And if we Shadows: City Circus

Breathtaking family-friendly hip hop circus arts performance

Saturday, May 17th, 3pm - $12.50 adv / door

“And if We Shadows – scenes from a circus life” is an urban circus arts performance with over a dozen aerialists, acrobats, contortionists and circus specialists (aged between 14-34) along with a live score by beatboxer Carlos Aguirre. The show, which can best be described Rent, but with a teenage circus angle, or as a homegrown handcrafted hip-hop version of Cirque du Soliel, also features legendary breakdancers Iron Monkey & Finesse.

Breathtaking aerial stunts, acrobatic routines innovatively utilizing everyday props, juggling, and cross-your-legs-that-looks-painful contortionists should keep both teenagers and adults out of breath and hands sore from clapping for the whole 90 minutes. Runs through May 25th with four performances weekly: Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays at 3pm and 8pm and Sundays at 3pm

“a helpful primer on the burgeoning urban circus arts phenomenon” - San Francisco Chronicle

Watch: City Circus Show Highlights (youtube)

Brava Theatre - 2781 24th Street (btwn Hampshire and York) - Mission District

(Bart: 24th Street) (Muni: 9, 27, 33, 48)

2008 Harmony Festival : Sonoma County

3-day Santa Rosa music festival with six stages and over 50 performers including Damian Marley, George Clinton & Paula Cole

Friday, Saturday, Sunday, June 6-8 - $30 adv for single session tix, $99 adv for full three-day pass

The 30th Anniversary Harmony Festival at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa features three days packed with 50+ performers, bands, artists and speakers to celebrate 30 years of new ideas, community activism, eco-awareness, spiritual wisdom, visionary art, and conscious music. Festival highlights included Reggae superstar Damian Marley (pictured), George Clinton & Parliament-Funkadelic, Mickey Hart, Paula Cole, Jackie Greene, Arrested Development, Angelique Kidjo, Tibetan singer/activist Yungchen Lhamo, Lila Downs, Burning Man documentary film, all-night “jazziz” @ Harmony After Dark, a lecture by visionary artist Alex Grey, among others [Festival highlights]

The festival features loads of activists and speakers, a dynamic kids zone (kids 12 and under can attend the festival for free), and over 300 vendors and exhibitors. The festival will donate $20,000 to Marley’s charity of choice, The World Family; will plant one tree for each ticket sold and will donate money to Tibetan charities. For 30 years the Harmony Festival has been a green festival, this year is no different with an event-wide greening program that includes alternative-energy powered stages and attractions.

Passes for each “session” (either Fri/Sat/Sun daytime until 9pm, or Fri/Sat “Harmony After Dark” from 9pm to 3am) are $30 adv / $35 door. All Weekend Passes (good for all “day” and “after dark” sessions) are $99 adv / $139 door. Camping available for $30 per person for entire weekend.

How to Win Tickets! - in the email subject line of your entry, please let us know whether you want to win a pair of three-day passes, or which “session” you wish to win… Friday Day, Friday Harmony After Dark, Saturday Day, Saturday Harmony After Dark, or Sunday Day. We have two pair of three-day passes, and three pair of single session tickets to give away.

Sonoma County Fairgrounds - 1350 Bennett Valley Rd (near Hwy 12 / Hwy 101) - Santa Rosa, 95404

Mountain Play: The Wizard of Oz

A full production at an amphitheater near the top of Mount Tamalpais

Sunday, May 18th, 1pm - $35 adv / $39 door

This year the Mountain Play Association presents The Wizard of Oz at the magical, outdoor amphitheater tucked away in a nook of Mount Tamalpais. For the 2008 season, the mountain will be filled with good and bad witches, munchkins, flying monkeys, ruby red slippers, some special effects and all the wonderment that has made this classic fairy tale a part of our culture. Join Dorothy, Toto and her newfound friends as they set off down to yellow brick road to see the Wizard.

To encourage early arrival and a relaxing atmosphere [read about a typical day experience at The Mountain Play], the event is nearly like an all-day festival with free pre-show entertainment which includes puppet shows (10:30a, 11:30a), a capella singing group “Til Dawn” (11a) and costume contests. Post-show entertainment features live music from The Rowan Bros. Patrons are encouraged to bring a picnic and take the free Shuttle Buses from Mill Valley, hike, or bike to the venue as parking is limited.

Performances take place Sundays, May 18, May 25, June 1, June 8 and June 15 with one Saturday performance June 7.

The Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre - M. Tamalpais (off of E. Ridgecrest Road in btwn Mill Valley & Stinson Beach) - Marin County

The W. Kamau Bell Curve: Ending Racism in About an Hour

Triumphant return of solo comedy show by 1/2 of Live 105s “Siskel & Negro”.

Thursday, May 15th, 8pm - $20 adv/door

Just like Led Zeppelin, skinny jeans, and The Boston Celtics, racism has made a comeback in America. White people haven’t talked this badly about un-white people since Martin Luther King had “that dream”. And since The W. Kamau Bell Curve (a one-man show which played to sold out houses in SF and Berkeley) made a concerted effort to end racism (in about an hour) this past October, racism has redoubled its efforts. The show combines W. Kamau Bell’s (Comedy Central, Live 105’s “Siskel and Negro”) personal anecdotes from Bell’s childhood and wry observations and puts them into focus as he is mad as hell and he’s not going smile politely anymore as his un-black friends say, “Sarah Silverman isn’t racist. She’s ironic.” Bring a friend that’s a different race than you and get 2 for 1 tickets. Runs Thursdays at 8pm through June 12th

“Smart, stylish, and very much in the mold of politically outspoken comedians like Dave Chappelle and Margaret Cho.” - SF Weekly
Shelton Theater - 533 Sutter (near Powell) - Union Square

(Muni: Cable Car, 1, 2, 3, 4, 9x, 30, 31, 45, 38, 76)

Attack of the Killer B-Movies

The cult classic 1956 b-movie “The Bad Seed” gets the Dark Room live stage show treatment.

