Arts & Entertainment 'Imaginary Comforts' At Berkeley Rep Delights In The Stories We Tell To Comfort (And Scare) Ourselves Writer Daniel Handler, best known for his children's books under the nom de plume Lemony Snicket, was scribbling ideas after the death of his father, ideas and characters that would ultimately coalesce into
Arts & Entertainment Anthony Reed Hosts Operatronica, And SFist Reviews 'La Traviata' and 'Echoes' Scroll below for two classical music reviews from the past weekend: Traviata at SF Opera and Echoes with the Kronos Quartet. This season, Operatronica will blend exactly what its ungainly portmanteau says it
Arts & Entertainment 'California Typewriter' Is A Love Letter To The Outdated The documentary is a love letter to the outdated be it typewriters, thank you notes, mom and pop repair shops, or creativity that doesn't start with turning on a computer first. Director Doug
Arts & Entertainment ACT's 'Hamlet' Lets A Veteran Classical Actor Shine, If Perhaps A Bit Too Late The role of Hamlet is a holy-grail, bucket-list thing for many actors eager to prove they can command a stage for over three hours and convincingly deliver the many famous soliloquies of the
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews: Daniel Hope Partners With The New Century Chamber Orchestra The New Century Chamber Orchestra opened its season with a new concertmaster, violinist Daniel Hope. The match would rank a 97% on OkCupid, if the orchestra's profile had checked: handsome, passionate, artistic, good
Arts & Entertainment In Which I Gush And Process The Wonder Of 'A 24-Decade History Of Popular Music' A show that takes 24 hours to perform is by its very conception an act of love and sacrifice though the cynics who refuse to see it may write it off as indulgent.
Arts & Entertainment SFist Reviews: Homicidal Princesses Elektra And Turandot At SF Opera Elektra: I once caught Ben Stiller's A Night at the Museum and thought: what a tragedy. Obviously, I wasn't the only one: The production crew at SF Opera decided to use the same
Arts & Entertainment Taylor Mac: A Joyfully Liberal Carnival Barker To Get Us Through These Terrible Times I've been thinking how best to talk about what I experienced Sunday at Chapter II of Taylor Mac's irreverently epic, hard-to-describe, "performance art concert" called A 24-Decade History Of Popular Music. It is
Arts & Entertainment Winning Performances Keep Rap Musical 'Patti Cake$' Fresh Going into , I'll admit I had some trepidation. Is now really the time for a story about a white girl who wants to become a rap star? Also, didn't 8 Mile already cover
Arts & Entertainment Oakland's West Edge Opera Creates a Monster In 'Frankenstein' Frankenstein, by Libby Larsen is an opera in fifteen scenes based on the well known Mary Shelley story: Victor Frankenstein in his lab, possessed with the hubristic desire to create life, animates a
Arts & Entertainment 'Logan Lucky' Plays Delightfully Against Expectations I don't think anyone seriously believed Steven Soderbergh in 2013 when he announced, (not for the first time), that he would be retiring from feature films. And, indeed, that retirement ended up being
Arts & Entertainment 'Something Rotten!' At The Orpheum Is A Laugh-Out-Loud Goof Tailor-Made For Theater Nerds Take the truly raucous, goofy, juvenile humor of recent broadway hits like Spamalot, The Producers and The Book of Mormon, set it in Shakespeare's England in the 1590s, mash it up with an
Arts & Entertainment 'MacBitch' At The Exit Theatre Is A Hilarious Tina Fey-ification Of The Shakespeare Classic SFist’s stance on deplorable teens is well-documented, so we were naturally intrigued to see a new Macbeth send-up that uses inadequately monitored teenagers as symbols of bloodthirsty ambition. MacBitch, playing through August
Arts & Entertainment Pro Talent Shines In 'La Cage Aux Folles' at SF Playhouse Thanks to the 1996 movie The Birdcage, the charming and ahead-of-its-time story of La Cage Aux Folles is well known to American audiences. Less well known to contemporary audiences is the 1978 French
Arts & Entertainment SF Symphony Closes Out Season With Berlioz's 'Romeo and Juliet' Over last weekend, the SF Symphony ended its 2016-17 season with some fireworks: a dazzling performance of Berlioz's Romeo and Juliet. Like his Requiem, Romeo and Juliet is an odd bird, a choral
Arts & Entertainment SF Mime Troupe's <i>Walls</i> Builds High Jinks, Cuteness Around Deportation Anxiety And Racism Tuesday’s July 4’s San Francisco Mime Troupe performance of their new play Walls continues the musical theater group’s multiple-decade tradition of free shows in Dolores Park, but SFist caught this
Arts & Entertainment Missing Minions Dampen 'Despicable Me 3' The movies have never reached the level of the best of Pixar, Disney, or even Dreamworks' animated work, but they at least had the benefit of a steady stream of comic relief in
Arts & Entertainment 'The Curious Incident' Brings To Life The Great Pains (And Pleasures) Of Living On The Autism Spectrum "I find people confusing" is both one of the opening lines and a defining mantra for the play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, based on the acclaimed 2003 novel
Arts & Entertainment 'Warplay' Is A Spare, Moving Riff On A Great Greek Love Story The two men portrayed in Warplay, while ostensibly based on Achilles and his best friend and lover Patroclus, are as much foils for each other as they are romantic partners. Named just A
Arts & Entertainment 'Monsoon Wedding' Extended Another Week At Berkeley Rep By Popular Demand The world-premiere musical adaptation of the film Monsoon Wedding (see my SFist review here), now playing at Berkeley Rep, has just been extended for the third time, and there is now a new
Arts & Entertainment Bleak 'It Comes At Night' Is A Thoroughly Unpleasant Experience is a terrible title for a movie that has some horrifying moments but isn't really a horror movie, and where nothing in particular "comes at night." The premise — a post-apocalyptic world where some
Arts & Entertainment 'Roman Holiday' Is A Cheery Throwback Musical Of Which Cole Porter Would Approve Capitalizing on the recent Broadway success of throwback revivals and adaptations from 1950s and 60s like The King & I, The Light In The Piazza, and An American In Paris, a pre-Broadway tryout
Arts & Entertainment The Waters Of 'Baywatch' Are Tepid, At Best I lived through the 90's and somehow managed get through the entire decade without ever watching a single episode of . But it's a testament to that show's weirdly global popularity that I still
Arts & Entertainment Mira Nair's 'Monsoon Wedding' Becomes An Exuberant, Big-Hearted Musical At Berkeley Rep "There's so much music at an Indian wedding! It makes perfect sense as a musical," said director Mira Nair when she was trying to sell Berkeley Rep artistic director Tony Taccone on her
Arts & Entertainment 'Alien: Covenant' Is An Enjoyable Correction In Xenomorph Course I was too young to see the first when it was in theaters, which means I missed out on its initial visceral impact. So for years, Aliens was my favorite Alien movie, fueled
