening March 8) at TheatreWorks at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto.
TheatreWorks, the nationally acclaimed theatre of Silicon Valley, presents ONCE ON THIS ISLAND from the Tony Award-winning creators of Ragtime. A timeless legend filled with joy, heartache, and adventure, ONCE ON THIS ISLAND, winner of the Oliver Award for Best New Musical, boasts a score pulsing with irresistible Caribbean beats by Tony Award-winner Stephen Flaherty, with book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens. TheatreWorks Artistic Director Robert Kelley will direct this uplifting musical, which takes its story from a book by Rosa Guy, in turn inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Little Mermaid.' Choreographed by award-winning director, choreographer, and actor Gerry McIntyre, ONCE ON THIS ISLAND plays March 5-30, 2014 (press opening March 8) at TheatreWorks at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto. For tickets and information the public may visit www.theatreworks.org or call (650) 463-1960.
The Tony Award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe (SFMT) opens its 54th season with OIL & WATER - Two New One Act Musical Productions. After a successful grassroots fundraising effort, SFMT fans rallied to underwrite the SFMT's 54th season. This summer SFMT is doing something different. Within a larger musical/comedic frame, OIL & WATER is actually two shorter plays - CRUDE INTENTIONS and DEAL WITH THE DEVIL - each stylistically unique but topically linked and musically interwoven. True to the SFMT's theatrical grassroots of exaggerated genre and oversized characters, the plays challenge the dangerous energy practices of both corporations and the rest of us. In addition SFMT is committed to creating a smaller carbon footprint with this 2013 production.
The Tony Award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe (SFMT) opens its 54th season with OIL & WATER - Two New One Act Musical Productions. After a successful grassroots fundraising effort, SFMT fans rallied to underwrite the SFMT's 54th season. This summer SFMT is doing something different. Within a larger musical/comedic frame, OIL & WATER is actually two shorter plays - CRUDE INTENTIONS and DEAL WITH THE DEVIL - each stylistically unique but topically linked and musically interwoven. True to the SFMT's theatrical grassroots of exaggerated genre and oversized characters, the plays challenge the dangerous energy practices of both corporations and the rest of us. In addition SFMT is committed to creating a smaller carbon footprint with this 2013 production.
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