Thursday, May 15th, 8pm - $15 adv / $20 door

This May comes Attack of the Killer B-Movies, a trio of deadly B-movies at their biggest, baddest and most brilliant! For two weekends each, horror classics The Birds, The Bad Seed (5/15-24) and The Blob (5/29-6/7), are brought to life by an intrepid acting ensemble, and expertly adapted into a ‘streamlined stage format’ by SF playwright Sean Owens.

Equal parts camp and cunning, each of these film classics exudes mischievous excess, as well as astute insights on the taboos and terrors of its era, balancing the satiric with the sensational, the cliché and the clever.

Maxwell Anderson’s 1956 cult classic The Bad Seed (Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays from May 15-24) gets the spanking it deserves. Devoted mother Christine Penmark seems powerless against the looming figure of her 10-year old daughter Rhoda. When a classmate drowns and his penmanship medal disappears, it’s impossible for anyone—including a criminologist, a mystery writer and a Freud-fixated neighbor—to believe that Rhoda’s polished smile may be seething with moral decay. Jim Fourniadis directs..

The Dark Room - 2263 Mission Street (@ 19th Street btwn the pawn shop & the laundromat) - Mission District

(BART: 16th St.) (Muni: 14, 22, 26, 33, 49)

Psycho Super Mom

One-woman Mother’s Day “re-do” show with comedian/musician Lauren Mayer

Sunday, May 18th, 7:30pm - $15 door

An evening of comedy and music about motherhood, aging, and sleep deprivation with award-winning cabaret entertainer, comic, and songwriter Lauren Mayer. And if your kids burned breakfast & left you the mess, or your husband gave you a gift-wrapped dustbuster, here’s your chance for a Mother’s Day ‘re-do,’

Lauren Mayer is a singer, songwriter [listen to sound samples], music teacher, comic, and sleep-deprived mom. She is a five-time recipient of the San Francisco Cabaret Gold Award, a Peninsula Arts Grant recipient, and a phi beta kappa graduate of Yale University. Her songs have been heard on A&E’s Good Time Cafe, and the Dr. Demento Show. 75 minutes, no intermission
Hilbarn Theatre - 1285 E. Hillsdale Blvd, (Near 92/101) - Foster City

Radio 4

NYC band with pulsating, ridiculously-catchy dancefloor rock

Thursday, May 15th, 10p - $8 door for 21+ ($10 for 18+)

New York’s Radio 4 take on the dancefloor with a punky, yet grooving, live performance, Sure the band borrows hooks licks and beats like everyone else, but they had the idea to borrow before most on the map. At least the band picks great heroes to rip off, pulling liberally from both The Clash and Gang of Four, but when your arse is shaking on the dancefloor for a full 60 minutes, who really cares where the original beats came from?

“A terrific slice of rabble-rousing dance rock in the Big Audio Dynamite stylee.” - NME

Popscene - 330 Ritch St. (btwn Townsend & Brannan, and btwn 3rd & 4th near AT&T Park) - South of Market

(Muni: Caltrain Depot, N, 10. 12, 15, 27, 30, 45, 71, 76)

Ann Randolph’s “Squeezebox”

Working in a women’s homeless shelter and the pursuit of true love

Saturday, May 17th 5pm ($22 adv/door), Sunday, May 18th 7pm ($50 adv/door) Discount: use discount code “funcheap” to get $10 tickets

With pathos and humor, Ann Randolph skillfully weaves together stories about working in a women’s homeless shelter and the pursuit of true love. Her painfully funny portraits of the shelter’s residents, and hilarious account of her hiking trip with Harold, the accordionist of her dreams, are beautifully drawn in this poignant tale about finding dignity and grace in unusual places. The show will be followed by a fifteen minute workshop performance of Anne’s newest show - a work in progress about the outrageous tenants in a low-end Santa Monica apartment building and its challenged owner. Runs through June 29th. Performances Saturdays at 5pm, Sundayst at 7pm

Sunday May 18th is a special beneift evening with the full performance of the play, followed by Ann Randolph and Charlie Varon in conversation and a wine and dessert reception.

“Rubber faced Randolph is wickedly hysterical” - Los Angeles Times

The Marsh Theater - 1062 Valencia Street (btwn 21st and 22nd) - Mission District

(BART: 24th Street) (Muni: 14, 26, 49, 67)

Sound of the Trumpet: American Bach Solosits

World class baroque trumpeter performance of Bach

Saturday, May 17th, 8pm - $15 door

Baroque trumpeter John Thiessen, whose playing has been called flawless and effervescent by the Wall Street Journal, joins American Bach Soloists (ABS) to celebrate the anniversaries of two contemporaries of Bach - Johann Friedrich Fasch and Guiseppe Torelli - with a program of virtuoso trumpet concertos. As an added bonus, ABS will perform Georg Philipp Telemann’s Water Music, a boisterous dance suite that pays homage to seafaring life in early 18th-century Hamburg. Each movement has a mythical aquatic personality: Neptune, Triton, Thetis, Aeolus, and Zephyr are brought to life in music. Pre-concert lecture at 7pm. - Performances also take place 5/16 in Belvedere, 5/18 in San Francisco, and 5/19 in Davis

“brilliant solo playing on a valveless trumpet” - New York Times

The American Bach Soloists introduce audiences to the masterworks of Bach and his contemporaries as well as little-known gems from the Baroque and early-Classical eras through historically informed performances using period instruments and leading vocal interpreters of Baroque music.

First Congregational Church - 2345 Channing Way (@ Dana Street) - Berkeley