Arts & Events

THURSDAY, OCT. 1 -more-

Oakland East Bay Symphony, celebrating Michael Morgan’s 20th anniversary as music director, will present “An Evening with Denyse Graves,” a preseason benefit for the symphony’s education and outreach programs, this Saturday, beginning at 5 p.m. with a champagne reception including special guests, followed by dinner with entertainment by Charles Spikes and Friends at 6 p.m., a Gala Concert at 8:30, and a dance with dessert reception at 10:30, at the Fox Theatre in uptown Oakland. -more-

Opera tenor John Duykers, no stranger to unconventional performance, will join forces with musician and composer Miguel Frasconi, founder of the Glass Orchestra, in a “sneak preview” and dinner to show excerpts from (and to benefit) Hand to Mouth, the work-in-progress song-play they’re developing together with director Missy Weaver, including additional songs by Charles Shere and artwork by sculptor John Watrous. -more-

Pinball machines are really a kind of kinetic sculpture,” said Lawrence Zartarian of the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda, as he and museum founder Michael Scheiss, both Berkeley residents, gave a tour of the museum on Santa Clara Avenue, where visitors can pay a set price for free play on the dozens of vintage machines, as well as check out art exhibits and find out about the history and science of pinball. -more-

Working—or rather, slaving—in Terre Haute, architect Willum (Misha Madison) is having a birthday party. From his lady love Tansy (Jillian Seagrave), he receives a card for an 8-year-old (“I couldn’t find one that said 34”) and a kind of ultimatum: she’ll be leaving for D.C. to be a TV weatherwoman (“There’s something bigger than us—meteorology!”). He also receives a notice of an audit from the IRS and, from his cynical, hard-drinking theater-critic friend (clearly a realistic role) Axel (Christopher Ciabattoni), a ration of, well, acid bons mots—manque for his milquetoast demeanor. (Willum’s the sort of guy who leaves an outgoing voice message, “I’m not at home—but the front door is always open!”) -more-

Ever since Rodin conveyed the illusion of movement by modeling a Walking Man without head or arms in the 1870s, so many modern sculptors have adopted the partial human form that it has become endemic to modern sculpture. For at least three decades, Berkeley sculptor De Staebler has been forming sculpted, fragmented images that signify human incompleteness and yearning for wholeness. -more-

In its 136 years, the University of California’s Berkeley campus has seen many buildings come and go. Among them, North Hall was the only one to have merited a demolition ceremony attended by the UC president and 700 alumni. -more-

Contracting is called contracting because it’s about writing contracts. It’s about sales, which are contractual. Contractors aren’t builders, they are people who write and perfect (that’s the legal term for bringing to completion) contracts. We’ve come to think of contractors as people who wear tool belts, but for anyone who has ever hired a contractor only to find them inexplicably absent for the duration of the job, this understanding of a contractor’s role in building can prevent woe and direct you through a morass of remodeling problems. -more-

THURSDAY, OCT. 1 -more-