Arts & Events
In and About the Bay Area
This week, normally the high summer layover, will see a slew of activity onstage. Shotgun's opening The Norman Conquests, Alan Ayckbourn's trilogy, directed by Joy Carlin, on Friday, and Woodminster mounts that perennial summer favorite, The Music Man, in the glades of Joaquin Miller Park in the Oakland Hills, directed by Joel Schlader, with choreography by Harriet Schlader (Sadly, her husband James, co-founder with Harriet of Woodminster musicals almost a half-century ago, died in May).
In the city there's Anthony Clarvoe's Show & Tell at the Thick House on Potrero Hill, put on by Symmetry Theatre Co., attempting to redress the lopsided numbers, male to female, in contemporary playwrighting and casting. Also, on the old vaudeville stage of the Victoria Theatre, 16th & Mission, SexTapes for Seniors, featuring some local musical comedy talent, including Nancy Shneiderman of Berkeley.
In Castro Valley at Chanticleers, Marty Nemko directs real-life husband and wife Chris Chapman and Sue Trigg in Neil Simon's estimable Broadway Bound.
And--while Blithe Spirit continues onstage at Live Oak Theatre--Actors Ensemble's finishing up their staged reading series with An Evening of Short Pieces Referencing Shakespeare, directed by Alan Barkan (Tuesday, August 3 at 8; pay what you can)--and An Evening with Oscar Wilde, with two unusual Wilde one-acts, "The Florentine Tragedy" and "The woman Covered With Jewels," directed by Robert Estes--and Oscar's tale of Shakespeare's Sonnets and literary forgery, "The Portrait of Mr. W. H.~as recounted by Oscar Wilde," adapted and directed by this reviewer, featuring Howard Dillon of Wilde Irish as Oscar himself. Sunday, August 8 at 6 p. m. $8--all at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck @ Berryman. (aeofberkeley.org; Brown Paper Tickets)
